Rotterdam International Film Festival — A–Z of films

Where the film succeeds is in the visual design of its world.

Ruffier has an instinct for atmosphere. The documentary is undeniably visually appealing, attentive to texture, light, and the expressive clutter of a family interior.

The production values here are a cut above what one would normally expect for something with this theme and these characters.

Ambiguity can be a strategy, but here it often reads like evasiveness.

This isn’t a fuzzy celebration of making do with what you have as you get older but of embracing the passions that endure.

The most suggestive work is done through sensory motifs.

A documentary that refuses the audience the comfort of taking the “right” position and being done with it.

A thoughtful and lyrical film unafraid to do things differently.

Most of the filmmaker’s passion, wisdom and wits is packed in the first half, while the second half represents pure “production” of content.

Home certainly screams, sometimes with urgency, sometimes with the strain of a story still too close to its maker.

Burch and Jones clearly enjoy updating rich kid Myers and his literary salon pals to the present without ever falling into clownish cliché.

Maddie’s Secret is indeed a three-course meal, but it’s being served all at once on one plate

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

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

Combining slick digital look with the look of various antique formats, from DV to super-8, Simón creates her very own smooth blend.

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

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.

Ozon remains faithful to the source and keeps its sense of mystery but has strengthened the female characters

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

Chillingly restrained and quietly devastating

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

Dano has chosen to use the same flat vocal expression throughout, a technique well suited to satire which might have worked if only the rest of the film had been a bit more lively.

Yellow Cake’s clunkiest habit, exposition as explanation rather than drama.