Glasgow Film Festival — A–Z of films

Ultimately, what you see is what you get in 13 Assassins. Lots of blood and death and despicable cruelty.

It establishes the genre in spectacular style, breaking boundaries of perspective, camera technique, dance as spectacle and of choreography as written especially for the screen.

There's some late in the day pathos which does pull at the heart strings, but the film falls flat once more with a half-baked open ended conclusion.

Remarkably sophisticated for its time, in both narrative and visual technique, Aelita: Queen Of Mars is a clever blend of science fiction and pro-Communist filmmaking, though it's certainly not a straightforward propaganda piece.

It’s a classic feel good film for grown ups and in this digitally restored form is a real treat.

A totally idiosyncratic creation, something that deserves to be relished for its bravado refusal to play by the rules.

Michod has created a deeply pessimistic but fascinating world lit by excellent cinematography and set to a moody score.

For all its import this feels like stereotypical Iranian cinema.

Agnosia is a majestic film, filled with stunning imagery from the very first scene.

Hogg has been praised for her bravery in making films about the contemporary middle class and she has certainly succeeded again here, sedately unfolding a web of universal issues with a deceptive simplicity.

Despite its structural instability, Connolly still manages to find plenty of poignancy and to gather an emotional head of steam.

This feels more like something you'd be linked to through Facebook than something you'd go to see in the picturehouse.

Rapace delivers a powerhouse performance that carries it from beginning to end.

It's a brave thing for a modern documentary to take on such a technical subject. The issues involved are intelligently yet accessibly addressed.

Ultimately, this is your basic talking heads documentary, interspersed with footage that redefines cinematic cool.

This is a debut feature, and while strong in places it doesn't quite gel.

This is an upbeat, often hilarious, but never mawkish, celebration of love.

Renaud Barret treads a careful path, resulting in a film that captures wider realities whilst providing an engaging, entertaining story of one band's search for fame.

Overall, East meets West with mutual respect, but this debut is still an uneven, mismatched effort.

Lean's bridge-building drama doesn't grip as much as its reputation promises.

This is a slight film, but that's not problematic because of its greatest feature; it is suffused with colour, saturated, possessed of a tremendous sense of place.

There is a full-throttle, head-long feel to Trapero's film that sends it careering along.

With excellent sound work, a keen eye and a good subject, this is a lovely piece of documentary.

Good intentions abound, consequences too.

If there is anybody who can provide insight into the lives of those long-vanished it must be Herzog.

This film doesn't just have one good idea, it has many, and it segues them together beautifully.

The heart of the film is Abdallah El Akal as Suleiman.

At times the tone gets hysterical and there are moments of utter ridiculousness, but there are smart layers of black satire underlying the proceedings and any extreme material ends up helping emphasise the journey into murderous insanity the film takes us

So while a difficult, challenging experience - both emotionally and cerebrally - this is a masterful, endlessly intriguing piece.

This documentary tells their story. Unfortunately, it doesn't do much else.

John Phillip Law is a bit wooden in the central role, though, like Roger Moore as Bond, he compensates by doing one particular expression really well.

Despite the costumes being ab fab, darling, the plot's no blazing trendsetter.

This might almost be mime, were it not, well, brilliant.

Sammo Hung provides the action sequences, there are model shots and good old fashioned matte painting and the costumes - oh, my, the costumes.

Macdonald proceeds to let his narrative grind to a halt from which it never recovers.

While there is absurdity aplenty on display here, the film also requires a very high tolerance for the broadest of humour and the slightest of whimsy.

The engaging story, which never patronises Nat and shows that his dislike of reading doesn't limit his imaginative powers, may well work effectively in encouraging reluctant readers.

The cinematography is jarringly stunning, with episodes of pursuit and suspense broken up by breathtaking vistas of harsh landscapes.

It's well executed, voiced, a sitcom segment has the hollow laughter of canned audiences down pat, but its targets are soft, safe, staid.

This is essentially a modern film, indicative of changing times, which makes its story all the more potent and provides it with a lasting emotional charge.

Its structure aims for Shakespeare, but is little more than shaky, its dialogue is dire and there is enough ham and wood in the performances to make a perfectly good barbecue.

The thrilling archival clips and charismatic talking heads alone would make a fabulous documentary in the most traditional sense, but the judicious use of music really brings the film alive.

It's good, even stripped of one of its two elements, and it might be very good.

Well directed, well judged, subtle in tone and form.

The Guga Hunters Of Ness is poetic, haunting, its beautiful imagery making it hard to look away.

Dolan – in all his incarnations – has proved himself a name to watch here.

The sort of movie that Rob Zombie should have made by now and will no doubt wish he had.

The real standout performance is Franco’s.

A work of chilling beauty, whose sparse, unforgiving landscapes can accommodate all manner of allegorical readings.

There's something interesting here, but it's an arch construct without foundation.

There is a beauty to it, a sort of quasi-legendary feel, a tickling, yawning surrealism.

The risk for a film that focuses on film is that it'll reference something that does what it's trying to do better.

Though providing food for thought regarding the nature of conflict and how easy it is to tear a community apart, Villeneuve's heavy-handed approach to metaphor will not be for everyone.

The microcosm of the children's world is exceptionally well drawn.

A triumph of blood-soaked style over meaningful substance.

There's certainly potential, and talent, but nothing comes of it.

Ahead of its time, Kitty Foyle is a class act in terms of cinema and a powerful vehicle for Rogers.

Director Oliver Shmitz does a good job of balancing the immediate, visible tragedy of the characters we follow with a wider, national problem.

Lin Clifton carries the film. She is haunted, haunting.

Overall, each film boasts strong acting and well-written dramatic scenes, and a very polished look that belies what must have been very tight budgets.

The real questions are about why it is that we are watching what we are watching, why it was that it was made.

It has good performances, especially from the chameleon.

For all that time has changed the way it fits into the world, Lord Of The Flies remains as important today as it was in 1963.

For the visual quality alone this is worth seeing.

While the documentary doesn't shy away from some of the more unscrupulous practices it works as a love letter to a period where all bets were off and anything could happen.

Weber's performance is the glue that binds this movie together.

It's a masterclass, an unfair degree of talent for a film-maker's debut, full of subtleties of sound and vision.

Full of dazzling images.

This is cameraman as documenter, magician and stuntman rolled into one.

There are some funny moments along the way and Lohan is good.

Along with her eye for composition, Reichardt also deserves praise for the focus on the smaller period details.

A stunning debut.

Funny and frightening from start to finish, with a set of memorable characters and powerful performances that do them the justice they deserve.

After a while, I started hallucinating, and developed a tumor.

The small cast (and the rat) offer good performances.

Despite a certain listless pace at times, Norwegian Wood benefits from an energetic soundtrack that doesn't ram home too strongly the particular period setting.

Patricio Guzmán has wisely chosen to step back and let the story unfold largely by itself.

With such a dynamic subject, this is a film which is bound to intrigue and perhaps inspire the viewer.

If this sounds grim, it is, but it keeps the audience engaged thanks to a beautifully judged script and a keen sense of the absurd.

While there's good technique on display it's not as captivating as animation can be.

Though it might simply be too depressing for the average cinema audience, this is a solid drama that showcases some of the best assets of contemporary Irish filmmaking.

There are many difficult questions hidden below the surface of this seemingly straightforward love story, and Hidalgo seems adept at finding them

Tremendous.

In taking on such a huge subject, Oranges And Sunshine acquits itself well.

Written and directed by Dalibor Matanic, with a strong central performance from Leona Paraminski, it's technically adept, haunting.

With so much impressive art to draw on, this film is a visual treat, but what really elevates it as a documentary is the strength of the interviews.

It's good, even very good, but there are moments that weaken it.

Despite its central character's self-centeredness and tendency to sulk, this is a charming, lighthearted film which in places is laugh-out-loud funny.

Sampat is a subject so complex and compelling, so fearless and flawed, that in the end the documentary itself is drawn into her irresistible orbit no less than she dominates all the people and situations around her.

While Sartet's back story is as pulpy as they come, it's the delivery that matters and in terms of action thrills, Cavayé never takes his foot off the throttle.

Though it's not on a par with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost's best work, it's hard to imagine anybody not enjoying it.

While the Pedestrian is humorous and confidently acted it still manages to slow in places.

Veteran actress Yun Jeong-hie, who came out of a 15-year retirement to take on the role of Mija brings a fragile beauty and strength to the part, lending her character an air of inscrutability that is intriguing rather than frustrating.

Ozon uses the building blocks of the comic tradition to tell a much more empowering tale that plays genuine tribute to a rounded female character.

The complexity of the piece never causes it to stumble.

This is an extraordinarily personal story.

More than just a clash of truths, this story is a microcosm for a clash of cultures.

What it lacks in plot, it gains in atmosphere.

A feelgood film, enchantingly shot.

Vincent Hunter's film is as unrelenting and tough as the true meaning of loneliness.

Route Irish just about overcomes these shortcomings in its portrayal of the de-humanising consequences of modern warfare.

Many will feel Rubber is a short student film stretched to breaking point and past it, but if you can tune into its whacked-out world-view it should have you smiling all the way through.

It is haunting, mysterious.

A mirthless hybrid of different subgenre elements that, though merged with a twist, remain resolutely bland to the end.

Newcomers may find it hard to get into because we are only played short snatches of all this interesting music.

The road trip device may be a familiar one but it is a choice that broadens the appeal and accessibility of the film and takes it away from more political machinations into the realm of simpler storytelling.

Veering between socio-political satire, slapstick comedy and bizarre fantasy, Sound Of Noise is a film that lacks nothing when it comes to ambition.

Silent Running's beautiful cinematography will appeal to anyone.

It is formulaic, but it's also bursting with conviction and insight.

The only things that stop it from being perfect are boring technical ones.

Ayoade’s aesthetic choices as well as his many cinematic nods make the film a genuine treat for the cinephile set, but not to the extent of alienating those who may not grab the references to Bergman, Roeg, or the French New Wave.

Despite its undeniable ambition and good intentions, Stake Land is just too derivative to distinguish itself from its peers.

Performances are strong throughout the film, generating an effective mixture of simultaneous sympathy and anger in the audience.

The continuity is shaky (what do you expect?), but the new material is more adult, less camp and with a devotion to character and logic that Lester’s just didn’t have.

It leaves a few too many questions unanswered, a few too many unasked, but it's still excellent.

Rightly regarded as Fred and Ginger’s greatest movie together.

This is a gruelling experience that forces the audience to look at events in today's 'liberated' world and consider the cost for those directly involved.

It is Dunham's fearlessness in showing Aura warts and all that becomes endearing.

The contrasts in education, class and outlook between likable buffoon Aidan and his 'straight man' Tom, though certainly funny, also come with an underlying pathos, as both men struggle to find their place in the world

It might have a simple moral but it's still a well-framed piece of work.

The Tingler is a film that doesn't have much story and that takes so many narrative short cuts it is impossible to treat it with any seriousness, but it retains the potential to be serious fun.

Top Hat is the most iconic, most popular, most lavish and undeniably the most beautiful production featuring Fred & Ginger's dancing.

The film is brilliant. Not unique in intent, let us not make that mistake, but moving, affecting, at once subdued and inviting.

Fans of Halston's work will enjoy occasional snippets of insight from wiser interviewees and will enjoy the vast number of spectacular dresses on display, but there are no major revelations.

Ginger Rogers shows that she can truly command a stage without an Astaire to back her up.

One of the most exciting contributions to the genre for years.

Dedicated to its inspiration, it's a touching film, visually impressive and well constructed.

Its plot borrows wholesale from “bringing back the dead” tales of yesteryear.

Really quite an old fashioned film about what happens when an ugly incident transforms the dynamic within a high school that seems entirely free of adult influence.

Walker's documentary is moving, life-affirming and challenges what you think you might know about these people who pick through the rubbish.

Although the comedy feels as broad as the Atlantic initially, once the main characters are transplanted to Pakistan things look up as the script begins to properly probe the emotional flaws of the characters rather than just opting for cheap laughs.

Unfortunately, documentaries about interesting subjects are not intrinsically interesting.

It still does things that surprise.

Truly a milestone in British cinema.

Striking, moving, like being given someone's diary to read.

It's originality in service of homage, derivative more than it is diverting.

It's visually complex, impressive aurally, and a treat.

There are no real scares here but there's still a sense of adventure and the villains are suitably mean.

The festival location works like a charm to inject instant excitement and magic into the story.