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A separated-sisters drama spanning Spain and India from underrated Spanish director Maria Ripoll A too-rare example of a Spanish film by a woman director,  Traces of Sandalwood  shows  Maria Ripoll  adding to a five-film run of features that celebrate the old-fashioned virtues of low-key, crowd-pleasing film making. This tale of an Indian woman seeking her long-lost sister — and of that sister’s subsequent quest for herself — is similarly solid but not spectacular, playing out predictably but enjoyably without ever delivering emotionally on the promise of its first 10 minutes. Calculated to please crowds in both producing territories,  Sandalwood  has a practically all-female crew, which could also generate interest from woman-themed festivals.   An adaptation of one strand of a novel of which the screenwriter, Anna Soler-Pont , was co-author, the gripping, grueling and grim opening sequence sets the standard high and achieves a documentary urg...

Venezuelan filmmaker Marcel Rasquin's  Hermano  is a well-meaning melodrama, equal parts heartfelt and contrived. Things start off somewhat queasily: En route to a birthday party with his mother, Graciela (Marcela Girón), young Julio (Eliú Armas) overhears the cries of a newborn baby emanating from a trash heap. The camera lingers unnecessarily on this image, revealing not only a creepy animatronic orphan, but filmmaking of the unimaginatively button-pushing sort, unable to develop or contextualize a scenario, frontloading easy drama at the expense of profundity. After a moment of hesitation upon discovering the abandoned tot, the two take him in as one of their own. Sixteen years later, Julio and his adopted brother, Daniel (Fernando Moreno), are competing for the championship match in a local soccer league, an opportunity that affords them the attention of a professional scout looking for "fresh legs." Julio's involvement with the local underworld sees to their fam...

Morgan Freeman and Diane Keaton play a semi-retired couple dipping their toes in the real-estate market at Cynthia Nixon’s behest in this New York-shot comedy-drama Morgan  Freeman and  Diane Keaton  play a long-married couple who put their  Brooklyn apartment on the market in  Ruth & Alex , an amiable comedy-drama that raises its curb appeal with fine casting of both the leads and the supports. Director  Richard  Loncraine ’s film needs the ensemble as an extra selling point since the script, adapted by  Charlie Peters  from  Jill  Ciment ’s novel  Heroic Measures  -- while structurally perfectly sound, even insightful at times -- has a tendency to go soft and self-congratulatory too often. Nevertheless, the reliably popular marquee-name stars will attract ticket buyers, especially in metropolitan areas and from the increasingly powerful mature demographic.   The eponymous Ruth (Keaton) and Alex (Freeman)...

Set in Shanghai in the 1940s, Ang Lee's Lust, Caution offers stunning visuals and a slowly unfolding story of graphically portrayed sex and radicalism, says Sukhdev Sandhu Ang Lee  likes to play a waiting game. His films, such as The Ice Storm and Brokeback Mountain, seem at first sight to be tranquil, lavish portraits of settled characters and stable societies. Only slowly do the lies and tensions and quiet seething that lie beneath their elegant surfaces start to emerge. Those unhurried beginnings run the risk of making audiences too fidgety and irritated even to care when the emotions finally combust. Lust, Caution, co-written with James Schamus, is a perfect and perfectly divisive example of Ang Lee's style of filmmaking. At 158 minutes, it lasts a very long time: there are lots of fabulous outfits, delightful domestic interiors, close-ups of emotionless faces. Some people will find this smouldering build-up perfectly wonderful; others though will wish that Le...

Shares 721 Comments 4A A Abderrahmane Sissako's passionate and visually beautiful film Timbuktu is a cry from the heart – with all the more moral authority for being expressed with such grace and such care. It is a portrait of the country of his childhood, the west African state of Mali, and in particular the city of Timbuktu, whose rich and humane traditions are being trampled, as Sissako sees it, by fanatical jihadis, often from outside the country. The story revolves around the death of a cow, affectionately named "GPS" – an appropriate symbol for a country that has lost its way.   These Islamist zealots are banning innocent pleasures such as music and football, and throwing themselves with cold relish into lashings and stonings for adultery. The new puritans appal the local imam, who has long upheld the existing traditions of a benevolent and tolerant Islam; they march into the mosque carrying arms. Besides being addicted to cruelty and bullying,...