Film Reviews
Raoul Peck’s The Young Karl Marx
By Peter Schwarz, 15 March 2017
The Young Karl Marx, Raoul Peck's biographical portrait of Marx and Engels between 1843 and 1847, opened in movie theaters in New York City and Los Angeles Friday to be followed by a wider US release. We are re-posting the review which originally appeared on the WSWS last March.
The Settlers: Israel’s movement toward an apartheid state
By Fred Mazelis, 11 March 2017
A new documentary shows the impact of decades of Israeli occupation of the West Bank on the Zionist state.
67th Berlin International Film Festival—Part 3
The absence for the most part of the big wide world: German films at the Berlinale
By Bernd Reinhardt, 9 March 2017
The dramatic social and political developments of the past several years were evidently not high on the German filmmakers’ agenda.
The Look of Silence: Important documentary on the aftermath of the 1965 Indonesia massacres
By Clara Weiss, 6 March 2017
In a profoundly moving, intimate and disturbing way, Joshua Oppenheimer’s film deals with the long-lasting and devastating impact of the mass murder of up to one million Communists and suspected Communists.
67th Berlin International Film Festival--Part 2
A film about the legendary guitarist: Django
By Bernd Reinhardt, 4 March 2017
The debut film of Étienne Comar focuses on the year 1943, when the Nazis tried unsuccessfully to convince Django Reinhardt to undertake a tour of fascist Germany.
67th Berlin International Film Festival—Part 1
Filmmaking in “apocalyptic” times
By Stefan Steinberg, 2 March 2017
There was very little evidence in Berlin this year of filmmakers and the festival as a whole taking up burning social and political issues.
89th Academy Awards: What does Hollywood offer today?
By David Walsh, 28 February 2017
The 89th Academy Awards ceremony, held Sunday at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, was an even more complex and peculiar affair than usual.
Zhang Yimou’s The Great Wall: Issues bound up with a major Chinese film production
By Joanne Laurier, 23 February 2017
Set in ancient China, Zhang Yimou’s new work is a visually arresting, large-scale action film undermined by its general cartoonishness.
Pedro Almodóvar’s Julieta: A mother and daughter … and what else?
By Joanne Laurier, 16 February 2017
Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar’s latest film, Julieta, is a family melodrama that seeks to explore themes of guilt, alienation and absence, but with very limited results.
I Am Not Your Negro: Raoul Peck’s documentary on James Baldwin
By Clare Hurley, 14 February 2017
The film takes as its point of departure Baldwin’s proposal to his editor in 1979 to write a piece about civil rights leaders Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.
Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman
By Tom Carter, 13 February 2017
“Most of the film takes place inside an apartment,” Farhadi told one interviewer, “but once the film has ended, you feel like you’ve seen the whole city.”
Alberto Cavalcanti and postwar British cinema
By Joanne Laurier, 10 February 2017
In the course of a lengthy filmmaking career, Brazilian-born Alberto Cavalcanti created several of the most poetically realistic and socially poignant films of the twentieth century.
Black Mirror: A murky reflection
By Carlos Delgado, 4 February 2017
The science fiction television series purports to show its viewers the dark side of modern technology.
Lion: A former homeless child searches for his town
By George Morley, 3 February 2017
The two-hour feature, about a young Indian-Australian man finding his birth mother, has been nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
The generally lackluster Gold and 20th Century Women
By Joanne Laurier, 1 February 2017
Set in the 1980s, Gold is a fictionalized account of a notorious mining fraud. 20th Century Women is a trite “coming of age” piece located in 1979 California.
Elle: The latest offering from Paul Verhoeven
By David Walsh, 28 January 2017
Dutch-born director Verhoeven’s new film was made in France, and features Isabelle Huppert, who received an Academy Award nomination for her performance.
The Founder: Hollywood’s love affair with Ray Kroc and McDonald's
By Joanne Laurier, 26 January 2017
John Lee Hancock’s The Founder is a biographical drama about Ray Kroc, known as the man who established the McDonald’s global fast food chain.
2017 Academy Award nominations: Hollywood’s “sigh of relief” over racial “diversity”
By David Walsh, 25 January 2017
The media is now so conditioned to treat every major social and cultural phenomenon in racial, ethnic or gender terms that questions of artistic quality or social truthfulness barely receive a mention.
Martin Scorsese’s Silence and Ben Affleck’s Live by Night: Punishment and crime
By Joanne Laurier, 20 January 2017
A nearly three-hour carnival of torture and cruelty, Martin Scorsese’s Silence aims to dramatize the persecution of Catholics in mid-17th-century Japan. Ben Affleck’s Live by Night is a mediocre gangster drama set in the 1920s.
Patriots Day: An ode to law enforcement and repression
By Hiram Lee, 18 January 2017
The latest collaboration of director Peter Berg and actor Mark Wahlberg is a right-wing tribute to law enforcement following the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings.
August Wilson’s Fences—an African-American family in mid-20th century Pittsburgh
By Fred Mazelis, 14 January 2017
The film is the first screen adaptation of any of the plays in Wilson’s cycle of 10 spanning the 20th century.
Hidden Figures and Passengers: One official story, and another trite one
By Joanne Laurier, 12 January 2017
Hidden Figures retells the story of three African-American female scientists who made extraordinary contributions to NASA’s aeronautics and space programs in the 1960s. Passengers is a boiler-plate science fiction thriller.
Maren Ade’s award-winning Toni Erdmann: Slaves to modern global business
By Bernd Reinhardt, 9 January 2017
The considerable international success of the German film certainly has something to do with frustrating and bitter experiences of broad sections of the population.
Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson: A tribute to American cities and poetry
By Dorota Niemitz, 3 January 2017
Paterson is a city with a rich social and cultural history. Jarmusch pays homage to its history in his own, idiosyncratic manner.
Best films of 2016
By David Walsh and Joanne Laurier, 31 December 2016
Although technologies have sped up and made possible many things, they cannot by themselves overcome the gap between reality and its artistic assimilation and representation.
Allied: Conventional warfare
By Kevin Martinez, 28 December 2016
Despite its use of exotic locales and beautiful people, this World War II era “romantic thriller” fails to make a lasting—or much of any—impression.
La La Land and Jackie: More American success stories
By Joanne Laurier, 22 December 2016
La La Land is an all-too appropriately titled romantic musical that celebrates Los Angeles as a place where ambitious artists can strike it rich. Jackie is a murky, superficial biographical portrait of Jacqueline Kennedy.
Rogue One: Does it really “stand alone”?
By Matthew MacEgan, 21 December 2016
December 16 saw the release of the first stand-alone Star Wars film. The plot of Rogue One is an exact prequel to the 1977 original.
Miss Sloane and All We Had: Aiming at American life
By Joanne Laurier, 15 December 2016
Miss Sloane presents a fantastical view of Washington’s hired gun world of political lobbyism. Set at the beginning of the 2008 financial crash, All We Had is a limited drama about poverty and homelessness.
Aquarius: Personal resistance and isolation in Brazil
By Miguel Andrade, 13 December 2016
Filmed prior to Brazil’s impeachment crisis, Aquarius has since become an artistic point of reference (and a target) in the continuing political turmoil wracking the country.
From a reader: A second comment on Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight
By Thomas Douglass, 12 December 2016
The authentic and genuinely interesting character of the protagonists is one of Moonlight’s greatest appeals.
Manchester by the Sea: The suffering of an ordinary man
By Joanne Laurier, 10 December 2016
Kenneth Lonergan’s film is a humane examination of the suffering of an ordinary man, whose terrible personal tragedy has emotionally crippled him.
Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today—the 1948 documentary restored
By Clara Weiss, 5 December 2016
The film, written and directed by Stuart Schulberg, was intended to advertise the principles underlying the indictment of the Nazi criminals at the Nuremberg Trials.
The Eagle Huntress is about real people—Rules Don’t Apply and Nocturnal Animals are about something else
By Joanne Laurier, 3 December 2016
The documentary, The Eagle Huntress, follows a cherry-faced 13-year-old Kazakh girl as she learns the art of eagle hunting; Rules Don’t Apply is Warren Beatty’s film about Howard Hughes; and Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals is a violent revenge thriller.
Moonlight: How much can a person be reduced?
By Glenn Mulwray, 30 November 2016
The critically-acclaimed film by Barry Jenkins, about a working-class youth in Miami, seeks to understand a person’s development in fairly narrow terms.
Bleed for This and The Edge of Seventeen: Are these any match for the times?
By Joanne Laurier, 24 November 2016
Bleed for This is a gritty biographical movie about a “blue collar” fighter who makes one of the greatest comebacks in boxing history. A difficult, friendless teenager finds her stride in The Edge of Seventeen.
The “madness” of war dimly understood in Hacksaw Ridge and the world set right by aliens in Arrival
By Joanne Laurier, 17 November 2016
Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge is about the first and only conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor in World War II. Arrival is a feeble science fiction parable from Denis Villeneuve.
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk: Ang Lee on the Iraq war and American hoopla
By David Walsh, 15 November 2016
The drama takes place in 2004. A unit of American soldiers, who have survived a brief but fierce battle with Iraqi insurgents, are being celebrated as “heroes” on a nationwide tour.
Gimme Danger from Jim Jarmusch
By Kevin Martinez, 11 November 2016
American filmmaker Jim Jarmusch has made a documentary on the not so well-known, but hugely influential rock group, The Stooges.
National Bird: “I don’t know how many people I’ve killed,” says US drone pilot
By Joanne Laurier, 9 November 2016
Sonia Kennebeck’s film, whose title suggests that drones should now be considered the US national emblem, is a documentary that brings to the screen the story of three whistleblowers.
USA Network’s Mr. Robot, Season 2: Pessimism overtakes anger, with unfortunate results
By Carlos Delgado, 7 November 2016
After an intriguing start, the second season of the television drama about anti-corporate hackers spirals largely into gloom and incoherence.
Loving: “Tell the court I love my wife…”
By Joanne Laurier, 5 November 2016
Jeff Nichols’ film is a fictional recreation of the landmark case in Virginia in the 1950s and 1960s, which ultimately led to the striking down of state laws banning interracial marriage in the US.
Volhynia (Hatred) by Wojciech Smarzowski—a gripping account of the 1943 massacre
By Dorota Niemitz, 2 November 2016
Volhynia (Hatred) is an honest attempt to recreate the background to the murder of thousands of Poles by right-wing Ukrainian nationalists during World War II.
American Pastoral: A film version of Philip Roth’s novel
By David Walsh, 29 October 2016
The film and novel follow the life and eventual terrible misfortune of Seymour “Swede” Levov, the son of a glove manufacturer in Newark, in the 1960s and 1970s.
Certain Women: A certain anger at America’s coldness, loneliness …
… And Christopher Guest’s Mascots
By Joanne Laurier, 28 October 2016
American filmmaker Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women consists of three vignettes adapted from short stories by Maile Meloy, dealing with emotional malnourishment and disaffection.
Michael Moore in TrumpLand grovels in praise of Hillary Clinton
By Fred Mazelis, 27 October 2016
With his latest effort, Moore emerges as a chief promoter of the favored candidate of Wall Street and the Pentagon.
The Magnificent Seven: Hollywood remakes and the problem of diminishing returns
By Carlos Delgado, 24 October 2016
The film, a remake of the 1960 original, tells the story of a band of hired guns who defend a small town from marauders.
Denial and the assault on historical truth
By Joanne Laurier, 22 October 2016
A fictional account of American academic and author Deborah Lipstadt’s legal battle with British Holocaust denier David Irving in 2000 in London.
The Dressmaker, The Girl on the Train: The “return of the native” and other issues
By Joanne Laurier, 15 October 2016
In The Dressmaker, the art of beautifying the human body is the weapon of choice to vanquish intolerance and ignorance. The Girl on the Train is a murder mystery centered around a New York City suburb.
Toronto International Film Festival 2016—Part 6
Marija, Past Life, Ember: Facing life, in different ways
By David Walsh, 12 October 2016
Marija follows the life of a Ukrainian woman immigrant in Dortmund, Germany. Past Life, set in the 1970s, comes from Israel, and Ember, about a love triangle of sorts, from Turkey.
Toronto International Film Festival 2016
An interview with Michael Koch, director of Marija
By David Walsh, 12 October 2016
At the recent Toronto film festival, WSWS arts editor David Walsh spoke to Michael Koch, writer and director of Marija, about immigrants in Germany, the refugee crisis and other matters.
Werner Herzog’s Lo and Behold: Reveries of The Connected World
Exploring the origins and impact of the Internet
By Kevin Reed, 8 October 2016
The movie examines the origins and implications of the Internet and related technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things and space travel.
Toronto International Film Festival 2016: Part 4
Sami Blood from Sweden, Werewolf from Canada, Park from Greece: Society’s cruelty to its youngest members
By David Walsh, 5 October 2016
Amanda Kernell’s Sami Blood, from Sweden, is not an easy film to watch. It was also one of the most moving and authentic films shown in Toronto this year.
Toronto International Film Festival 2016: Part 3
Loving, The Birth of a Nation: Distinct approaches to historical events
By Joanne Laurier, 1 October 2016
Certain artists are being propelled to consider critical questions, while another group is ever more consumed by identity politics and the pursuit of personal celebrity and wealth.
Clint Eastwood’s Sully: The “Miracle on the Hudson” dramatized
By Joanne Laurier, 28 September 2016
Eastwood directs a fictional version of the January 2009 incident in which pilot Chesley Sullenberger landed a commuter jet in the Hudson River, saving the lives of 155 passengers and crew.
Toronto International Film Festival 2016: Part 1
How well does filmmaking reflect present-day life?
By David Walsh, 27 September 2016
This year’s Toronto International Film Festival screened some 400 feature and short films from 83 countries at 1,200 public screenings.
Oliver Stone’s Snowden: The NSA is “running a dragnet on the whole world”
By Joanne Laurier and David Walsh, 20 September 2016
Veteran American filmmaker Oliver Stone has made a movie about National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Edward Snowden speaks live in 800 theaters across North America
By Toby Reese, 17 September 2016
Following a “sneak preview” of Oliver Stone’s new film, Snowden, he and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden participated in a live interview September 14.
Hell or High Water: A remarkable snapshot
By Charles Bogle, 14 September 2016
Scottish director David Mackenzie’s ninth movie, Hell or High Water, is a Western-influenced buddy/chase movie that demonstrates a social conscience and features superb performances.
Miss Sharon Jones! Barbara Kopple’s documentary
By Kevin Martinez, 12 September 2016
Veteran documentarian Barbara Kopple has returned with a lively and inspiring film about soul singer Sharon Jones and her battle with pancreatic cancer.
Jason Bourne again
By Hiram Lee, 6 September 2016
The latest entry in the Bourne series of spy films finds the former CIA assassin taking on the agency in a “post-Snowden world.”
War Dogs: Cry havoc? Or what exactly?
By Kevin Martinez, 5 September 2016
Based on a true story about two young arms dealers who defrauded the US government out of millions, the film is a coarse yet oddly sanitized version of a little-known episode of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A film version of Philip Roth’s Indignation: Young lives overshadowed by war
By Joanne Laurier, 2 September 2016
The new movie, Indignation, is a relatively faithful adaptation of Philip Roth’s 2008 novel, which examines war, religion and repression in post-war America.
Comic actor Gene Wilder: 1933–2016
By James Brewer, 1 September 2016
Although his work in film ended more than 25 years ago, Wilder will be long remembered for the humor and humanity he displayed in films like Young Frankenstein.
Southside With You: An insufferable account of the Obamas’ first date
By Matthew MacEgan, 31 August 2016
This fictionalized account of the first date between Barack and Michelle Obama in 1989 presents a racialized view of society served up with a large side of banality.
The class essence of the Confederacy in the American Civil War
A further comment on Free State of Jones
By Douglas Lyons, 30 August 2016
In their attacks on the film, figures like Charles Blow of the New York Times are denigrating some of the noblest individuals in American history.
Anthropoid: A film looks at 1942 assassination of Nazi chief Reinhard Heydrich
By Fred Mazelis, 26 August 2016
The new movie remains on the level of a violent action film, avoiding a more probing look at the Holocaust.
Café Society: Woody Allen’s love letter to the wealthy and famous
By Joanne Laurier, 12 August 2016
The film, set in the 1930s, takes its title from legendary clubs in Manhattan that welcomed black and white artists and performers. Unfortunately, the film is the opposite of everything those clubs stood for.
Suicide Squad: The latest comic book film
By David Walsh, 10 August 2016
David Ayer’s film concerns a team of psychotics and criminals recruited by the US government as part of a top-secret program to combat terrorism.
Captain Fantastic: An anti-establishment superhero?
By Joanne Laurier, 30 July 2016
Writer-director Matt Ross’s film is a semi-anarchistic tale about a family’s “off-the-grid” existence in the Pacific Northwest.
Chasing Asylum: Exposing Australia’s brutal refugee-detention regime
By Richard Phillips, 29 July 2016
The feature-length documentary is a harrowing account of the systematic cruelty and de-humanisation of asylum-seekers in Australia’s offshore detention centres.
Documentary director Eva Orner discusses Chasing Asylum
By Richard Phillips, 29 July 2016
The filmmaker explained to the WSWS why she decided to lift the veil of secrecy on Australia’s offshore refugee detention centres.
Alexander Sokurov’s Francofonia: The Louvre during the Nazi occupation
By Dorota Niemitz, 27 July 2016
The film traces the history of the Louvre Museum’s art collection under conditions of war, while proposing a pessimistic view of human culture and its future.
Our Kind of Traitor: Going with the current
By Joanne Laurier, 21 July 2016
Our Kind of Traitor, a British spy thriller directed by Susanna White, is based on the 2010 novel of the same name by John le Carré, the veteran novelist.
Wiener-Dog: Todd Solondz continues to look critically at American life
By David Walsh, 20 July 2016
The new film comprises four stories, loosely linked by the presence of a “wiener-dog” (dachshund). Each has at least one or more satirical, telling moments or elements.
The life and career of Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami
By David Walsh, 14 July 2016
The Iranian director will be best remembered and long honored for the series of feature films, including documentaries, that he made between 1987 and 1997.
Michael Cimino, director of The Deer Hunter and Heaven’s Gate, dead at 77
By David Walsh, 7 July 2016
Cimino is best known as the director of The Deer Hunter (1978), which won numerous Academy Awards, and Heaven’s Gate (1980), which was denounced by leading critics, lost a great deal of money and severely damaged Cimino’s career.
Genius: “Just simply corny”
By David Walsh, 2 July 2016
British director Michael Grandage’s film is about American novelist Thomas Wolfe (Jude Law) and his famous editor, Maxwell Perkins (Colin Firth).
Charles Blow of the New York Times
The right-wing, racialist attacks on the film Free State of Jones
By David Walsh, 30 June 2016
Free State of Jones, about a white farmer in Mississippi who led an insurrection against the Confederacy from 1863 to 1865, has come under sharp attack from the “new right” of identity politics advocates.
Free State of Jones: Three cheers!
By Joanne Laurier, 28 June 2016
Gary Ross’s film is a fictional account of an intriguing, but little known chapter in American history.
Alf Sjöberg’s Miss Julie (1951) and G. W. Pabst’s The Threepenny Opera (1931): Films worth noting … and seeing
By Joanne Laurier, 23 June 2016
Swedish filmmaker Alf Sjöberg’s Miss Julie is based on the play by August Strindberg. Austrian filmmaker G.W. Pabst’s film The Threepenny Opera is an intricate movie version of the legendary Bertolt Brecht-Kurt Weill work.
Censored Voices: A snapshot in time reveals war crimes
By Fred Mazelis, 22 June 2016
An Israeli filmmaker has brought 50-year-old tape recordings about the Six-Day War and their implications to life on the screen.
“All the terrifying things all really happened”
Toyen: A film about the Czech surrealist painter and her times
By David Walsh, 18 June 2016
Czech director Jan Němec, who died in March 2016, made a film about the surrealist painter Toyen in 2005, which is now available. The film is intriguing and sometimes deeply moving.
The Nice Guys: Something, but not very much
(And, briefly, Terence Davies’ Sunset Song and Hany Abu-Assad’s The Idol.)
By David Walsh and Joanne Laurier, 17 June 2016
The Nice Guys is set in 1977 and follows the investigation into a disappearance, which turns out to be part of a broader conspiracy. Sunset Song and The Idol have recently opened in movie theaters in the US.
The Lobster: Relationships forced on—or forbidden—people
By David Walsh, 11 June 2016
In Yorgos Lanthimos’ film, individuals without a mate are sent to a “hotel” where they have 45 days to find a partner or be turned into an animal. Then, there are those who escape.
HBO’s All the Way: Lyndon B. Johnson and the civil rights movement
By Charles Bogle, 10 June 2016
HBO’s All the Way is a serious effort, devoid of contemporary identity politics, to portray a significant moment in American history.
Love & Friendship: An early Jane Austen work adapted
By Joanne Laurier, 8 June 2016
In England in 1790, Lady Susan Vernon, widowed and penniless, schemes to reverse her fortunes.
Sing Street from Ireland, A Bigger Splash from Italy: Neglected realities
By Joanne Laurier, 28 May 2016
John Carney’s Sing Street is a musical comedy-drama set in Dublin in the mid-1980s. Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino’s A Bigger Splash, based on a 1969 French thriller, takes its name from a painting by British artist David Hockney.
High-Rise: A film version of J.G. Ballard’s novel
By David Walsh, 27 May 2016
Like the novel, the film—set in the mid-1970s—begins with its central character calmly sitting on the balcony of his 25th floor apartment eating roast dog.
Cash Only: What interests contemporary filmmakers and what doesn’t
By David Walsh, 25 May 2016
Cash Only is an independent American film set in the Detroit area. The film takes place in the Albanian community.
Captain America: Civil War—A waste of resources, technology and human skill
By David Walsh, 23 May 2016
What are these performers doing in this film? Is there any major film actor at present who would say “No” to this sort of project?
San Francisco International Film Festival—Part 4
Maggie’s Plan, Frank & Lola, along with Dreyer’s Vampyr (1932)
By Joanne Laurier, 20 May 2016
Some not very good new films—and better old ones.
Money Monster: Who are the criminals?
By Joanne Laurier, 18 May 2016
Money Monster is the latest film to depict the consequences of the 2008 financial crash and the criminal manipulations of the financial elite.
San Francisco International Film Festival—Part 3
Radio Dreams, about Iranian Americans—and the problem of images without insight
By David Walsh, 17 May 2016
Radio Dreams is a pleasurable experience. Other films at the San Francisco festival––The Event, No Home Movie, Counting, Five Nights in Maine––fared less well.
An interview with Babak Jalali, director of Radio Dreams
By David Walsh, 17 May 2016
The WSWS spoke to Babak Jalali during the recent San Francisco International Film Festival.
San Francisco International Film Festival—Part 2
The Return, about released prisoners, and other social dramas (or comedies)
By Joanne Laurier, 13 May 2016
In a number of the films screened at the festival, their creators were evidently overwhelmed by the disintegrating social structures in some of the most impoverished parts of the world.
San Francisco International Film Festival—Part 1
Look at today’s filmmaking … then look at the world
By David Walsh, 11 May 2016
The recent San Francisco International Film Festival, in its 59th edition, screened some 175 films, including approximately 100 feature-length films, from 46 countries.
Everybody Wants Some!!—Richard Linklater goes to college
By Hiram Lee, 10 May 2016
Everybody Wants Some!! is the latest coming-of-age tale from the American independent film director.
Looking for Grace—a strangely cold story about a teenager leaving home
By John Harris, 9 May 2016
The movie centres on the efforts of a lower middle-class couple to find their runaway teenage daughter and only child.
Retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York
Are the films of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet a genuine alternative to contemporary filmmaking?
By David Walsh, 7 May 2016
The Museum of Modern Art in New York City, beginning May 6, is presenting a retrospective of the films of Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, the Franco-German filmmakers.
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