Reviews by Anne-Katrin Titze

Order by: Date, A–Z

• 
  Human Flowers Of Flesh (2022)

  Review preview for Human Flowers Of Flesh

  Human Flowers Of Flesh is a film of spaces merging, physically in image, in thought, and of the senses.

  Ida and her crew travel across the Mediterranean’s land and seascapes, lured by the mystique of the French Foreign Legion.
• 
  Hold Me Tight (2021)

  Review preview for Hold Me Tight

  Hold Me Tight [has] the sensorial acuteness to abduct us straight to the place where, providentially or not, poignant life decisions are being forged and the creations of new realities begin when the world around seems to collapse.

  A woman leaves her family - or does she?
• 
  Fashion Reimagined (2022)

  Review preview for Fashion Reimagined

  Amy and Chloe’s odyssey, filmed by Daniel Götz, is an adventure tale, which includes a visit to the cutest llamas in Peru.

  Follows fashion designer Amy Powney in her bid to create a collection that’s sustainable on every level.
• 
  A Matter Of Trust (2022)

  Review preview for A Matter Of Trust

  Besides the always outstanding Trine Dyrholm, Sofie Juul Blinkenberg is the revelation of this film because her scenes dip the screen into a clear virescent pool of elemental longing for unspoiled credence.

  Five stories on interpersonal trust and unspoken truths intertwine.
• 
  From Where They Stood (2021)

  Review preview for From Where They Stood

  From Where They Stood gives back the gaze to those who dared to record what they witnessed.

  Although they were risking their lives by doing so, prisoners in concentration and extermination camps took photographs and even managed to smuggle canisters of film beyond the camp gates.
• 
  Breaking The Ice (2022)

  Review preview for Breaking The Ice

  Stern takes her time letting us discover what really concerns her characters, their hard shells and vulnerable cores.

  An Austrian woman escapes from the pressure of running her family’s vineyard by playing ice hockey. Then a new player arrives to challenge her rigid worldview, leading to a life-changing night on the streets of Vienna.
• 
  Adieu, Lacan (2022)

  Review preview for Adieu, Lacan

  Director Richard Ledes and cinematographer Valentina Caniglia use the camera in this black and white movie to explore, at times in amusing ways, the power dynamics at play.

  After two miscarriages and - in her own words - "losing" her husband - a Brazilian woman goes to Paris to see Jacques Lacan, reputedly "the most controversial psychoanalyst since Freud."
• 
  Il Buco (2021)

  Review preview for Il Buco

  The group of speleologists in Il Buco are housed in the storage room of a church, a sublime decision by the filmmakers that gives Berta ample opportunity to visually connect the scientists of the early Sixties with the splendour of Renaissance paintings.

  Drama based on the true adventures of a group of young speleologists who in 1961 descended into a hole in the mountains of Calabria to explore what was then the third-deepest known cave on Earth.
• 
  Deception (2021)

  Review preview for Deception

  Desplechin eases us into the goings-on without sacrificing any of Roth’s complicated and thorny subject matter.

  An American novelist living for a time in London converses with his wife, his mistress, and other female characters he may have dreamed up.
• 
  Mothering Sunday (2021)

  Review preview for Mothering Sunday

  The façade of a happy picnic shows all the cracks, despite the lovely geese flying overhead.

  A maid living in post-World War I England secretly plans to meet with the man she loves before he leaves to marry another woman.
• 
  Anaïs In Love (2021)

  Review preview for Anaïs In Love

  The film’s fast flowing current carries a number of character messages we can fish out, as if they were polished by the stream, all shiny and specific.

  A woman in her early thirties goes full steam ahead in pursuit of experiences which come and go at a fast pace.
• 
  Madeleine Collins (2021)

  Review preview for Madeleine Collins

  The juxtaposition of showing a woman who so carefully and artfully constructs every aspect of her life with the totally natural performances of the children, especially little Ninon, adds great dimension.

  Judith manages a busy double life between Switzerland and France. On the one hand there's Abdel, with whom she has a little girl, and on the other Melvil, with whom she has two older boys. Gradually, this delicate balancing act starts to crack.
• 
  Axiom (2022)

  Review preview for Axiom

  The way doubt starts to enter into everything we hear from any of the characters is subtly orchestrated.

  A well-liked young museum attendant invites his colleagues on a sailing trip on his aristocratic family’s boat, but all is not quite as it seems.
• 
  A Flower In The Mouth (2022)

  Review preview for A Flower In The Mouth

  A flinty film that never caters to easy imagery.

  A film in two parts: a first act filmed as an observational documentary in the world's largest flower market, followed by a fictional second act about a man, afflicted by a terminal illness, encountering a stranger in a train station bar.
• 
  Brighton 4th (2021)

  Review preview for Brighton 4th

  After the fantastic opening scene, snapshots of their life in Georgia set the tone.

  The story of a Georgian wrestler, Kakhi, en route to Brooklyn to help his son out of a gambling debt.
• 
  The Worst Person In The World (2021)

  Review preview for The Worst Person In The World

  There is a lingering, half blossomed melancholy that lies underneath the often very funny, fast-paced moments of quotidian chaos.

  Four years in the life of Julie, a young woman who navigates the troubled waters of her love life and struggles to find her career path, leading her to take a realistic look at who she really is.
• 
  The Most Beautiful Boy In The World (2021)

  Review preview for The Most Beautiful Boy In The World

  Well chosen archival footage shows his supremely uncomfortable screen test in Stockholm.

  Swedish actor/musician Björn Andresen's life was forever changed at the age of 15, when he played Tadzio, the object of Dirk Bogarde's obsession in Death in Venice – a role which led Italian maestro Luchino Visconti to dub him "the world's most beautiful boy".
• 
  Azor (2021)

  Review preview for Azor

  Many doors are not very open, they give us merely a little glimpse into a strange world.

  Thriller set in the world of high finance.
• 
  Julia (2021)

  Review preview for Julia

  Julia is a film about food and about the change in attitude towards cooking one woman could spark.

  Documentary portrait of the influential TV chef.
• 
  The Rossellinis (2020)

  Review preview for The Rossellinis

  Insightful and at times wonderfully playful.

  A documentary recounting the lives of Roberto Rossellini's children from the perspective of Alessandro Rossellini, the first grandson of the director.
• 
  France (2021)

  Review preview for France

  France is a supremely sad film, maybe the saddest Dumont has made in its interplay of the true and the fake.

  A TV journalist's career, home life, and psychological stability are shaken after a driving accident.
• 
  Becoming Cousteau (2021)

  Review preview for Becoming Cousteau

  The clothes they wear make you swoon and the colourised underwater images do the rest to transport us into a magical world.

  Profile of the undersea explorer.
• 
  The Restless (2021)

  Review preview for The Restless

  Lafosse makes excellent choices with his editor Marie-Hélène Dozo (long-time collaborator of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne) in what is shown on screen and what is left out for us to fill in.

  A family struggles with the father's bipolar disorder.
• 
  I Want to Talk About Duras (2021)

  Review preview for I Want to Talk About Duras

  Swann Arlaud as Yann Andréa and Emmanuelle Devos as Michèle Manceaux give tremendous performances that circle around discoveries of deep personal truths.

  Portrait of the complex romantic relationship between epochal experimental novelist and filmmaker Marguerite Duras and her much younger, homosexual partner, Yann Andréa.
• 
  Breuer's Bohemia (2021)

  Review preview for Breuer's Bohemia

  The more personal the remembrances get, the more we can fill in what it must have been like to grow up in a world where the architecture provided a feeling of calm and order, while the personal lives of the adults were causing havoc all around

  A documentary exploring a series of homes designed by legendary architect Marcel Breuer.
• 
  Jane By Charlotte (2021)

  Review preview for Jane By Charlotte

  The closer and more personal this documentary gets, the more it opens up to the largest of issues.

  The director's portrait of her mother.
• 
  Marx Can Wait (2021)

  Review preview for Marx Can Wait

  The family portrait is devastating.

  Camillo died in 1968. Almost 50 years later, Marco gathers his whole family for a lunch. With his family he wonders about Camillo, his twin, and life.
• 
  The Velvet Underground (2021)

  Review preview for The Velvet Underground

  The Velvet Underground will restore your belief in documentaries!

  Cinematic collage that is as much about New York of the period as it is about the rise and fall of the seminal band.
• 
  James Baldwin: From Another Place (1973)

  Review preview for James Baldwin: From Another Place

  When he walks the streets of Istanbul, people stare at him and at the camera filming him. What, we wonder, are they seeing?

  James Baldwin muses on race, the American fascination with sexuality and the generosity of the Turks.
• 
  Futura (2021)

  Review preview for Futura

  The reflections and insights are many.

  A portrait of Italy observed through the eyes of teenagers who talk about the places they live in and imagine themselves, torn between the opportunities that surround them, the dream of what they want to become, the fear of failing, the trials they hope to overcome.
• 
  Annette (2021)

  Review preview for Annette

  I could not have wished for a more perfect first film to wean me back into the in-cinema press screening world I left behind in March 2020.

  A stand-up comedian and his opera singer wife have a daughter with a surprising gift.
• 
  A Radiant Girl (2021)

  Review preview for A Radiant Girl

  The best scenes are those where the human condition and awareness of teenagers everywhere at the cusp of adulthood encounters the unfathomable.

  Paris, summer 1942. Irene is Jewish and French. She is 19 and living a life of passions - Her friendships, her new love, her desire to be an actress. Nothing suggests that Irene's time is running out.
• 
  Babi Yar. Context (2021)

  Review preview for Babi Yar. Context

  The way June 1941 is presented here, the looming warfare seems to happen in the present

  Nazi troops massacre 33,771 Jews in Kyiv over a two-day period in September 1941.
• 
  The Ties (2020)

  Review preview for The Ties

  There is a miraculous playfulness to all this destructive behaviour. When one riddle is solved, another one appears.

  Naples, early 1980s: Aldo and Vanda’s marriage finds itself on the rocks when Aldo falls in love with the young Lidia. Thirty years later, Aldo and Vanda are still married.
• 
  Aleph (2021)

  Review preview for Aleph

  Aleph shows how big our world is, how manifold, how beautiful, and how the really important riddles are the same for everybody.

  The director takes a puzzle-like approach, inspired by the writings of Jorge Luis Borges
• 
  El Planeta (2020)

  Review preview for El Planeta

  With jump cuts, fancy fades, and towels featuring cartoon owls and penguins, Amalia Ulman draws from her work as an artist and includes it seamlessly into the world of cinema.

  Amid the devastation of post-crisis Spain, mother and daughter bluff and grift to keep up the lifestyle they think they deserve, bonding over common tragedy and an impending eviction.
• 
  Six Minutes To Midnight (2020)

  Review preview for Six Minutes To Midnight

  Six Minutes To Midnight is a labour of love and it shows us how innocence can be lost.

  Trouble brews for a teacher who has taken a last minute and controversial role teaching English to the daughters of high-ranking Nazis.
• 
  The Letter Room (2020)

  Review preview for The Letter Room

  Oscar Isaac’s poignant performance pulls us in from the get-go.

  Corrections officer Richard starts in a new position as director of prisoner communications and finds his world opening up in unexpected ways.
• 
  Lovers (2020)

  Review preview for Lovers

  Garcia... takes the socio-economic circumstances as the core and builds her elegant thriller around it.

  An inseparable couple are forced apart following a crime... and meet again by chance three years later.
• 
  Love Affair(s) (2020)

  Review preview for Love Affair(s)

  Too much and over the top, the film nevertheless finds its rhythm.

  François has to rush back to Paris to cover for a sick colleague, leaving his partner Daphné, three months pregnant, to welcome his cousin, Maxime. In the four days till Francois’ return Daphné and Maxime get to know each other, sharing increasingly intimate stories that bring them closer.
• 
  Hope (2019)

  Review preview for Hope

  Hope is structured around seemingly small jolts that suddenly illuminate the big picture.

  When Anja is diagnosed with a brain tumour, everyday life in her patchwork family implodes and her cooling relationship with her partner Tomas is faced with a new kind of reality.
• 
  The Father (2020)

  Review preview for The Father

  Zeller elegantly and scarily fuses dream logic with markers of past trauma.

  Anthony is 80 years old. He lives alone in London and refuses the caregivers that his daughter tries to impose upon him. Yet his need for help is becoming more pressing.
• 
  Two Of Us (2019)

  Review preview for Two Of Us

  Two of Us jolts the senses - you can smell when the hot pan stays on the stove too long and want to interfere.

  Two retired women, who have been in a secret relationship for decades, find their relationship turned upside down when the truth begins to come out.
• 
  The Midnight Sky (2020)

  Review preview for The Midnight Sky

  This is what cinema does best - showing us technicolor worlds that make us see and appreciate the black and white home.

  As a catastrophe unfolds on Earth, a dying man crosses the Arctic in an attempt to make contact with a spacecraft which may have found a habitable world elsewhere.
• 
  My Little Sister (2020)

  Review preview for My Little Sister

  Chuat and Reymond’s début feature is grounded in a deep reality.

  Lisa has bid goodbye to her ambitions as a playwright and the Berlin arts scene and now lives in Switzerland with her husband, who runs an international school. When her twin brother – star of the Schaubühne theatre’s ensemble – falls ill, she returns to Berlin.
• 
  Giraffe (2019)

  Review preview for Giraffe

  Remnants of bygone ways of life are beautifully shot in Giraffe.

  A Danish summer: A tunnel is being built to connect Denmark and Germany. An ethnologist comes to the island of Lolland to study its inhabitants and record their traditions and objects.
• 
  The Mole Agent (2020)

  Review preview for The Mole Agent

  Alberdi keeps the tone light and profound simultaneously.

  When a family becomes concerned about their mother’s well-being in a retirement home, private investigator Romulo hires Sergio, an 83-year-old man who becomes a new resident – and a mole inside the home, who struggles to balance his assignment with becoming increasingly involved in the lives of several residents.
• 
  The Metamorphosis Of Birds (2020)

  Review preview for The Metamorphosis Of Birds

  For a short time, this cinematic jewel lets us travel back to when the migration of birds was a mystery to man.

  Beatriz and Henrique fall in love and get married. He goes to sea while she raises their inquisitive children. The director brings her family's story to the screen.
• 
  Mank (2020)

  Review preview for Mank

  This is a film that lets words sizzle more than anything.

  1930s Hollywood is re-evaluated through the eyes of scathing social critic and alcoholic screenwriter Herman J Mankiewicz as he races to finish the screenplay of Citizen Kane for Orson Welles.
• 
  Education (2020)

  Review preview for Education

  McQueen builds his scathing criticism of the 1970s British school system in layers. Resembling the 'beautiful spiral constellation of Andromeda' that set the little protagonist dreaming, the film returns to the diverging realities and tropes.

  When 12-year-old Kingsley is transferred to a special-needs school, a group of West Indian women uncover an unofficial segregation policy.