Marigold

For lovers of meditation and film as a painting art, this is 120 minutes of the deepest ecstasy. Ingenious work with a mise-en-scène, extra-terrestrial use of open-air scenes, a distinctive rewrite of the rules of the Wuxia genre as defined by Hollywood opuses of recent years, and a film vision from which you physically feel every second of the seven years that Master Chou devoted to film. [Cannes 2015]

Audiard is, of course, a skilled filmmaker, and he proves it in many places, but otherwise Dheepan resembles a torso composed of many pressing humanistic themes, which are just outlined without working with them more systematically. The film therefore disintegrates in the middle in quite strange motivations and emotional twists. The finale is an evocation of Taxi Driver, but feels more like a frustrated Tamil Rambo from the suburbs of Paris. It strikes me as a clueless attempt at a commentary on contemporary geopolitics, which plays the most accessible string. In addition, the film is marked by the fact that it was finished under great pressure and feels as if certain parts are missing. The Palme d'Or in competition with Assassin and Saul fia is, in my view, a purely political decision. [Cannes 2015]

Two rams reared by rams are forty years old and do not talk to each other until they are forced to do so by an infection that attacks their neighboring herds. A poetic drama about brothers who benefit from minimalist poetics, captivating landscapes, the creative cameras of the rising star Sturla Brandth Grøvlen, economical acting creations of bearded lonely people and typical Icelandic weird exotics. It ends up attempting to combine naturalism / symbolism in a conclusion that feels somewhat annoyingly didactic and amateur. But otherwise, given the competition from the Scandinavian closed dramas, Rams definitely belongs under the Cannes spotlights. [Cannes 2015]

A veristic social drama composed of a torturous carousel of job searching / working that significantly attacks the boundaries of human dignity. Brizé's method reminds of the Dardenn brothers, but unfortunately he lacks their dynamics, timing and ability to complete the story in the strongest possible way. An important film, but one that fades out into nothing and is about how ruthlessly a person's value is measured today. [Cannes 2015]

This unreasonable attempt to combine a psychological drama about a disturbed soldier and a thriller about protecting the family of a dubious Lebanese businessman was supposed to be scathing and dramatic, but turned out as a naughty hybrid of Paranormal Activity, Inspector Rex (on antidepressants) and a thriller with Ondřej Vetchý. In the end, its final name, Disorder, is an apt title - but it seems that the crew itself suffered from (perception) disorders in addition to the protagonist and the crew. [Cannes 2015]

Perhaps it is confusing that Maïwenn ‘only’ presents something that was filmed by hundreds of filmmakers before her. But it shouldn't be forgotten that her version of the history of a tumultuous relationship is full of brisk dialogues, well-pointed situations, easy-to-like characters, and Vincent Cassel's excellent energy. A rare situation where insight, accessibility and intelligence go hand in hand in a romantic (melo) drama. [Cannes 2015]

An atmosphere of madness, a nightmare of history come to life, human existence reduced to a dislocated whisper, infinitives and a blurred look over the shoulder. A film after which 99% of Holocaust-themed films are just a surplus of pathetic old worn out and unnecessary things. [Cannes 2015]

The film has something to build on - a strong theme, a great lead actor, and the ability to procedurally portray the system of care for troubled teenagers, but it does not have enough skills to move beyond mere empathy and lack of opinion, which is replaced by symptomatic and very cumbersome choice of classical music (unfortunately, this is not The Kid with a Bike). Bercot certainly does not lack interest and feeling in working with actors, but unfortunately she lacks the ability to build this portrait of a sociopath urgently, dynamically and with the ability to bring the viewer out of his comfort zone... The result is only a fairly decent social drama. [Cannes 2015]

I am an old and conservative man who is no longer fast enough for the pace of Michael Bay's hypnagogue sessions, and I am increasingly enjoying wooden characters who constantly need to feed their egos. I can laugh at all that and forget about the absolutely tragic love cooing of a rookie and Russian, which I would without hesitation call one of the biggest directing failures in the history of Marvel. Again, the Avengers are not getting anywhere and are working with the same (and not completely fresh) model of action, and I do not see any exorbitant escalation in them. I enjoyed it, for example, because for the first time in the history of Marvel films, I was afraid for the life of one of the characters, and also because it is the first solo for Hawkeye, who knocked me on my ass from the back lines. I got what I came for. A slow, lightly leather and conservative costume event, which is starting to be particularly intimate in its grandeur, because it is basically a party of friends who long for rest.

If Alex Garland put as much effort into elaborating the psychological and symbolic aspects as he did designing the environment and pretending to be witty, this would certainly be a very complex film. Unfortunately, this is something I call hipster sci-fi - a film focused on looking good and giving a strong first impression. As soon as you take his game seriously and start a discussion with him, you will find that he is saying semi-apathetic and nicely formulated phases, whilst pretending to be revelatory. Sure, in front of Pollock, every conversation sounds a little smarter and the female beauty near Klimt hurts even more, but Ex Machina is much better at dancing disco, showing great macho poses by Oscar Isaac and presenting the murderously fragile sex appeal of Alicia Vikander (when she is mass-produced, I will marry her), rather than amazing through the somewhat funny tactile details and mannerist backlights, which importantly tell us that Ex Machina is not just fun history. But it's really nothing more. Joseph Kosinski goes indie, for better or worse. [70%]