Zama (2018)

The great Argentinian filmmaker Lucrecia Martel returns to the screen after a far-too-long absence with her new Zama. Based on a 1956 novel by Antonio di Benedetto and set in an 18th century filled with flouncy shirts and three-cornered hat, it's not exactly my favorite genre. In fact, given that most costume movies are dry and serious, I did not pick up on the idea that this was supposed to be sort of absurdist. It's not exactly a comedy, per se, and not at all laugh-out-loud-funny, but certainly absurdist. Like Martel's earlier films, it's a challenge — certainly images of 18th century slavery are not easy to watch — and casual viewers will be quickly put off. read more...

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Fox and His Friends (1975)

Rainer Werner Fassbinder practically sweated films. Coming from the German New Wave of the 60s and 70s (which also included Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders), Fassbinder (1945-1982) poured out something like 40 films in his brief 37 years of life before he committed suicide in 1982 with a drug overdose. read more...

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• Originality ▶ Different or novel for its time

The Plagiarists (2020)

Although The Plagiarists looks like a purposely precocious indie comedy from the 1990s, it's actually something of an experimental film, slyly ridiculing the thing it's imitating. read more...

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• Originality ▶ Different or novel for its time

Battle in Heaven (2005)

Carlos Reygadas' second feature film -- his follow up to Japón -- is slightly more coherent, but no less challenging. A lumpy chauffeur, Marcos (Marcos Hernández) has worked for a wealthy family for years and now drives around the sexy, troublesome teenager, Ana (Anapola Mushkadiz). Marcos and his wife (Bertha Ruiz) find big trouble when they kidnap a baby and the baby dies. Marcos finds himself confiding in Ana, and receiving sexual favors in return. read more...

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Krisha (2016)

Thanksgiving is always a good time for families in movies to come together and fall apart, but few of them are as penetrating or as vivid as Trey Edward Shults's Krisha. The title character (pronounced "KREE-sha"), played by Shults's real-life aunt, drives up, parks, forgets something in her car, can't find the house, steps in a mud puddle, and arrives on the doorstep, sweaty and out of breath. Long, silvery hair, overweight, and draped in yards of flowing curtain-like garments, she's a mess, apparently recovering from alcoholism, or worse. Even her own son is wary of her presence. It's a tour-de-force performance, needy and unhinged, and barely holding it together. Other members of Shults's family also star, as sympathetic, exasperated versions of themselves, some of them colorful characters, some of them adding to the background chaos. Especially notable is Krisha's mother (and Shult's grandmother), 92 year-old Billie Fairchild, who helps push Krisha around the bend. Shults writes and directs, based on his own short film, and films in a kind of hybrid of long-take realism and nightmarish insanity, plus merry-go-round pinwheels, and car-crash slow-motion. This is boldly independent work, with more than enough painful, searing drama to leave a mark. read more...

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• Anxiety Level ▶ I like my stomach in knots
• Optimistic ▶ No thanks
• Originality ▶ Different or novel for its time