Drljaca’s sole concern in the conception of Krivinia seems to be for a distancing effect. His atmosphere is bizarre, straddling the line between mystery and realism in a way that never truly settles into a satisfying balance. The narrative, about a man searching for his friend who has supposedly committed war crimes, is almost of no importance at all: the film frequently circles around to a car conversation which at the end is heavily implied to not even be a conversation, it focuses on a bus crash in a small village in Serbia, and much of the middle of the movie is taken up by the main character’s life in Toronto. The friend is never found, the suggestion of ghosts is made, and there are numerous echoes to previous scenes that don’t seem to hold any intrinsic meaning.

Therefore, the only truly interesting aspect is the filmmaking itself, which does compensate a great deal for the relatively inert nature of the other aspects. It isn’t necessarily experimental (only the inexplicable insertion of some color bars into a landscape shot is startling) but it is undeniably effective. Kirivinia avoids close-ups, preferring either the handheld tracking shot from behind that follows the main character through the landscape or medium-to-long shots that definitively emphasize the environment and the figure rather than the character. There is almost no interiority to his personality, and he is played largely as a blank slate, but it works to a certain extent, matching his fruitless and frequently digressive journey. Aside from an inexplicably ominous score, Kirivinia remains solid on a technical level, and engrossing enough as a whole, though it offers little in the way of narrative engagement.

***1/2 (Excellent)

The title of Don’t Breathe works twofold: the first is a tidy encapsulation of the premise, that of a few young burglars evading a blind, psychopathic army veteran in his own home; the second is a summation of the strategy of the filmmakers, which is to throttle the viewer to within an inch of their life. It is unsparing in its relentless assault on the viewer, only releasing the tension in the very last two minutes or so, relying almost solely on ratcheting the suspense up to almost impossible levels in order to create an atmosphere of constant dread. With a tight premise, a particularly nasty frame with nothing on its mind but violence, and strong filmmaking in his arsenal, Fede Alvarez crafts what can be described simply as a thrill ride.

Don’t Breathe sums itself up in the opening shot, which oddly enough follows none of the aesthetic decisions that it follows for the rest of the film. It is a slow, meticulous zoom, moving from an aerial shot to a close-up of Rocky’s face as she is dragged through the streets by the Blind Man. The context only becomes clear late in the film, but the emphasis of the scene is on the visceral impact, the threat inherent in the abandoned neighborhood where the action of the film takes place. Afterwards, the introduction to the protagonists is simple but clean, unfussy in its portrayal of the trio of burglars and their motivations, especially for taking on such a dangerous job.

Once Don’t Breathe enters the claustrophobic house that defines almost all of its runtime, Alvarez efficiently introduces the two remaining components. First, the geography of the house itself; Alvarez uses a continuously roving Steadicam that does indeed make the ground and second floor as clearly mapped as possible, moving slowly up between floors and zooming down hallways. And second, the Blind Man in his natural habitat. Much of this is due to Lang’s fearsome performance, using his scarred face, his growling voice, and his hulking physicality to the maximum potential—his presence alone intimidates the intruders, and his brutal actions only heighten the danger. But what makes him so interesting is the signs of humanity (and thus weaknesses) that swirl beneath the gnarled surface: he falls asleep to home videos of his deceased daughter, his lack of sight isn’t fully compensated for by his other heightened senses, and he is prone to fits of rage that only give Rocky and her friends time to escape.

Lang’s characterization may loom largest in memory, but it does not obscure the stellar work that adds up to the melting pot of tension that is Don’t Breathe. Jane Levy, as Rocky, is a match for the Blind Man, with an astonishingly tenacious outlook that balances with her sheer terror. Alvarez uses mostly tight close-ups on the terrified expressions of the burglars as the film goes on, and the sharply detailed sound design remains one of the greatest keys to the tension, but he breaks with the tight mapping of the first two floors when the movie descends into the depraved basement of the Blind Man. There are various deliberately queasy developments that take place down there, but more significant is the confusing layout, even before the lights are turned out. The film’s most heart-stopping scene takes place in a grey, night-vision-like haze, as the Blind Man’s knowledge of his house comes to the fore. Even after the daylight rises, Alvarez keeps the tension up until the last moment possible, a cathartic release that truly feels earned. Don’t Breathe aims squarely for the viewer’s primal fears, throwing them into the head space of the terrified subjects and sustaining tension so well that it required me to unknot myself after the film was over.

***1/2 (Excellent)

Kubo and the Two Strings is, in an almost paradoxical move, a self-consciously magical film. Much attention—almost too much attention—is directed on the part of the filmmakers towards the powers of stories, placing a storyteller at its center and ultimately using it to propel and shape the adventures to come. In less sincere hands, or ones more focused on making a film specifically about the wonders of cinema, this concept would seem forced or unjustified, but in the hands of Laika, it is only one part of the joy that forms this labor of love, a thrilling, heartbreaking, and warm journey that feels utterly transporting.

The plot of Kubo and the Two Strings is purposefully mythic, framed (at least at the beginning) by the words that Kubo (a noble, perfectly young Art Parkinson), a young one-eyed boy living in feudal Japan with a magical skill of magically folding origami and a preternatural talent for his stringed shamisen, uses to begin his own stories. These stories, almost always following the same format of a great warrior named Hanzo and his quest, are revealed (in the first of many clever narrative choices) are revealed after the first telling to be handed down to him by his mother, who seems to only come to life when she tells said stories. It speaks to one of the most important ideas, that of inheritance and family, that permeates the film, and many echoes of Kubo’s parents (one of whom is Hanzo) show up in Kubo, sometimes commented on, sometimes not.

Eventually, as is inevitable, Kubo embarks on his quest, with only his origami, shamisen, and a wooden charm reincarnated by magic into Monkey (Charlize Theron, almost overflowing with warmth and sharp wit). In a particularly effective stroke, the filmmakers makes the goal of the quest the three pieces of magic armor already introduced in Kubo’s origami story while mixing in a very real abundance of unknowns; the glamours and heroics of adventure are swamped by the dangers and the threats. Here is where the most beautiful parts of Kubo and the Two Strings arise: the simple interactions of Monkey and Kubo and, a short time later, Beetle, a samurai trapped in a giant beetle-like shell (played by a beautifully dim-witted but stalwart Matthew McConaughey) are a joy to watch as their bond only strengthens. There are, thankfully, no conflicts between the trio—despite their temperamental differences, they all recognize the goal and work together with a great deal of composure; at least, as much as can be expected from such a motley group.

Kubo and the Two Strings is, of course, absolutely dazzling, utilizing a blend of 3-D stop-motion and CGI to craft an immersive world filled with caverns, endless oceans, and monsters of all types—each has their own allure, and all are immaculately detailed, just removed enough from a life-like look to be fantastical. Such a smooth look is understandably cause for mild concern, and perhaps adds fuel to the criticism that the plot is akin to that of a adventure video game, but the emphasis is placed equally on the action and the characters, as evidenced by a thrilling second-act battle between Monkey and one of the villainous Sisters (both voiced by a chilling, mocking Rooney Mara) that is upstaged by a stunning, absolutely heartbreaking tale told by Monkey, animated by Kubo’s origami. Kubo and the Two Strings might go slightly too far in resolving every last one of the mysteries inherent to the plot, and the ending might be too tidy and literal, but Laika never lets the magic get lost, and they remain resolute in crafting a gorgeous, moving, and genuine film that maintains its belief, without a scrap of doubt, in the power of stories.

* (Worthless)

The act of watching Suicide Squad can’t be described as anything except an experience. Even describing it in such formal, clinical terms is suitable for this utter travesty of a film, transporting in its complete failure to engage, to convince, or even to deliver a slightly satisfying two hours. But at the same time it is fascinating and quite often hilarious, albeit for the entirely wrong reasons, erasing the boundaries between coherence and incoherence as all the cast and crew flail about in their unsuccessful attempts to enliven a threadbare premise.

From the very start, set laughably to The Animals’ “The House of the Rising Sun”, it is clear that Ayer’s intent to be “subversive” has failed, falling back on rote strategies of popular music, no matter how obvious or ineffective, and jokey one-liners (particularly evident in interactions between Ike Barinholtz’s egregious prison guard character). No matter how Day-Glo and garish the aesthetic gets, or how jaggedly jolting the editing gets, it is at the end of the day a standard superhero movie, complete with a requisite happy and successful ending.

Where Suicide Squad shocks the most, however, is in its total lack of narrative momentum and logic. One of the obvious examples comes in the beginning, where Deadshot (Will Smith, fairly solid) and Harley Quinn (a too cutesy Margot Robbie) are both introduced—the former to the aforementioned Animals song and the latter to Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me”, the first and certainly not the last intensely on the nose cue—before being introduced again in the endless montage of introductions after the title card. This, of course, is where the film’s weaknesses glare most strongly, setting the tone with remarkable incompetence, as the perfect storm of awful music cues, generally unengaging acting, lack of momentum, and what could be charitably called a frat-boy aesthetic (filled with bright flashy things and an undercurrent of objectification, especially with Harley Quinn) are slapped together.

Suicide Squad hardly gets better after it finishes with its introductions, which manage to both be too frivolous and informative—quirks like Captain Boomerang’s (Jai Courtney) pink unicorn fetish serve no purpose other than one cheap laugh—and frustratingly pointless, as it serves no real purpose at the start of the narrative for the film and Amanda Waller (Viola Davis, in a wonderfully no-nonsense role) to spend so much time on these criminals. It lurches on, slapping together scenes that jump between locations and characters with abandon before adopting a semblance of a plot. But the threat posed by Enchantress (a committed but weak Cara Delevingne) never seems credible, too vague and broad (defined solely by mind-controlling humans into things with blobs for heads and a “machine” whose purpose is unresolved) to be truly connected to the villains-turned-reluctant heroes.

The most concrete reason I can think of why Suicide Squad never had a chance of working, after stripping away all of the inept filmmaking and garish choices, is that there are no stakes involved at all. Most of the central characters are commonly described in terms that seem ridiculously overpowered: Deadshot, El Diablo (a surprisingly sensitive Jay Hernandez), and Katana (Karen Fukuhara, completely solid) are all described at one point as being able to take out the whole squad by themselves, and thus the team seems profoundly overqualified for their task. A third attempt to inject pathos in a prolonged bar scene falls flat, and by the time of the climax, filled with Enchantress’s fight dance spasming, ludicrously idyllic fantasies, and a laugh-out-loud use of slow motion, Suicide Squad completely debases and buries itself. It is not, as some may say, the culmination of the excesses of the modern studio system, but it is a horrible, hilarious, utterly incompetent affair, a failure on every possible level.

*** (Good)

With a title like American Honey, Andrea Arnold (in her first film set and shot outside her native UK) seems to invite comparisons, both positive and negative, to the almost inordinate explorations of what it means to be “American”. But oddly enough, the film doesn’t necessarily choose to go down this road; it is a work of pure experience, showing the “how” in the day-to-day lives of the magazine-selling crew while delving little into the “who” or “why”. The highs and lows that the viewer experiences seem entirely of the moment, and indeed these are people that live in such a state, but they are filtered and diluted through an unceasingly relaxed and conflict-free lens.

American Honey has the faintest glimmers of a plot, insofar that it spends just a scant (in the context of the film) 15 minutes setting up the protagonist, Star (Sasha Lane), a Southern teen scavenger who joins the crew at the behest of Jake (Shia LaBeouf, in an alarmingly varied performance). They, and Krystal (a cool Riley Keough), the leader of the group, are the only clearly defined characters in the film—the rest of the crew are introduced by name in the first of many lengthy scenes set in the van that they use to travel around the country, but aside from their individual quirks, which include one of the members frequently exposing his genitals and another (played by Arielle Holmes) being obsessed with Darth Vader, the characters all function as different heads of a single entity. They are continuously shunted into the background in favor of a growing romance between Star and Jake, and the conflict this causes with the no-nonsense Krystal.

Lane’s spirited performance is analogous to that of Katie Jarvis’s in Fish Tank, but it seems both even more centered and less important than in that movie. American Honey is resolutely fixed on her—I can’t remember a single scene that takes place without her presence—but at the same time Arnold’s vision seems distracted, anxious to capture all parts of the life that this rag-tag group leads in their attempts to get rich and have a good time. Sometimes, this approach works, such as in a wonderful interlude where Star jumps into the car of three cowboys (one of whom is played by Will Patton) and participates in a barbecue, but oftentimes it doesn’t, as in the endless scenes where the group lethargically sings along to the on-the-nose songs coming from the stereo. The film isn’t repetitive per se, but it only rarely (in that interlude for example) attempts to break from the rhythm it sets; it is comfortable but rather enervating, as the film only prolongs itself more and more.

And yet, there is clearly a sincere intent behind Arnold’s images. Whether it be to create her own Americana or to offer a comment on and/or praise of the modern youth, the sun-kissed photography by Robbie Ryan (with some gorgeous shots of insects and skies) and the frequent quiet imposed by the more romantic scenes seem to signal that something is happening. Perhaps the surprisingly primal ending, complete with a kind of baptism for Star, and the end credits provide the clearest answer: they begin by describing American Honey as a film by the actors in the mag crew, in roughly alphabetical order (aside from positioning Lane first). Though at times the film may resort to a simplified view of its subjects, whether they be part of the crew or the various buyers they meet along the way, it never stoops to gawking. Arnold feels too much for her characters to do that, and while this empathy sacrifices meaning for surface emotion, American Honey feels sincere, if not necessarily compelling. It exists, with the occasional display of verve, and certainly for some more in tune with the crew’s wavelength, that may be enough. But as for myself, I remain distant.

What surprises most is the coherence of the medium-length film—there are no attempts to obscure the fact that this is a collection of music videos, and it is plainly shot in the most expedient fashion, but the recurrence of certain visual motifs and the vigor of the artists’ performances more than carries the ideas, and the music of course more than does enough. The visual styles are correspondingly different between the videos featuring Grimes, HANA, and the one featuring Aristophanes, though the camera swoops and frequent slow motion remain constant from Mac Boucher. It is really just a fun, occasionally highly inventive affair, and the fact that occasional beams of sun-kissed photography only helps. Grimes’ temperament is so perfectly suited, and the collective music so strong, that this modest collection ends up as even more than the sum of its parts.

The Distance seems to deal almost exclusively in the grotesque and the bizarre. Shot in numerous long shots, the environment of what is supposedly Siberia appears alien, mixing in natural woods with towering abandoned warehouses and black plains that seem to stretch on for miles. But Caballero is more than willing to double down on this feeling, throwing in a trio of telepathic dwarfs, a mutant guard, a performance artist with a mud-caked face, a poetic bucket, and even more almost irrelevant aspects to the plot, which concerns a vaguely defined heist on said warehouse. But everything else is even less defined, and each scene feels like an incremental build towards a sort of anti-climax. Still, the craftsmanship (especially the scraping sound design) and general feeling is something to behold and meditate on.

Perhaps inevitably, the opening minutes of Los Sures are its strongest. It begins with a dizzying, sharply edited montage covering practically the whole breadth of the Puerto Rican South Williamsburg neighborhood, accompanied by narration from several unidentified people. It certainly isn’t abstract, but there is an irresistible vigor to the sequence—it and the short interludes that are sprinkled throughout the film are by far the most interesting aspects. In comparison, the bulk of the documentary is taken up by comparatively uninteresting “standard” personal testimonies, following a handful of people intending to represent the community. However, the only aspect that truly distinguishes them is their social class, as their personalities and struggle to survive all take up a similar tenor. Even more unfortunately, the film becomes more and more like a political screed in its interview of the featured social worker in the final section. But throughout, the verve and intimacy of the film remains, and though Los Sures could have gone much, much further in its representation of this formerly vibrant community, it is valuable nonetheless.

*** (Good)

If there is one feeling that Fish Tank cannot be accused of lacking, it is immediacy. From the opening, Andrea Arnold makes it clear that the film will focus entirely on the volatile, forceful character of Mia (Katie Jarvis), following her relentlessly as she argues on the phone, head-butts another girl, and tries to free a horse in rapid succession. Throughout, Robbie Ryan’s camera follows her, the consistent handheld sometimes breaks into incomprehensibility as it runs to keep up with her youthful vigor. The effect, especially in the opening, is almost punishing—the film operates with zero degree of remove, rejecting any sense of commentary towards its characters in favor of representing them as they are, sometimes in an admittedly worrying way. Mia’s mother and especially her sister are rather ghastly characters, even more volatile without much to offset their excessive vulgarity.

For all of the excessive volatility of Mia’s character, Fish Tank works best when it focuses on her and, a bit later in the film, Conor (Michael Fassbender). Much of this is due to Jarvis’s performance, which somehow exceeds Arnold’s fervor in portraying the realism of her character’s situation. Mia is only 15 years older, but Jarvis seemingly plays her as someone of wildly varying ages depending on her situation: sometimes cocky, sometimes aggressive, sometimes withdrawn, but always visibly energetic. Before Conor arrives, she carries the movie, especially in the scenes where she practices her dancing. It is her passion, and if she is not especially good, she puts her heart into it, as she does with most of her interactions.

This vigor catches the attention of Conor, and Fish Tank almost seems to become a different film after his introduction. The other characters are still there, and there is still plenty of immediacy to go around, but Fassbender introduces a much-needed injection of easygoingness (the continual use of Bobby Womack’s cover of “California Dreamin'” certainly helps), and even the camera seems to stabilize, as if he serves as an anchor to Mia. The situations become much more stable, and the movie slowly builds to the inevitable between Mia and Conor, shot mostly in a relatively long shot and with true tenderness.

Unfortunately, the film almost completely loses itself completely afterwards, elongating the day before Mia’s dancing audition into a rather enervating half-hour where Mia’s actions become even less comprehensible and desparate. Much of the sequence falls back into the rut of just following Mia as she runs, and even the resolution feels inert; nothing has changed for Mia, and it feels like a means to an end. The film does regain its footing after that, offering resolutions in sharp succession, especially a rather well-considered one with Conor.

The very ending of the film comes somewhat out of the blue, but it feels almost like a sort of redemption or a fresh start for Mia. Her situation is as chaotic as ever, but there is a clear sense of some sort of change; whether it be for good or ill is undetermined. Fish Tank is unfailing in its depiction of a certain mindset, but despite considerable detriments resulting from this approach during the movie, it certainly lingers in the mind.

Jodie Mack’s short operates almost entirely in a state of playfulness. From the opening live action footage, cut as rhythmically as the animation, to the glorious prismatic abstractions that sparkle throughout the second half, it is unmistakably joyous, delighting in the trinkets that at first seem trivial, then ominous (in startling close-ups against a black back-drop), then creators of light as they gradually recede. It is distinctly programmatic, but never predictable (especially in the middle section that mixes the colored flares with hazy shots of a lake), and throughout the bells tinkle insistently.