Reviews by Michael Pattison

Order by: Date, A–Z

• 
  X-Men: Days Of Future Past (2014)

  Review preview for X-Men: Days Of Future Past

  What makes this film so enjoyable is the chemistry that holds its ensemble together.

  Wolverine travels back in time in a bid to change history.
• 
  The Years Of Fierro (2013)

  Review preview for The Years Of Fierro

  A clear and succinct overview of the case at hand.

  Documentary about a Mexican who has been on Death Row - and protesting his innocence - for 30 years.
• 
  We Did It On A Song (2014)

  Review preview for We Did It On A Song

  Working closely with his selected cast, André has allowed these youngsters to express their current fears and anxieties in a distinctive and personalised way.

  Musical docudrama following six 17-year-olds on the cusp of leaving school.
• 
  Emptying The Skies (2013)

  Review preview for Emptying The Skies

  The broader perspective demonstrates the moral and legal disadvantage at which the volunteers are fundamentally placed.

  Documentary about songbird poaching.
• 
  Dreaming Of A Family (2013)

  Review preview for Dreaming Of A Family

  Jargil’s film is a clear account of two adults learning to confront their own guilt.

  Documentary about a recovering alcoholic dad who is trying to be reconciled with his family.
• 
  On The Edge Of The World (2013)

  Review preview for On The Edge Of The World

  Rather than matching his subjects’ plight with a routinely rugged aesthetic, Drexel demonstrates both appreciable tact and a keen eye for the unexpectedly beautiful.

  Documentary about homelessness in Paris.
• 
  Bastards (2013)

  Review preview for Bastards

  Perkin documents with delicacy and humour Rabha and others’ legal fights.

  The battles of single mums trying to legitimise their children in Morocco.
• 
  The Valley Of The Jato (2012)

  Review preview for The Valley Of The Jato

  The underlying implication here is that organised crime is a social phenomenon: a form of systematic opportunism, it flourishes under certain historical and political conditions.

  Documentary about a family-run TV station in Sicily that has taken a stand against corruption.
• 
  The Forgotten Space (2010)

  Review preview for The Forgotten Space

  Tthere are about six or seven fascinating shorts competing for attention here, and Burch and Sekula’s respective backgrounds pull the film one way and then the other, never quite settling into a structurally or aesthetically consistent framework.

  Film essay documenting fishermen's working conditions and sea trade.
• 
  West Of The Tracks (2003)

  Review preview for West Of The Tracks

  As a consciously durational work, Wang’s epic poses a suitably gruelling challenge to viewers.

  Documentary focusing on the decline of heavy industry in the Tiexi district of Shenyang, China.
• 
  Bravehearts (2012)

  Review preview for Bravehearts

  Though Moe elegantly and tactfully remains focused upon her protagonists after the Breivik attacks, the specific trauma of the latter inevitably overwhelms proceedings.

  A documentary following the lives and thinking of four politically active young Norwegians before and after the massacre on Utøya Island.
• 
  Avalon (2011)

  Review preview for Avalon

  Aspiring to character-study status, the film evades at almost every turn the more compelling moments of its bare-bones plot. It’s a shame.

  When a nightclub owner accidentally kills a labourer, he finds himself with a dangerous debt.
• 
  The Deflowering Of Eva Van End (2012)

  Review preview for The Deflowering Of Eva Van End

  Dealing in broad stereotypes, the film wears thinner as it progresses.

  The arrival of a handsome exchange student causes a troubled family to come apart at the seams.
• 
  The World's End (2013)

  Review preview for The World's End

  While there are plenty of laughs, the film might be victim of a too-linear, too-literal and too-revealing trailer, and the impact of its funnier moments are dampened by familiarity.

  Five friends who reunite in an attempt to top their epic pub crawl from 20 years earlier unwittingly become humankind's only hope for survival.
• 
  Les Invisibles (2012)

  Review preview for Les Invisibles

  One acquires a keen sense of the positive consciousness that might emerge through a struggle for organisation, acceptance and liberation.

  Exploring the lives of 11 gay, lesbian and bisexual men and women over the age of 70.
• 
  Joy (2012)

  Review preview for Joy

  The film shows how easily an individual can be domestically, emotionally, politically and legally marginalised.

  A woman takes home a baby from hospital, devotedly caring for it. But she is not its mother - she is a kidnapper.
• 
  People's Park (2012)

  Review preview for People's Park

  Sniadecki and Cohn draw us into this space at the same time as frustrating all notions of narrative, momentum or rhythm.

  A single tracking shot captures life in the People's Park in Chengdu, China.
• 
  Three Sisters (2012)

  Review preview for Three Sisters

  Wang is matter-of-fact in his presentation of these quiet dramas.

  Three peasant sisters - aged ten, six and four - try to get by in the mountains after their mother abandons them and their father has to go away to work.
• 
  The Turtle's Rage (2012)

  Review preview for The Turtle's Rage

  El-Qalqili Sr. is a fiery figure who seems unable to sit with his daughter without finding some point of contention in the wording of her questions.

  "We will not return. We cannot. Where would we return to?" - a personal consideration of Palestine.
• 
  White Epilepsy (2012)

  Review preview for White Epilepsy

  Grandrieux’s view appears to be a cold and harsh one.

  Bodies interact as if in a dream.
• 
  Fair Wind - Notes Of A Traveller (2013)

  Review preview for Fair Wind - Notes Of A Traveller

  Weigel’s imagery has an appreciably rugged edge – colourfully vivid on the one hand but ethereally retro on the other.

  Falling in love with the world at first sight.
• 
  Sofia's Last Ambulance (2012)

  Review preview for Sofia's Last Ambulance

  The film’s strict and self-imposed limitations mean that the wider forces by which the trio’s gruelling routine is largely governed only seep through here and there.

  Sofia, the capital city of Bulgaria, has more than two million inhabitants and only 13 ambulances... this documentary follows one of them.
• 
  Paris Countdown (2013)

  Review preview for Paris Countdown

  For all its bombast – the thwacks, the thuds, the slowed-down bang of a gunshot – one never really believes these guys are in trouble.

  Two ageing nightclub owners find events slipping out of control one dangerous night.
• 
  Call Girl (2012)

  Review preview for Call Girl

  Feature debutant Mikael Marcimain matches the script’s fine balance between dramatic clarity and the more ambiguous intrigues of a conspiracy thriller with some pinpoint direction.

  Two young teenage girls are caught up in a sex scandal that goes to the heart of the Swedish government. Based on a true story.
• 
  The Last Time I Saw Macao (2012)

  Review preview for The Last Time I Saw Macao

  João Rui Guerra da Mata and João Pedro Rodriguez’s film is a seamless and absorbing blend of essay film and hardboiled thriller.

  This stunning amalgam of film noir and Chris Marker cine-essay poetically explores the psychic pull of the titular former Portuguese colony.
• 
  A.C.A.B. All Cats Are Brilliant (2012)

  Review preview for A.C.A.B. All Cats Are Brilliant

  As a snapshot of life at 30 in contemporary Athens, All Cats Are Brilliant (Sygharitiria Stous Esiodoxous?) is sensitive and sincere.

  A young activist struggles to get by and to find her place in a troubled Greece.
• 
  Historic Centre (2012)

  Review preview for Historic Centre

  Though each filmmaker provides typical servings of his own respective style in responding to the brief at hand, this portmanteau piece is predictably uneven.

  Four stories about life in Guimarães, Portugal.
• 
  Everybody's Gone (2012)

  Review preview for Everybody's Gone

  The film feels longer than its two-hour duration precisely because its tone seems so unsustainably whimsical.

  Magical perspectives on life in a small Georgian town, as seen through the eyes of a small boy.
• 
  My Dog Killer (2013)

  Review preview for My Dog Killer

  The film doesn’t seem to have much to say about racism, and even less about its potential links to family, class and gender – all of which hang in the background, threatening to force the filmmakers to make a more serious and challenging film.

  A troubled teenager with violent friends discovers a secret about his absent mother than makes him contemplate a cruel act.
• 
  Longing For The Rain (2013)

  Review preview for Longing For The Rain

  A strangely successful hybrid between erotic ghost story and social commentary, it’s one of this year’s more compelling features.

  A lonely housewife embarks on an intense erotic relationship with a ghost.
• 
  Yumen (2013)

  Review preview for Yumen

  Mournful in tone and associative in style and rhythm.

  A visit to a Chinese ghost town.
• 
  Dark Matter (2013)

  Review preview for Dark Matter

  The emphasis here is on the immediate and indirect ecological effects, which the film renders in aesthetic terms without ever becoming a compelling interrogation in itself.

  A visit to the ruined environment of a military testing site.
• 
  Paradise: Hope (2013)

  Review preview for Paradise: Hope

  Seidl manages to make this ordeal excruciating to watch without ever being graphic, visually or even narratively.

  A teenager from a troubled middle class background spends the summer at fat camp and determines to seduce its director.
• 
  Paradise: Faith (2012)

  Review preview for Paradise: Faith

  Seidl draws absurdity and hilarity from a narrative arrangement that is predictably and increasingly caustic.

  Second part of Seidl's trilogy sees a devout Catholic trying to cope with the return of her paraplegic husband.
• 
  Paradise: Love (2012)

  Review preview for Paradise: Love

  As the film progresses, Seidl allows scenes to play out longer than expected, as they enter that uncomfortable territory (for protagonists, audiences and censor boards alike) of total unpredictability.

  A cautionary tale about European female sex tourists on the beaches of Kenya.
• 
  Models (1999)

  Review preview for Models

  All four actresses are excellent; forever chewing gum, Bartsch in particular is superb.

  A portrait of a quartet of aspiring Viennese models.
• 
  Jesus, You Know (2003)

  Review preview for Jesus, You Know

  Seidl seems interested in these people precisely because they’re all too easily judged by others, even though their needs and desires are relatably ordinary.

  The inhabitants of six different churches seek Heavenly help to solve their Earthly problems.
• 
  Animal Love (1996)

  Review preview for Animal Love

  Ulrich Seidl’s unique, stylised documentary depicts in trademark, single-take set-ups a number of Viennese residents and their relationships to their beloved pets.

  A documentary about people who turn to animals for companionship.
• 
  The Stoker (2010)

  Review preview for The Stoker

  Singular writer-director Alexey Balabanov does things his own way.

  A story of hit men and moral corruption is told through the eyes of the man who helps to burn the bodies.
• 
  My House Without Me (2012)

  Review preview for My House Without Me

  Szymków interweaves her subjects’ testimonies to paint an image of ongoing loss.

  A documentary looking at two women permanently displaced as a result of the Second World War.
• 
  Gazzara (2012)

  Review preview for Gazzara

  The actor appears in Rezwin’s film to be as shy as he is sensitive.

  Conversations with the actor just before his death.
• 
  Art Will Save The World (2011)

  Review preview for Art Will Save The World

  The title of Niall McGann’s documentary is a joke, elevating the work to a level of self-importance that the mischief therein consistently and amusingly undercuts.

  A look at the work, life and legacy of Luke Haines.
• 
  Amsterdam Stories USA (2012)

  Review preview for Amsterdam Stories USA

  There’s something quietly enthralling about this ambitious road movie.

  A journey through US towns called Amsterdam in search of the real America.
• 
  Workers (2013)

  Review preview for Workers

  Valle’s deadpan comedy demonstrates a master image-maker at work.

  A loyal factory cleaner is refused a pension whilst a maid finds herself employed by the dog who inherited the house where she works.
• 
  Pincus (2012)

  Review preview for Pincus

  Pincus treads that tricky terrain of having a protagonist who is deeply sceptical of the self-serious outsiders he meets while at the same time allowing for the possibility that it is he who may be in the wrong.

  An interior decorator who cares or his ailing father falls for a karate instructor.
• 
  Avanti Popolo (2012)

  Review preview for Avanti Popolo

  As a kind of call to arms against nostalgia on the one hand but forgetfulness on the other, Uruguayan-born Michael Wahrmann charts ambitious terrain.

  A son tries to reconnect with his father in a film that explores the nature of film.
• 
  Housemaids (2012)

  Review preview for Housemaids

  Gabriel Mascaro tasked seven children across five different Brazilian cities with filming their live-in housekeepers for a week, and consequently edited their footage into a slim but coherent volume.

  Seven Brazilian children film the activities of their live-in housekeepers.
• 
  Lions (2012)

  Review preview for Lions

  Jazmin López’s debut feature is in narrative terms a bit too foggy to sustain one’s emotional engagement.

  Five young people are lost in a forest - and perhaps in time itself.
• 
  Greatest Hits (2012)

  Review preview for Greatest Hits

  In the film’s second half, soundmen are visible setting up for scenes as the actors play out semi-improvised scenarios that carry a weight that is by turns funny and intense.

  The logic of filmmaking itself begins to unravel as we explore the relationship between a frustrated son and his absent father.
• 
  Magpie (2012)

  Review preview for Magpie

  Magpie stretches a short-subject premise to narrative length that does well to tell at least four different stories in one digestible whole.

  Aided by two of their friends, a former couple steal their dead son's body and set off to drive it to Cornwall, but nothing goes to plan.