NEGATIVE SPACE

No One Knows About Persian Cats

"Fueled by frustration with the myriad prohibitions governing life in Iran, 'No One Knows About Persian Cats' strings an improvised tale around Tehran's underground indie-rock scene. Good-looking, shot-on-the-fly fifth feature by Bahman Ghobadi, which blends exciting musical performances with an undernourished narrative, is unlikely to be screened legally in the Islamic Republic but should enjoy a healthy fest life." (Alissa Simon, Variety)

"The film continues Ghobadi’s long-term interest in kinds of political resistance offered by music. It would make a good companion piece to Suroosh Alvi and Eddy Moretti’s recent Heavy Metal In Baghdad and Kevin Fritz’s Wasted Orient, about Chinese punks. Scrappy and overlong, it works better as a documentary than as a drama, though its ending is both unexpected and deeply moving." (Sukhdev Sandhu, Telegraph)

"Despite their frequent references to the authorities, and with posters for British rock groups like the Arctic Monkeys hanging on their wall, these musicians could be strumming and drumming in Anywhere, U.S.A., which is just one reason that this modest and finally very touching movie deserves to break out of the festival circuit." (Manohla Dargis, NY Times)

"A strikingly outspoken docudrama about underground music in Iran." (Deborah Young, THR)

City of Life and Death

"At times semi-impressionistic, at others gut-wrenchingly up close and personal, Nanjing massacre chronicle 'City of Life and Death' lives up to hype and expectations. Third feature by mainland Chinese writer-director Lu Chuan inhabits a strange space between art movie and the mainstream that Lu has made his own with his previous, very different pics and, despite having been lensed in widescreen black-and-white with an almost clinical detachment, packs emotional punches throughout." (Derek Elley, Variety)

Huacho

"A warm and touching family saga that elicits drama from the simplest of everyday realities, 'Huacho' is a highly promising debut from Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Fernandez Almendras. Never pandering to easy sentiments yet ultimately moving, the story follows 24 hours in the life of a provincial family coping with poverty in central Chile. Superbly lensed in sun-drenched Super 16 and edited with a structural harmony that weaves four stories into one seamless narrative, pic succeeds on a terrain previously farmed by Argentine realists Lucrecia Martel and Lisandro Alonso." (Jordan Mintzer, Variety)

"Chilean first feature Huacho looks at first as though it’s about to reiterate a familiar message: folks in the country have it tough, but roll up their sleeves and get on with it anyway. While this is pretty much the gist of Alejandro Fernández Almendras’s film, an unusual structure and some acute observations make this exercise in rural realism an involving, quietly rewarding experience." (Jonathan Romney, SD)

Air Doll

"Just a whiff of a story, 'Air Doll' is aesthetically so exquisitely packaged, and so tenderly directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda that the urban fairytale about an inflatable sex doll come to life gradually unfurls as an achingly beautiful meditation on loneliness and longing in the city, and a reflective look on a consumerist culture that encourages easy substitutes and disposability, even of humans and feelings." (Maggie Lee, THR)

"Japanese helmer Hirokazu Kore-eda's ongoing interest in love, loss and souls in limbo is stretched way too thin in 'Air Doll,' a beautifully lensed (by Taiwanese ace Mark Lee) and charmingly played (by South Korean icon Bae Du-na) modern fairy tale about an inflatable doll who takes on a life of her own." (Derek Elley, Variety)

Fortapasc

"Marco Risi's long-in-gestation "Fortapasc" strikingly re-creates the last four months in the life of Giancarlo Siani, a young journalist whacked by the Neapolitan mob in 1985 for digging too deeply into their alliances. Though any Camorra movie will now inevitably be compared with Matteo Garrone's very different 'Gomorrah,' Risi has crafted his personal best with this hard-hitting take on the murder of idealism. Title references John Ford's classic western, 'Fort Apache,' and the lawlessness of Mafia-ruled Naples, here brought to Scorsese-like life." (Jay Weissberg, Variety)

Ordinary People

"A noteworthy debut for writer-director Vladimir Perisic, Serbian war pic 'Ordinary People' is the latest adherent to French helmer Bruno Dumont's school of minimalist aesthetics and barbaric human behavior as it follows a squad of soldiers who spend a summer afternoon massacring hordes of unarmed men. Abstractly brutal take on Yugoslav conflict will likely turn off some viewers, while others will appreciate Perisic's unquestionable talent for finding beauty within bloodshed." (Jordan Mintzer, Variety)

Mother

"Like many of the films this year, it's a bit overlong but it really cements The Host director's reputation as a hot South Korean talent. To be honest, I don't know why this isn't in competition in place of Park Chan-Wook's Thirst: it's elegant, witty, tightly plotted and absolutely gripping. If Almodovar made a Hitchcock movie by way of Twin Peaks it would turn out like this. (Damon Wise, Empire)

"Bong Joon-ho channels Pedro Almodovar in his fourth feature, an operatic melodrama revolving around a knockout central performance from TV star Kim Hye-ja. Filled with the elegant compositions and mood-drenched cinematography which are becoming Bong’s specialty, Mother is a largely satisfying film which marks the director out as South Korea’s most versatile young auteur." (Mike Goodridge, SD)

"Less visionary than Bong's 2003 serial-killer mystery, Memories of Murder, but with the same skillfully natural evocation of a rural community hiding dark secrets, Mother will prove a tougher sell than Bong's hit monster movie, The Host, but should get a warm embrace from upscale auds, despite having been unjustly denied a competition berth at Cannes." (Derek Elley, Variety)

"Maternal instinct exerts fearsome force in Mother, when a woman finds that no one but herself can clear her son of murder. Bong Joon-ho's top opus zooms in on one character with smothering intensity to examine the primal quality of motherhood. At the same time, it is a superb murder mystery, with twists coming thick and fast yet always at the right moments." (Maggie Lee, THR)

"Mother starts as a cartoonish, almost slapstick comedy about a village idiot and his doting parent (ferociously played by South Korea's televisual embodiment of mature maternity, Kim Hye-Ja); turns glum and hectoring when the 27-year-old child is railroaded into prison for a local murder; then, in its last third, begins to twist and turn into a chilling psychological drama." (James Hoberman, Village Voice)

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Todd McCarthys Geheimtipps:

A Brand New Life (Ounie Lecomte)
The Father of My Children (Mia Hansen-Love)
Police, Adjective (Corneliu Porumboiu)
Mother (Bong Joon-ho)
Samson and Delilah (Warwick Thonrton)
Les Beaux gosses (Riad Sattouf)
The Wohlberg Family (Axelle Ropert)
Eastern Plays (Kamen Kalev)