Reviews by Amber Wilkinson

Order by: Date, A–Z

• 
  Only The River Flows (2023)

  Review preview for Only The River Flows

  No matter that the plot development is deliberately murky, it’s the mood that catches you in its tides.

  A detective on the trail of a serial killer begins to lose his mind.
• 
  Girls Will Be Girls (2024)

  Review preview for Girls Will Be Girls

  Panigrahi is pitch perfect in her debut role.

  In a strict boarding school nestled in the Himalayas, 16-year-old Mira discovers desire and romance. But her sexual, rebellious awakening is disrupted by her mother who never got to come of age herself.
• 
  Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam (2024)

  Review preview for Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam

  The first episode is likely to lead to you binge-watching all three.

  A consideration of Lou Pearlman's impact on the world of pop music - and his crimes.
• 
  Agent Of Happiness (2024)

  Review preview for Agent Of Happiness

  As the surveys continue, different ideas of happiness emerge along with moments of shared humanity.

  Amber is one of the many agents working for the Bhutanese government to measure people’s happiness levels among the remote Himalayan mountains. But will he find his own along the way?
• 
  Block Pass (2024)

  Review preview for Block Pass

  Chevrollier captures the amplified mood of teenagehood.

  Willy and Jojo are childhood friends who never leave each other's side. Training at the motocross track is their way to beat boredom. One evening, Willy discovers Jojo's secret.
• 
  Flowers (2024)

  Review preview for Flowers

  Cardoso’s film is experimental in nature and the fragmented style won’t be for everyone.

  An experimental consideration of world-spanning connections.
• 
  Chronicles Of A Wandering Saint (2023)

  Review preview for Chronicles Of A Wandering Saint

  Even if you might get a hint of the film’s final destination before it arrives, the way Bustillo achieves his aims will leave you with a warm glow.

  When a devout elderly woman finds a statue she think is long lost, what she decides to do next upends her life.
• 
  Driver (2024)

  Review preview for Driver

  While the women’s relationship with one another may be strong as houses, Azimi opens a window to the precarity of the industry.

  An exploration of resolute female long-haul truck drivers pursuing validation for their hard-earned work as they navigate the oppressive forces in their industry.
• 
  Strike: An Uncivil War (2024)

  Review preview for Strike: An Uncivil War

  Powerful and thorough.

  The Battle of Orgreave, recounted by those who lived through it, is contextualised through the history of the British mining union and a government that was hell-bent on breaking it.
• 
  The Boy And The Suit Of Lights (2024)

  Review preview for The Boy And The Suit Of Lights

  De Reyes film celebrates family bonds, while also noting how those ties can bind youngsters’ ambitions.

  Portrait of a young boy who dreams of becoming a bullfighter.
• 
  My Sweet Land (2024)

  Review preview for My Sweet Land

  Hairabedian patiently captures all this with an intimacy that stems from trust, with Vrej viewing her and the camera increasingly as a confidante as time passes.

  For 11-year-old Vrej, life in his homeland Artsakh is like a paradise, but when war starts again, can he carry a nation’s hopes on his young shoulders?
• 
  Memoir Of A Snail (2024)

  Review preview for Memoir Of A Snail

  Elliot time and again marries darkness and light, sweetness with sour to create a satisfying emotional umami.

  A woman recalls the series of unfortunate events that have made up her life so far.
• 
  Holy Cow! (2024)

  Review preview for Holy Cow!

  The action is pacy but that doesn’t mean Courvoisier skims the surface.

  After the sudden death of his father an 18-year-old finds himself looking after his sister... and changing his life.
• 
  Armand (2024)

  Review preview for Armand

  Less concerned with scrutinising the playground than the dangerous games adults can play with one another.

  A mother is called into her child's infant school after he faces an accusation.
• 
  Plastic Guns (2024)

  Review preview for Plastic Guns

  Like fellow Frenchman Quentin Dupieux, Meurisse has an enjoyably devil-may-care attitude for the most part although he feels almost like Dupieux’s evil twin as he begins to stray, first, into Farrelly Brothers’ territory, and then something altogether more violent.

  A case of mistaken identity fuels a twisted satire.
• 
  My Old Ass (2024)

  Review preview for My Old Ass

  Park captures the web of life tensions that don’t just stop when we’re teenagers, particularly the pull of the new versus the attraction of nostalgia.

  The summer before college, bright-yet-irreverent Elliott comes face-to-face with her older self during a mushroom trip. The encounter spurs a funny and heartfelt journey of self-discovery and first love as Elliott prepares to leave her childhood home.
• 
  All We Imagine As Light (2024)

  Review preview for All We Imagine As Light

  It’s fitting for a film set in the “City of Dreams” and that is concerned with life’s illusions and how we navigate them as it is about the here and now.

  Triptych explores the lives of three women in Mumbai.
• 
  Sauna Day (2024)

  Review preview for Sauna Day

  A film that probes at ideas of masculinity and the fluidity that the smoke sauna environment might bring to that, the emphasis is on the physical expression of feelings rather than them being vocalised.

  Secrets in a smoke sauna.
• 
  The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent (2024)

  Review preview for The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent

  Slijepcevic is a documentarian by trade and he maintains a strong sense of realism.

  Tension mounts on a passenger train after it is stopped by paramilitaries.
• 
  Southern Brides (2024)

  Review preview for Southern Brides

  Through it all is a common thread of authenticity and of women opening up about things and feelings they are rarely asked to scrutinise.

  Older women talk about their wedding, losing their virginity and sex.
• 
  Julie Keeps Quiet (2024)

  Review preview for Julie Keeps Quiet

  The director shows how it’s not just Julie’s tennis skills that have been groomed by the coach but large aspects of her life.

  As the star player at an elite tennis academy, Julie’s life revolves around the game she loves. When her coach falls under investigation and is suddenly suspended, all of the club's players are encouraged to speak up. But Julie decides to keep quiet…
• 
  Locust (2024)

  Review preview for Locust

  The plotting takes precedence over characterisation, which saps the film of tension, while its melodramatic developments feel out of keeping with the cooler noir vibe.

  The two halves of a young man's double-life become set on a collision course.
• 
  When The Light Breaks (2024)

  Review preview for When The Light Breaks

  Beyond the dark loneliness of grief, is the soft light of a shared mourning.

  From one sunset to another, Una, a young art student encounters love, friendship, sorrow and beauty.
• 
  The Invasion (2024)

  Review preview for The Invasion

  Loznitsa’s approach is quietly observational, capturing the quotidian goings on as they continue beneath the shadow of war.

  Life in Ukraine under the shadow of war.
• 
  Silig (2024)

  Review preview for Silig

  Although there’s plenty of drama, especially considering the length, Belarmino and Rithy wisely also find time to develop the characters so that the focus falls on Silig’s vibrant emotional core

  A woman goes back to a town she lived decades previously with a mision in mind.
• 
  Walay Balay (2024)

  Review preview for Walay Balay

  The filmmakers also draw on the natural environment of the sea and the wind in order to create a sense of movement that contrasts with the women's stillness.

  In the shadow of the Marawi conflict, Norayda andher daughter Yahairah have found solace in aher daughter Yahairah have found solace in anearby town. They count each day to return home.nearby town. They count each day to return home.
• 
  Nightbirds (2024)

  Review preview for Nightbirds

  Paiso and Vish take a playful approach to the material

  A mythical bird helps a woman break free.
• 
  Cold Cut (2024)

  Review preview for Cold Cut

  Mysterious in a manner that is thought-provoking rather than ostentatious

  Joy, a 19-year-old student, is about to compete at the local talent show. As she's about to enter the audition, a mysterious butcher takes her to unknown horizons.
• 
  Directors' Factory - Philippines (2024)

  Review preview for Directors' Factory - Philippines

  The shorts are all by emerging filmmakers who are all working on their first or second features

  Showcase of short films by emerging filmmakers set in the Philippines.
• 
  Ivan's Land (2021)

  Review preview for Ivan's Land

  Lysetskyi’s approach is direct yet also artistic.

  Documentary about folk artist Ivan Prykhodko.
• 
  Wasp (2003)

  Review preview for Wasp

  Arnold has never been one to shy away from the realities of poverty and that clear-sighted view is in evidence here.

  The day in the life of a single mum and her kids.
• 
  That They May Face The Rising Sun (2023)

  Review preview for That They May Face The Rising Sun

  A film built on the repeated turn of the seasons and the idea of leaving and returning.

  Drama about a couple who return to the small rural lakeside hamlet where one of them grew up.
• 
  An Exercise in Discipline: Peel (1982)

  Review preview for An Exercise in Discipline: Peel

  Jane Campion’s debut short thrives on unpredictable rhythms.

  A battle of wills breaks out on a car journey.
• 
  Nezouh (2022)

  Review preview for Nezouh

  If Kaadan doesn't quite get the dramatic weight to land solidly, she nevertheless has a fine eye for a poetic image.

  As a man refuses to flee war-torn Damascus, his wife and daughter face a choice.
• 
  Hounds (2023)

  Review preview for Hounds

  Some films take time to gather momentum, but there’s a sense of movement right from the off in Kamal Lazraq’s debut feature.

  A fateful night in the life of a father and son after a kidnapping goes awry.
• 
  Chasing Time (2024)

  Review preview for Chasing Time

  This film, like its longer predecessor, brings home the alarming rate at which this is happening.

  After bringing some of the first and most striking visual evidence of our changing planet to the fore through the groundbreaking study of melting glaciers, photographer James Balog returns to Iceland to close the last chapter of his life’s work.
• 
  Woolly (2024)

  Review preview for Woolly

  This is a love letter to Nystabakk’s family and good animal husbandry.

  A year in the life of a sheep farm that a woman is taking over from her father.
• 
  Donga (2023)

  Review preview for Donga

  A film built on intimacy with its subject, it is strongly edited

  A man who went to the Libyan frontline to record it on camera looks back at the footage a decade later.
• 
  Panellinion (2024)

  Review preview for Panellinion

  There’s nothing like a niche subject or place to provide the backdrop for a quirky documentary - and Panellinion has both.

  A snapshot of life in a chess cafe in Athens.
• 
  Close Your Eyes (2023)

  Review preview for Close Your Eyes

  A meditation on both memory and movies as well as ageing and a hankering for the past that is informed by the melancholic knowledge that nostalgia is inevitably rose-tinted.

  A TV show looking into the mysterious disappearance of an actor leads a director on a journey into his own past while making discoveries in the present.
• 
  In The Rearview (2023)

  Review preview for In The Rearview

  Beyond the stories that unfold within the vehicle, the tension of these journeys, often on dirt tracks in rural areas, is brought home.

  This fly-on-the-wall film captures Ukrainians as they are forced to leave their homes and drive into the unknown.
• 
  Unclaimed (2024)

  Review preview for Unclaimed

  An elegant tribute to lives that would otherwise have been forgotten.

  An accidental find at a Greek hospital sparks a dive into the hidden histories of patients at a TB clinic.
• 
  Mother Vera (2024)

  Review preview for Mother Vera

  The camera is close when it needs to be but often focused on a detail, such as hands on a rosary or capturing the detail of surroundings, including religious iconography or the texture of a horse’s coat that help us to feel Mother Vera’s place within these spaces.

  An Orthodox nun in a Belarussian convent considers her past and her future.
• 
  Omen (2023)

  Review preview for Omen

  The powerful forces of family and fable, old and new, intertwine and vie for supremacy in Belgian-Congolese director Baloji’s visually striking debut.

  When a man who was cast out as a child after being considered a sorceror returns home, he faces prejudice.
• 
  Evil Does Not Exist (2023)

  Review preview for Evil Does Not Exist

  Hamaguchi isn’t scared to completely change the rhythm of his film on a dime, something that is likely to frustrate as many people as it delights.

  A rural village faces disruption from the construction of a glamping site for Tokyo tourists.
• 
  Intercepted (2024)

  Review preview for Intercepted

  The silence between the calls serves as a space for the horror of them to fully take shape in the viewers’ mind.

  The destruction caused by the war against Ukraine is shown in lengthy tableaux. Intercepted phone conversations between Russian soldiers and their families set up a parallel world.
• 
  Disco Boy (2023)

  Review preview for Disco Boy

  If there’s vacillation in general at work, the slippery nature of the film, greased with the sweat of physical and metaphorical dance, remains beguiling.

  The destinies of a man who has joined the Foreign Legion and another in the Niger Delta intersect.
• 
  Drift (2023)

  Review preview for Drift

  Anthony Chen's slow-burn character study is essentially a showcase for its star Cynthia Erivo

  Refugee Jacqueline, alone and penniless on a Greek island embarks on a friendship with a tour guide.
• 
  Where We Used To Sleep (2024)

  Review preview for Where We Used To Sleep

  Wörle avoids taking any sort of overt political viewpoint, instead keeping an intimate focus on how Valeria is affected.

  A woman faces leaving her village as a mine causes a rising lake of mud.
• 
  Mantrap (1926)

  Review preview for Mantrap

  The star quality of Bow seems to shine brighter than ever here given that her male co-stars are no heartthrobs.

  A flirtatious manicurist marries a backwoods trader... only to find herself falling for a city divorce lawyer.