Palm Springs International Film Festival — A–Z of films

The smoke, the blasts, the spinning of ejecting shell casings, yells that become cries, the front-line as it becomes frantic.

Dabis controls revelation with discipline, letting meaning accumulate rather than announcing itself, so that what finally emerges feels earned rather than engineered.

It’s the sort of sweet-natured fable that makes adults nostalgic for childhood, but both the near and far futures it presents are, to children themselves, already likely to seem out of date.

A largely straightforward drama that is a bit too structurally loose for its own good, Argentina’s Oscar nominee is buoyed considerably by Fonzi’s own central performance.

Rosi expertly paints a picture of a community with all its widely varied facets.

As Blue Moon progresses it becomes clear that the one thing Hart really wants is to be wanted.

Essentially a love story, Casablanca is darker than a camel's eyeball.

The power of The Choral is that it evokes smiles and laughter in opposition to the oppressive reality of these war years.

There is a magnetism to it all.

The adaptation feels oddly timid and selective.

An early piece of Levienaise-Farrouch's score profoundly conveys the dance between beauty and sadness or beauty and pain.

The film is so subtle and slow and internalised that it crystalises into a thing of beauty.

The takes are usually long and static, but every cut and move is justified for the purpose of dramaturgy.

The film was conceived by Korean American Maggie Kang and it benefits from a knowing humour, playing affectionately with its stereotypes.

One of the most telling details is how human warmth becomes a luxury item.

The title stops being metaphor and becomes a wound you can watch forming in real time.

Along with Vladimir Gojun’s progressively rhythmic editing and Julij Zornik’s subjective sound design, the filmmaker takes us right into the protagonist’s, and therefore any and every teenager’s head.

As is true of many a tale, not all motivations are on the table right away, and finding rescue and respite with strangers can only last a mere while.

Park keeps inviting us to laugh, then forcing us to confront what, exactly, we’re laughing at.

One detail after another rewards.

Jacir's film might look back to the 1930s but it's a film that is in conversation with the present-day.

Borrowing tropes from horror, the film adds an uncanny undercurrent to its drama.

Nayyef and Qasem are marvellous, completely natural and without a hint of self-consciousness.

Writer/director Sven Bresser lets events unfold slowly and makes great use of silence.

Bethmann understands the situation well, but her closeness to the teenager and the personal character that the film takes on as a result is something else.

Marcelo is at home in the fine tradition of flicks where the fact that they are an agent is mainly a secret to them.

What marks Trier out is his ability to take on intellectual ideas like this but make them play out in ways that don’t feel forced or overly constructed.

The film looks amazing, but it sounds even more incredible.

The lives mirror each other, build on each other, contradict each other, haunt each other.

Kotevska leans into the metaphor with the full force of a Disney film – but it is hardly inappropriate given the state of many modern farming communities who find their livelihoods dwindling and their younger family members forced to fly the nest in a bid to provide for their own children.

Made with consummate care, the film stands out for its exquisite cinematography.

Not only ambitious – a term often used to damn films with faint praise – but successfully so.

My pick for the greatest film ever made.

There is some very good work here, and all of it tempered where it needs to be, to give due prominence to Hind herself.

The intriguing concept plays out from initial parental disbelief and denial to unexpected changes in behaviour and attitudes.

Part of the frustration with Wicked: For Good is that, as with its other half, its quality in so many places highlights its weaknesses in others.

A serviceable family film.