At a moment of weakness, one might be tempted to agree with viewers who believe that The history of sound is fussy, soporific, and cutesy. It would be to deny the evidence that the film has a languid narrative, that the love story it tells is presented in a dull manner, and that the overall production of the film sometimes seems as if it were designed to be accompanied by the hashtag #OnePerfectShot. But if we think twice, in the end, there's no need to agree with them. Because if the sixth film by South African director Oliver Hermanus is this way, it's because, clearly, it wants to be. It's a stylistic choice, a fully conscious vote for creative rigor.

If we had to bet on whether Pedro Almodóvar likes or dislikes Mirrors No. 3, the recommendation from film betting houses would be to put a few euros on yes. Perhaps it's a film without pop inertia and without melodramatic or comedic moments to disrupt it, as in the cinema of the man from La Mancha. But the German Christian Petzold sets himself a challenge that runs parallel to those of Almodóvar's latest films: to try to make an implausible, even ridiculous, plot believable on screen.

As they said at the end of Hell or High WaterSometimes we do crazy things for our children. In the last year, in fact, two of the most talked-about films feature a father on an epic quest to find his lost daughter: Sirado and One battle after another, with a classic narrative structure that comes from Desert Centaurs, clear. A daughter in Tokyo It has less of a sense of adventure and more of injustice, but it's also about a father who does strange things to find his daughter. In this case, working as a taxi driver in Tokyo for nine years (a Frenchman in Japan: a curious and unusual approach to immigration issues) hoping to stumble across her someday, perhaps hailing a fare on a street corner in the Japanese capital.

How difficult it is to externalize certain intimate feelings and thoughts. And how difficult it is also to translate these inner processes to the screen. It's not enough to simply show a character occasionally sitting on a bed in a bedroom, staring out the window with a questioning expression. For images to resonate with the viewers watching them (and those of The little daughter They have been a phenomenon in France, where they have dominated conversations beyond film circles) and must portray fragments of a life in which everyone feels represented. Is this the case with the life of Fatima Daas, the protagonist and author of the book on which this film is based?

It is quite possible that this year we will not see any film as enamored with the power of words as this one. A Day with Peter Hujar It recreates the conversations this photographer had with Linda Rosenkrantz over the course of a single day in 1974. Rosenkrantz's idea was for this intense conversation to be part of a collection of interviews chronicling 24 hours in the lives of different artists in 1970s New York. But despite being recorded, the encounter with Hujar took a long time to be published: it wasn't released as a book until 2021.

When we think of childhood as a lost paradise, we likely have in mind an idealized period that roughly spans from ages five to eleven. Our memories don't extend beyond that because, generally, our recollection of the first years of life tends to be a hazy patchwork of vague impressions. Little Amélie, However, he does not choose this path. This adaptation of Metaphysics of Tubes Amélie Nothomb's novel takes the autobiographical foundation of her early memories (she was born and lived with her family in Japan until the age of three) and uses it to create an animated Eden.

But what kind of movie is it exactly? There is no other option.A twisted comedy? One thriller Outlandish? Ungainly social realism? If you suspect that all three of these answers, posed as questions, might be true at once, you're right. Park Chan-wook's new film is a slippery cinematic artifact that resists being viewed in a single way. And how stimulating and unique is that iridescent blend of genres! There are more distinguishing features that explain its exceptional nature: 1) it has a very sharp edge (cinema against the "Now, let no one drown" mentality). And 2) formally it's dazzling. Chan-wook has entered a baroque, experimental, and uninhibited phase in which he likes to play with what he tells through images.

The Left-Handed Girl It's the closest thing to a movie of Sean Baker not directed by Sean Baker. In fact, if we look at the credits, Sean Baker is involved in a bit: the author ofAnora He's the producer, co-writer, and editor. And if we dig a little deeper, we discover that director Shih-Ching Tsou has been a collaborator of Baker's for many years: she's produced Starlet, Tangerine, The Florida project and Red rocket before he started directing his first film. He could have been behind the camera (well, behind the phone, because The Left-Handed Girl It was entirely filmed on an iPhone 13) much earlier: the origins of this project date back to 2010, when Shih-Ching Tsou and Baker co-wrote a script that didn't secure funding until 2022.

As a general rule, fans of the crime genre tend to greatly appreciate the thrillers well-born about ill-born characters. The loot does, more or less, check in both categories. Initially, it's a story about police officers who seem like consummate professionals until a particular seizure tempts them down the path of corruption because of a confiscated sum of cash that literally throws them off balance. Since everything has its owners, this incident leads them to step into a veritable hornet's nest of criminals: suddenly it's not just about doing the right thing, but about saving their lives from drug traffickers with the mannerisms of big-time businessmen and deadly, ruthless methods.

Here is a documentary about the difficulty of depicting the Holocaust. Or perhaps about the catharsis of exploring the complicated relationship with your father and ultimately exposing it publicly in a work from the heart. It could also be a film about the pressure and curse of success: transcending underground niches and having a major impact can lead to writer's block. It's also possible that we're looking at a documentary about fate as a cruel joker: a seminal work on historical memory, so as never to forget the atrocities of Nazism (the book burnings, for example), which, years later, ends up being censored in some US states. We're talking, of course, about Art Spiegelman and Maus

The little teachers who enjoy detecting correspondences, rhymes and easter eggs among the different titles in Jim Jarmusch's filmography they will chat with Father, mother, sister, brotherThe film is full of resonances. From the outset, it connects three stories through a common thread, both thematic and formal, much like several of Jarmusch's previous anthologies. A great admirer of the short story format (an adult, impressionistic, and open-ended short story, in the tradition of certain 20th-century American literature), the filmmaker had previously directed films such as Mystery train (also with three stories), Night on Earth (also contrasting self-contained plots in different parts of the world) or Coffee and cigarettesA collection of black and white short films that always included an iconic overhead shot of a table with an ashtray and cups, which reappears here as a nod to the original. Furthermore, the film revives the visual style of depicting conversations between acquaintances who seem like strangers, and the poetry of earthly matters so prevalent throughout the director's work and style. Paterson

Oh, of course Stellan Skarsgård deserved the Palme d'Or for best actor in the last Cannes Film FestivalThis is not about taking away from Wagner Moura's merits, who won this award for The secret agentbut to appreciate a stunning performance that symbolizes something more: the latest example of a great European tradition of mastery and maturity in acting, on par with a Bruno Ganz, of a Michel Piccoli or of one Erland JosephsonNor would it be fair to single him out (even though he gives the performance of his life) and say nothing about the sensational Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, who also reach the peak of their acting careers in Sentimental value

Flowers for Antonio assonant rhyme with another recent documentary, Yerai Cortés' flamenco guitarBoth films revolve around an artist born into Gypsy culture who decides to use non-fiction filmmaking to investigate and unravel the web of secrets and lies surrounding his parents. In the case of actress Alba Flores, specifically, she uses the camera (sometimes in front of her, sometimes operating it herself) as an organizing and revealing tool: despite the abundance of archival footage of her father, Antonio, the son of Lola Flores and Antonio González. The Little FishIt's not easy to get a clear picture of exactly who he was.

Audiovisual fiction seems to have detected that we are all somewhat lethargic, not to say anxious, about the drift of civilization in this part of the 21st century. That's why it's adding fuel to the fire with series and films about the end times from different apocalyptic perspectives, whether they pre either post (of Civil War to The Eternaut, of A house full of dynamite to In the end, etc.). Perhaps a title that sowed a glimmer of hope in the face of such a withered mood would be welcome. Or perhaps one that poked fun at so much nihilism. Yorgos Lanthimos has seized upon this second option with BugoniaA dark, exaggerated, and grotesque joke about conspiracy theories that claim the world is going to hell.

In the movies of the Dardenne brothers You go in with a strong heart and come out with a wrinkle. It's always been that way, and it continues to be that way. The fact that we viewers have already absorbed his harsh social cinematic style, inherited from documentary and always far removed from rigid narrative structures, melodramas, and moralisms, perhaps doesn't mean we've amortized it. Because it's true that in Newborns There are no surprises or innovations. But in other hands, this film, which follows the lives of five teenagers at risk of social exclusion housed in a shelter for young mothers in Liège, would be a cataclysm (although The maternal, by Pilar Palomero, with a very similar theme, was also good).

The project dossier was amazing. What PowerPointHey kid. A film about a rock superstar now that they biopics The great myths of popular music (Queen, Elvis, Dylan…) are going like thunder, with one of the most fashionable actors (Jeremy Allen White, who has working-class arms like Bruce's) and Springsteen himself giving the project the green light. A film born to be discussed. baby. It so happens that the moment it portrays is perhaps not the most epic of the singer's career: when he decided in 1982, amidst the great success of The river and the popularity mascletà of Born in the USAto make a solo, acoustic, dark album with very murky and literary lyrics: Nebraska

First act: The data, just the data (more or less). Chuck's Life is divided into three acts. Each one is of a different genre: an apocalyptic tale, a musical anecdote, and a coming-of-age story. In addition, this film, which adapts a book by Stephen King's kindest and most humanistic author (that of Count on me either The Green Mile) begins at the end: from the character's death to his childhood. And Mike Flanagan, an author accustomed to horror, debuts in a sentimental and fabulous fantastical register, which can remind The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Forrest Gump either Amélie.

It has come out classicUntil recently, Benny Safdie co-directed feature films with his brother Josh. And, more than films, they created torrents of images and ideas that swept everything in their path. The smashing machine does not have a cinematic flow as crazy as Good time either Rough diamonds (Best film of 2020 according to ARA critics). But the fact that this time the narrative flow isn't so vehement and circulates within more recognizable margins doesn't mean the film lacks punch.

Sometimes, for those of us who watch a lot of movies out of professional obligation, it might be better if we hadn't seen so many films. This, which may seem like a tongue-twister, a contradiction, or a stone in our own eye, is made clear in films like Relay, which isn't a bad movie, but it requires innocent eyes to fully enjoy it. If you've seen it before and remember Michael Clayton, that portrait that makes Relay from a cold and at the same time disgusting corporate world that manages with discretion intimidating internal business problems that can lead to a reputational crisis will seem unoriginal to you.

If someone, halfway through this film, has the intrusive thought that if, instead of Eddington, the town that appears was called Springfield and, instead of a film, this was an episode ofThe Simpsons All of this would be funnier, there would be little to argue with. Because as a black comedy about the behavior of ordinary American citizens in specific situations, Eddington fair. And be careful, because that would still be a benevolent analogy. If instead of the perspective of satire, one wants to evaluate Ari Aster's new film as an allegory of the United States based on the events that take place in the microcosm of a small town, as John Sayles, for example, has done repeatedly (Lone Star, The Promised Land, Silver City…), then the comparison would be bloody.