Life’s natural humour and the most profound thoughts and feelings captured in small, still moments and quiet exchanges are hallmarks of director Kore-eda Hirokazu, deftly shown in this story of a divorced father, scraping by as a private detective, who ends up stuck at his mother’s house along with his son and ex-wife as they sit out a typhoon.
An Oscar-winning documentary as brilliant and blistering as writer James Baldwin, around whom it is built, this tells the story of race in America, from the nation’s beginning to now. It contains a wealth of sharply chosen archival and recent footage, and Samuel L. Jackson narrates.
On a WA wheat farm in 1968, Ed (Xavier Samuel) and Paddy (Clarence Ryan) are best mates despite steep social inequalities, but new laws change their world. Roger Mason’s dreamlike score complements visuals that pay homage to Terrence Malick.
At first this seems like a straightforward Nat Geo-style portrait of endearing census-taker Amber, asking people about their happiness in Bhutan, famed for its Gross National Happiness. But the filmmakers have tapped into something much deeper and more affecting.
Banned from making movies in his home country, acclaimed Iranian director Jafar Panahi (The White Balloon) responded by mounting cameras within a taxicab and driving around Tehran for a day picking up passengers, supposedly at random. The result is both a love-letter to cinema and a revealing look at the country and its people.
Meditative, dreamlike, fantastical and mysterious, slyly funny and philosophical, surreal and free of plot as we know it, this film shows us the interior life of a calmly dying man visited by visions of his past, and past lives, and spirits from the beyond.
An immersive, sometimes heart-stopping spectacle that demands to be seen on the big screen, this documentary from the director of Gunda has no narration. It lets its incredible visuals and audio tell the story of water in all its forms on our planet.
