Fantaspoa — A–Z of films

There have been a number of grim films on subjects closely related to this in recent years, so it’s nice to see it approached with humour and some measure of sympathy for all the characters.

The feeling of incompatibility with reality is intensified by the animation itself, evoking associations with French cubism, and the oneiric-poetic, sleepy atmosphere is emphasized by disturbing ambient music.

This is a delight. From me it drew outpourings of laughter as sharp and as bright as the splashes of blood from a punctured neck.

Cummings and McCabe want to have it all - and go a fairly long way towards getting it.

Undoubtedly among the most impressive of this year’s animated works.

This is animation used for a purpose, and likewise the film’s genre elements, which enable it to get right to the core of what it means to find oneself sharing one’s flesh, one’s emotions, one’s life chances with somebody else.

Crabs! is not very good in the wrong ways.

The dreamlike narrative gives Bruchon free rein to experiment with the constituent parts of the room, not just moving his camera around but creating a corridor from sheets and entangling his actors within them.

Made on a very small budget but getting away with it remarkably well, the film succeeds in challenging some popular assumptions about women who seek to become internet celebrities.

Stefania Tortorella makes a delightful heroine, with Gloria switching overnight from sweet but downtrodden store assistant to a woman with the kind of glow that makes everybody want to be near her.

Whilst the dark comedy here generally hits the spot and the characters are quirky yet believable, God’s Petting You doesn’t really have enough substance to justify its running time

This is a house where children’s rules hold sway.

Fans of fantastic stories – especially those of the gruesome variety – are in for a treat.

The film doesn’t leave much room for hope, but it does present viewers with a shifting moral landscape in which motivations are tricky to pin down.

Set in a futuristic Rwanda, the themes are as old as the hills - with colonialism, identity and self-determination chief among them.

The movie's two main strengths are Max Schreck's compelling performance, as the eerily inhuman vampire, and Murnau's unparallelled ability to blend naturalistic and expressionistic elements.

A film which keeps upping the ante as the story progresses, never letting its obvious budgetary limitations get in the way.

Sumptuous costuming and production design, together with Yoshi Heimrath’s lucid cinematography, make this a feast for the eyes.

It may have a mid-Eighties BBC TV series vibe to it, but it passes the time amiably enough.

The sheer quantity of imitable violence in the film is likely to frighten censors around the world.

A slow burn of a film which disturbs and unsettles, recalling insomniac night and too-bright mornings, a familiar world where everything seems slightly askew.

Esterhazy is showing us that she knows how to play the game by the old rules – before she subverts them.

Foïs is perfectly cast in the sort of villain role that’s rare these days, clearly relishing the viciousness of it.

Merz creates a space where emotions run riot, especially in the neon lights of night, the 4:3 aspect ratio letting each of the characters' faces fill the frame with an intensity that matches the colour scheme.

There’s a serious core to this film which explores questions around objectification, exploitation and who gets to direct a narrative, but it’s wrapped up in quirky humour and the characters are full of warmth.

This is intertext, existing in a twilight zone where the benefit of 25 years of distance and the loss of colour gives it the cast of something at least as old again.

The first half is familiar in its outlines, following an established pattern which, in its own way, reassures. The second is anarchic, meandering, suggesting the expression of a very different set of instincts.

What could be silly in other hands, such as gnomic suggestions that "the river gose in circles here, generates a strange unease here, as Olte explores the psychological tricks a mind can play on itself.

What Josiah Saw simmers throughout, always potent, always dangerous.