Drama is the spine of cinema, the genre where performance, script and direction have nowhere to hide. From the courtroom pressure of 12 Angry Men to the generational weight of The Godfather, it has always rewarded patience and attention. See what Macca makes of the best and worst of it below.
Rating: 1.0★
Sometimes you watch a film not because you want to, but because it's the only one available. That's the uncomfortable truth sitting at the heart of my experience with Dhanmalhi. For most international viewers, this 1993 Maldivian production directed by Reeko Moosa Manik isn't
Rating: 4.0★
There's a moment, fairly early in Monster, where you're absolutely certain you know what kind of film you're watching. You know who the villain is. You know the shape of the injustice. You are, in short, wrong. And the pleasure of Hirokazu Kore-eda&
Rating: 4.0★
There's a scene in Yi Yi where a man performs a simple card trick, and in the space of a few silent gestures, you feel the weight of everything he's never been able to say out loud. No dramatic music swell, no close-up designed to
Rating: 4.5★
There's a moment early in Mustang where five sisters play in the sea with their male classmates, laughing and splashing in the kind of uncomplicated, sun-drenched joy that feels utterly universal. By the time that same afternoon is used against them, recast as scandal and shame by
Rating: 2.0★
There's a moment in Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives where a man sits at a dinner table making polite conversation with the ghost of his dead wife and the glowing-eyed spirit of his long-lost son, and everyone just... gets on with it. No
Rating: 3.5★
There's a shot early in A Bittersweet Life where the camera simply holds on the protagonist, standing in the rain outside a restaurant, suit immaculate, face unreadable. Nothing is said. Nothing needs to be. Kim Jee-woon is already telling you everything about this man, his world, and
Macca's Must Watch
Where do you even begin? That's the question I kept asking myself as the credits rolled on All That's Left of You, and I still don't have a clean answer. What I do have is the feeling of something sitting heavy in my chest,
Rating: 3.5★
There's a particular kind of admiration you can have for a film that sits completely apart from actually enjoying it. That tension is exactly where I spent most of my time with Ritwik Ghatak's A River Called Titas, a film I watched as part of my
Rating: 3.0★
There's a peculiar pleasure in watching a film that you can tell has quietly influenced dozens of things you love, even when the film itself won't quite let you fully love it. That's the honest truth of my experience with Little by Little. Jean
Rating: 1.5★
There's a moment in Funny Games where one of the two young men tormenting a terrified family turns to the camera, looks you dead in the eye, and smirks. It's technically accomplished. It's also one of the most insufferable things I've ever
Rating: 4.0★
There's a moment fairly early in Sugar Cane Alley where you stop watching and start remembering, even if Martinique in the 1930s is about as far from your own life as it's possible to get. That's the quiet miracle Euzhan Palcy pulls off here:
Rating: 3.5★
Two sisters. One mosquito net. Something outside that wants in. That's all Moshari needs, and the fact that it pulls off what it pulls off in the space of a short film is genuinely impressive. I quite enjoyed this one, and I think if you give it ten
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