German cinema spans from the expressionist shadows of the Weimar era to the New German Cinema of Fassbinder, Herzog and Wenders in the 1970s and 80s. Herzog alone covers extraordinary ground, from grand historical epics to documentaries like Lessons of Darkness, his haunting record of Kuwait's burning oil fields. See what Macca has made of German film below.
Rating: 3.0★
Whenever the names Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski come up in the same breath, the phrase "toxic relationship" practically hangs in the air like smoke. Their final collaboration together is a glaring reminder of why. I often find myself wondering what on earth kept drawing them back to
Rating: 2.0★
I must be missing the memo. Fallen Leaves has been hailed all over the place as some sort of triumphant return to form, a festival darling showered with praise, and I sat there watching it wondering what on earth everyone else was seeing that I wasn't. Strip away
Rating: 1.5★
There is a special kind of cynicism reserved for streaming cash-grabs, and John R. Leonetti's 2019 creature feature The Silence truly takes the biscuit. It is, without exaggeration, essentially a poor, straight-to-streaming tribute act to A Quiet Place. They even threw in a deaf child
Rating: 3.5★
It's genuinely rare to sit down with a piece of cinema that treats its native folklore with this level of unapologetic, mystical fidelity. Souleymane Cissé's Yeelen doesn't just borrow from Bambara mythology and dress it up for outside consumption. It pulls you entirely into
Rating: 3.5★
That artillery. Good grief, that artillery. Within the first few minutes of Edward Berger's 2022 adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front, the sound design alone is doing something almost physical to you. It doesn't rumble so much as detonate somewhere behind your eyes, and
Rating: 4.0★
There is a very specific, fascinating subgenre of cinema that blurs the line between documentary and performance, using real-life trauma as a vehicle for on-screen catharsis. I've sat through a fair few of these over the years. Think Salaam Cinema, or films like 1001 Frames, where
Rating: 2.5★
The cover art for Wim Wenders' 2018 documentary is genuinely quite cool. Striking, minimalist, it promises something profound and intimate about the life of the modern pontiff. But the moment you actually press play, that sleek packaging gives way to what is, without exaggeration, one of the most by-
Rating: 2.5★
There's a moment about halfway through Personal Shopper where Kristen Stewart's character sits alone on a train, exchanging cryptic text messages with an unknown sender, and the film genuinely crackles with unease. It's tense, it's modern, it's quietly terrifying in
Rating: 2.5★
Sometimes the best way into a director's work is through a side door. A documentary about Roberto Rossellini sent me digging back into his films, and that led me straight to Germany, Year Zero. I'm glad I watched it. I'm also not sure I&
Rating: 2.5★
That opening sequence is something special. We're dropped into a quaint fishing village, Marat heading out to sea with his wife while her younger sister watches from the docks. Then, without warning, a colossal sandstorm rolls in across the horizon, swallowing everything in its path. It's
Rating: 4.0★
Some films don't just stay with you. They haunt you. Jasmila Žbanić's Quo Vadis, Aida? is one of those films. From its opening scenes, you feel the dread settling in, and it never, ever lifts. This is one of the most gut-wrenching viewing experiences I&
Rating: 4.0★
What does it do to a person, being told before you can even speak that your death is already written? That question sits at the heart of Amjad Abu Alala's Sudanese debut, and it never lets go. From the moment a Sufi sheikh delivers his prophecy over a
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