FILMS from AFAR

The Shadow of the Sun (Sombra del Sol), Venezuela’s submission for this year’s International Feature Film Oscar, is a heartwarming crowd-pleaser featuring stellar lead performances from Carlos Manuel Gonzalez and Anyelo Lopez. The two play somewhat unlikely brothers looking for a way out of their stifling small-town lives. The film stumbles in a couple of key places, but it brings to life a cast of compelling characters and paints a moving portrait of the difficult realities of contemporary life in Venezuela. Giving this film the platform of an Oscar run could provide its talents, especially star Gonzalez, with a deserved international stage. It could also earn the film comparisons with the Oscar-winning Coda (a remake of the French film La Famille Bélier). The press materials highlight that the making of this film created nearly 200 jobs in Venezuela and employed six deaf actors among its cast members. Read the full review at AWFJ.org Image courtesy of 42 West

This totally unique and sometimes cringe-worthy documentary feels overly self-involved at first, but it eventually gets around to some powerful messages. You Were My First Boyfriend co-director, subject, and star Cecilia Aldarondo is an affable screen presence. She makes herself fully vulnerable as she confronts her own demons on screen, even if at times those demons can feel a little aggrandized in her memories. You can't help but wonder, for example, if giving quite so much weight to the mean girls of high school, dedicating them decades of reflection and resentment, might also be giving them way more power than they deserve. But just when you think the film is going to wallow in self-analysis or only invite commiseration without further contemplation, Aldarondo throws a curveball that rationalizes why making peace with the past is so important -- to her and to others. One striking scene of juvenile cruelty, reenacted by actors and witnessed tearily by the now-adult victim, conveys the emotional trauma childhood experiences can potentially inflict. A former friend's death reminds us that our time is finite. The entire conceit of the film is fascinating, and its methods are more than a little uncomfortable. You're not sure what you're watching for a good chunk of the 97 minutes. Aldarondo refers to her quest as an "emotional exorcism." A teen actor calls it a "pretty elaborate version of psychotherapy." Aldarondo stars in reenactments of her own high school memories, scenes which include her dancing and making out with teen boys. (These would surely raise more eyebrows if the genders were reversed.) She sits down with her first crush, now a bald middle-aged man who barely remembers her, and reads him a poem she wrote him as a teen. She continually questions why she's even making this film in behind-the-scenes cuts that add yet another layer to themes of memory, reflection, and personal growth. Though the movie doesn't directly address larger questions of, for example, a generational comparison of self-awareness among teens or the construction of high school identities pre-social media, it certainly points toward them. There's a lot of food for thought here, and this documentary's messages will likely resonate with many viewers. Read the full review on Common Sense Media. Images courtesy of Max.

This professionally-compiled, first-hand analysis of Stallone's career might contain some new insights for Rocky and Rambo fans, but it falls short of painting a full portrait of the man himself. That's because in Sly, Stallone seems to have kept some topics -- namely, his wife and children -- largely off the table. Perhaps that's reflective of reality, as the last 15 minutes of the film suggest when Stallone starts talking about how much he missed out on his family life to pursue his career, concluding that professional success ultimately means nothing without the love of his family. His son's tragically young death is memorialized but goes unremarked by Stallone, as do reports of a near-divorce. Other than one archived sound bite, his wife and daughters make just one, shadowy appearance in this documentary. All the other commentators, besides Rocky costar Talia Shire, are men. Instead, the film builds a case that Stallone's personality and motivation to succeed arose from the emotional and physical "dents" of growing up with an abusive father and a largely absentee mother. Stallone opens up a lot aboutthat difficult relationship, and he discusses at length how it informed his writing and acting over the years. He narrates his own career chronology, offering fascinating insights into the significance and inspiration of specific scenes from his films and various career choices over the years. (As the film's evocative poster suggests, Rockylooms large.) His main messages seem to be, like Rocky, to keep getting up when life knocks you down, to not get complacent, and to prioritize what really matters -- potentially helpful reminders for some viewers. Sly's intelligent commentary and self-awareness contrast with his somewhat oafish action-hero profile, and the documentary keeps an engaging pace that stays interesting throughout. Review originally ran on CommonSenseMedia. Images courtesy of Netflix.

This lovely story of friendship and a search for identity and meaning is Singapore’s nominee to the International Feature Film Oscar. That is where director Anthony Chen is originally from, but he filmed The Breaking Ice (Ran Dong) in northern China near the Korean border. The borderland setting plays a metaphorical role for its three lead characters, young people all feeling adrift and unsatisfied in a city not their own. And the frigid temperatures of the snowy location adds to the film’s bluish mood, an iciness the trio only just start to melt before the movie ends. Full review at AWFJ.org Image courtesy of Rediance

Capitalizing on Spanish artifacts with intrinsically unsettling possibilities, like Catholicism and the country's Civil War, this film brings the creeps without really proposing deeper meaning. Sure, atrocities in the civil war a decade earlier make up part of the backstory behind the apparitions and frightful events in a convent in 1940s Spain, but Sister Death is more concerned with style than substance. It's also built around a character from director Paco Plaza's previous cult hit, Veronica. Stylish it is (starting with its fabulous poster), with notable use of chiaroscuro, Catholic iconography, and chilling scenes of characters (including children and nuns) experiencing fear, torture, and death. It would be hard to enter a confessional booth very soon after watching this film. Sister Death plays more interestingly as a mystery than straight horror, which might disappoint some genre fans. Actress Bedmar also makes a compelling feature debut, but this is a film that won't likely linger in the subconscious long after the end credits roll. Full review originally ran on CommonSenseMedia. Images courtesy of Netflix.

This film's star-studded cast and storyline ripped from headlines will make it a draw for audiences, who will find a well-acted but uneven and flawed film. The morality tale that is Pain Hustlers shifts tones abruptly in its third act, where greedy and unethical characters get their comeuppance. We're supposed to feel bad for main character Liza, a loving single mom worn down by the indignities of poverty and seemingly the only fentanyl hustler with a conscience. And while we might empathize with the depiction of her personal circumstances, it's hard to extend that to her work, and this ultimately weakens the film's arc and intended pay-off. The script and direction get so caught up in building their manic corporate success story that they all but ignore the human cost at first, as if there weren't a crisis beyond this particular drug. The actors are all doing good work, especially American-accented Blunt. Evans and García are appropriately sleazy, and the secondary cast is memorable (led by O'Hara, Jay Duplass as the jealous coworker, Coleman and Brian d'Arcy James as a corrupt doctor). But ultimately, the tragic reality undermines the entertainment value of this movie. Full review published on CommonSenseMedia. Images courtesy of Netflix.

A love letter to the Brazilian city of Recife as well as to cinemas and urban centers of a bygone era, Pictures of Ghosts is an intelligent documentary with relatively limited audience appeal. Brazil’s sensible nominee to the International Feature Film Oscar, it premiered in Special Screenings at Cannes and offers an evocative exploration of the nation’s own cinema history and golden age of movie theaters. Though some of its themes could be applied to cities all over the world, this documentary is likely to hold the most interest for local and cinephile audiences. Director Kleber Mendonça Filho calls the film his own “personal album,” and it is indeed filled with footage and still images from his own life and previous movies. He also weaves in a significant amount of archive footage, moving back and forth between time periods, and between fiction and reality. This seems to symbolize one of the themes of the documentary, how life and cinema interact and inform each other, themes he touches on repeatedly in his gentle voiceover narration, creating his own oral history. Read the full review at AWFJ.org Image courtesy of Grasshopper Film.

Thunder (Foudre), Switzerland’s official submission to this year’s International Feature Film Oscar, is an enigmatic and beautifully filmed period piece that could entice viewers (and the Academy) with its mixed-up tale of sexual desire and religious faith. Director Carmen Jaquier and cinematographer Marin Atlan revel in the beauty of the Swiss Alps, and setting the film in 1900 allows for a paring down of visual distractions to just the countryside, the people and spectacular nature. The two also play extensively with light and dark in this film, trading off between brightly lit daytime scenes and pitch-black nighttime scenes. Occasionally the sparks of a fire or the golden light of a candle or lantern will light up a character’s face, surrounded otherwise by darkness. The contrast of light and dark feel symbolic of the way the austere and punishing religion of the time and place work to snuff out life, joy and vitality. Read the full review at AWFJ.org. Image courtesy of Dekanalog.

Warning before reading: this offbeat and uneven romcom is better watched without knowing anything about its characters or storyline before going in. That's because If You Were the Last throws a curveball -- for its characters as much as its audience -- at around the one-hour mark, and the latter act feels like a completely different movie than the first two-thirds. The characters are stuck on a spaceship that's made to look like a ‘70s ranch house, with orange-and-blue décor, 8-track-like music and video systems, and early Nintendo-style rocket machinery. When we see the spaceship from the outside, it's a stop-motion cardboard shuttle circling cut-out, hand-painted planets. The intentionally quirky setting tells us not to take the characters' predicament too seriously. So long as we do that, we can focus on the sweet emotional connection and fast-paced banter between Chao and Mackie, both charismatic actors. It's all a little odd but entertaining enough that it works. We go along with a couple of the more dramatic scenes on the spaceship because they're anomalies rather than a general tone. The problem (spoiler alert) is that the tone switches when the pair get off the ship, and the film becomes a more conventional, and much less interesting, tale. The "real world" is too real, and the additional characters feel forced. Yes, that parallels the characters' feelings and makes for a symbolic closing on the page, but it doesn't add up on the screen. Maybe the spaceship was all just a metaphor? Are Adam and Jane a kind of Adam and Eve? Either way, the disbelief we were asked to sustain vanishes, and unfortunately so does most of the film's charm. Full review available on Common Sense Media. Images courtesy of Peacock.

Tunisia’s official entry for the International Film Feature film Oscar, Four Daughters (Les Filles d’Olfa) is a deeply emotional story told in captivating fashion by combining real people and actors in an unusual blend of reenactments and conversations. It won a Golden Eye award for Best Documentary at Cannes and has traveled to other top international film festivals. The film deserves a wider berth than the festival and arthouse circuit, but it could be a hard sell. That’s a shame, though, because it’s a surprisingly engaging story with a memorable cast of charismatic characters and a relevance beyond just its subjects’ lives. Director Kaouther Ben Hania has experimented with combining actors and real people to tell the story of one family. Read the full review on AWFJ.org. Image courtesy of Kino Lorber.

Un Amor, director Isabel Coixet’s latest drama playing in competition at the San Sebastián International Film Festival 2023 and based on a best-selling novel by Sara Mesa, is a nuanced and emotional film driven by a powerful lead performance from Spanish star Laia Costa. The film is getting a lot of attention for its portrayal of female sexuality, but its themes go much deeper. Read the review at AWFJ.org. Image courtesy of SSIFF

The Enchanted (original title in Catalan, Els Encantats) features ubiquitous Spanish actress Laia Costa in a story with themes of motherhood, family, identity and adulthood. It is screening as part of the Made in Spain section at this week’s San Sebastián International Film Festival (Sept 22-30). The film picked up a Best Script prize at Spain’s Málaga Film Festival last March. Award selections are always a balance for juries, and Costa had already won a best actress Goya Award (Spain’s Oscar equivalent) earlier in the year for Lullaby (Cinco Lobitos). The film was also competing against another with some similarities, 20,000 Species of Bees, which won best Spanish film and supporting actress in Málaga. Nonetheless, it’s the acting and direction that really stand out in Enchanted. Read the full review at AWFJ.org. Photo courtesy SSIFF.