Norwegian dramedy OUT OF NATURE feigns at self-evaluation, taking the audience through the internal monologue of a dull egotist grappling with his general malaise.
Rams
GrÃmur Hákonarson’s Un Certain Regard-winner is a thoroughly competent story of isolation and legacy, though its narrative simplicity renders it somewhat neutered.
For the Plasma
The enigmatic independent feature FOR THE PLASMA is best experienced sans attempts at comprehension, its wonderful score and cinematography placing a focus on atmosphere over exposition.
The Royal Road
Jenni Olson’s essay film is an inventive and complex mediation on love, history and art, told through gorgeous 16mm landscape cinematography married with subtly revealing narration.
Scrum
Poppy Stockell’s documentary about a team of gay rugby players in Sydney excels in its restraint, a moving and well composed look at acceptance and connection.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s cinephilic feature is a poorly constructed character study that especially suffers from an underwhelming screenplay.
The Forbidden Room
Guy Maddin’s feature-length collaboration with Evan Johnson is a bizarre matryoshka film, a compendium of surreal visual and narrative concepts.
Only The Dead
Bill Guttentag and Michael Ware’s ONLY THE DEAD has some arresting footage and impressive access, yet it is undercut by near-sensationalist narration, bombastic score and a lack of any real purpose.
Victoria
Sebastian Schipper’s one-take bank heist film might be narratively slight but is a thrilling technical triumph.
The Club
Pablo Larrain’s post-Pinochet Trilogy feature THE CLUB is a confronting, nuanced and darkly comic tale of corrupted faith and repression.