Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World ★★★★★
Directed by Radu Jude.. Starring Ilinca Manolache, Nina Hoss, Uwe Boll. Limited release, 164 min
No other film this year will replicate the anxiety of modern existence quite like this day-in-the-life portrait of an overworked, production assistant, Angela (essayed with fierce commitment from Ilnca Manolache), as he hustles, around Bucharest casting actors for a work-accident film. The director daringly structures Angela’s travails by mirroring another Romanian film, Angela Moves On (1981), which follows a female taxi driver, also named Angela. For a film with a challenging runtime, rough aesthetic, and confrontational swagger, Do Not Expect finds a pleasing rhythm and mines much absurd comedy. Welcome to the sixth stage of despair: hilarity. Full review TB
Copa 71 ★★★★☆
Directed by James Erskine, Rachel Ramsay. Featuring Brandi Chastain, Nicole Mangas, Silvia Zaragoza, Carol Wilson, Elena Schiavo, David Goldblatt. Limited release, 89 min
Terrific documentary on the 1971 Women’s World Cup in Mexico. We hear plenty of sexist dismissals in the run-up to the event, but the final at the Azteca Stadium between Mexico and Denmark remains the best-attended women’s sporting event ever. Those unaware who ended up at that match will greatly enjoy the vigorous detailing of the tournament. There is, also, plenty of anger. Following the final, the soccer establishment closed ranks and shut down the teams. It took another 20 years for Fifa to recognise a Women’s World Cup. By which point, the spirited players interviewed here had been largely forgotten. DC
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Origin ★★★☆☆
Directed by Ava DuVernay. Starring Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Jon Bernthal, Niecy Nash-Betts, Vera Farmiga, Audra McDonald, Nick Offerman, Blair Underwood. 12A cert, limited release, 135 min
DuVernay takes the interesting decision to adapt Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste: The Lies That Divide Us — a treatise on how racism relates to other discriminations — as a drama starring Ellis-Taylor as the author. It is not a wholly successful exercise. Some metaphors are clunky. The dialogue is often too on the nose. But it has value power as both didactic treatise and drama of recovery. There is something reassuring being said here about the restorative power of work. And Ellis-Taylor creates a living, breathing character. Better something so odd and ambitious than something wan and half-hearted. Full review DC
High & Low: John Galliano ★★★☆☆
Directed by Kevin Macdonald, Featuring John Galliano. 15A cert, gen release, 117 min
The central plank of any fashion-themed documentary is talking heads hailing unbridled genius. Macdonald’s portrait of the former creative director of Givenchy and Dior can’t quite escape the trope. High & Low, however, is no puff piece. This is a film of intriguing, maddening loose ends and smoking guns. Did Galliano self-sabotage to escape the impossible corporate demands of 32 collections a year? It’s hard to say, for all the various suggestions. At the beginning of the film, Gallionao stares into the lens and proclaims: “I’m going to tell you everything,” and later proceeds to dodge the pertinent questions. TB
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