>
Ela Bittencourt
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Murina (2021) |
Kusijanović articulates poignantly the heartbreak of familial love crudely bound up in the performance of power. - Reverse Shot
Read More
| Posted Mar 17, 2022
|
|
|
|
The Power of the Dog (2021) |
Campion handles such psychological denseness with virtuoso control, often whittling scenes to snippets of emotion and innuendo. - Hyperallergic
Read More
| Posted Dec 13, 2021
|
|
|
|
The Woman Who Ran (2019) |
More than any filmmaker of recent years, Hang-soo reminds his audience that such social performativity isn't without its perils. - Sight & Sound
Read More
| Posted Dec 05, 2021
|
|
|
|
What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? (2021) |
It's astounding how much fun Koberidze has with such a dire scenario. - Sight & Sound
Read More
| Posted Nov 13, 2021
|
|
|
|
Întregalde (2021) |
One need not have had any arduous alpine experience to appreciate the film's entertaining plot or Muntean's richly layered storytelling. - Reverse Shot
Read More
| Posted Oct 08, 2021
|
|
|
|
Unclenching the Fists (2021) |
The constant push-pull can at times seem like Kovalenko’s characters are wearing each other down, their lives one incessant wrestling match. However discomfiting, this wrangling is also riveting. - Reverse Shot
Read More
| Posted Oct 07, 2021
|
|
|
|
Never Gonna Snow Again (2020) |
Szumowska combines the social realism she's known for - marked by a dry, laconic tone - with a mystical plot. - Hyperallergic
Read More
| Posted Aug 03, 2021
|
|
|
|
Nina Wu (2019) |
In its desire to avoid cliches, Nina Wu skips over the more complex fallout of sexual trauma. - Hyperallergic
Read More
| Posted Aug 03, 2021
|
|
|
|
Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (2021) |
Radu Jude's latest meets and defies all and any expectations in a flurry of comedy and porn. - MUBI
Read More
| Posted May 17, 2021
|
|
|
|
Rocks (2019) |
A compassionate, finely observed portrait of a young woman's gradual breaking down, as the usual buffers, including brotherly love and friendships, strain under her crushing responsibility. - Sight & Sound
Read More
| Posted Feb 14, 2021
|
|
|
|
Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003) |
You'd never think a spacious, mostly empty movie theater could feel so tight. - Hyperallergic
Read More
| Posted Feb 08, 2021
|
|
|
|
Song Without a Name (2019) |
Its majestic, emotionally charged imagery, and stark vision of unredeemed humanity, are immensely engrossing. - Hyperallergic
Read More
| Posted Nov 17, 2020
|
|
|
|
Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974 (1974) |
While navigating the relatively new terrain of their breakup, Miyuki is also politically invested in challenging traditional conceptions of women's roles at home and in Japanese society. - cléo
Read More
| Posted May 18, 2020
|
|
|
|
Bacurau (2019) |
Mendonça and Dornelles's film is... an attempt to grapple with unspeakable, horrifying evil -- but an evil that must be understood in social and historical rather than biblical terms. - Harper's Magazine
Read More
| Posted May 02, 2020
|
|
|
|
Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema (2018) |
Extensively researched and passionately told, at its best, Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema is a jazzy, Whitmanian hymn in praise of collective female genius. - Hyperallergic
Read More
| Posted Feb 27, 2020
|
|
|
|
In a Lonely Place (1950) |
In a Lonely Place isn't so much a straightforward thriller as it is a poignant psychological study of a person and a milieu, veiled as an atmospheric noir. - Hyperallergic
Read More
| Posted Feb 25, 2020
|
|
|
|
Gun Crazy (1950) |
The film may have been a quaint display of American decency and small-town folksiness were it not for the electrifying and darker, more complex presence of Cummins. - Hyperallergic
Read More
| Posted Feb 25, 2020
|
|
|
|
Shirkers (2018) |
An irresistible mix of insouciance and precocious maturity. Much of its charm lies in Tan's ironic irreverence as the film's narrator. - Hyperallergic
Read More
| Posted Feb 21, 2020
|
|
|
|
Shakedown (2018) |
A thrilling and also valuable film. The audience must take the imaginative leap and accept the contradicting identities that Weinraub presents, without insisting that they must cancel out. - Hyperallergic
Read More
| Posted Feb 18, 2020
|
|
|
|
Spell Reel (2017) |
César poignantly captures the desire to free the image, or rather, to reactivate it by incorporating it into a broad historical narrative. - Hyperallergic
Read More
| Posted Feb 07, 2020
|
|
|
|
The Cave (2019) |
Acute sociological tension mingles with the physical and psychological terror of bombings and of the chemical attack. - Sight & Sound
Read More
| Posted Dec 03, 2019
|
|
|
|
Parasite (2019) |
Bong harnesses the torment that capitalist greed, deregulation, and gaping inequality have unleashed across the world, making Parasite's dystopian vision ring universally true. - Nylon
Read More
| Posted Oct 15, 2019
|
|
|
|
Saint Maud (2019) |
Saint Maud's conjuration of wild daylight visions and spiritual torments skilfully blurs the line between a possible medical condition and outright madness, while also slyly suggesting that the film's heroine may in fact be possessed. - Sight & Sound
Read More
| Posted Oct 02, 2019
|
|
|
|
Rojo (2018) |
Dario Grandinetti's riveting performance as the vaguely menacing yet bureaucratic Claudio is a reminder that repulsive or unfathomable characters can be as fascinating as likable ones. - Hyperallergic
Read More
| Posted Sep 26, 2019
|
|
|
|
The Edge of Democracy (2019) |
Engrossing... - NPR
Read More
| Posted Jun 20, 2019
|
|
|
|
Scary Mother (2017) |
Scary Mother proves delightfully off-kilter, the dead seriousness of the social setting and the family conflict pierced by humorous or absurdist moments. - Cinema Scope
Read More
| Posted Feb 14, 2019
|
|
|
|
Cold War (2018) |
Poland has seen more than its share of war, and of the art and cinema of exile. Pawel Pawlikowski's latest feature, Cold War, is a spirited albeit flawed entry in this category. - Film Comment Magazine
Read More
| Posted Jan 18, 2019
|
|
|
|
The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (1968) |
While the film is mostly focused on the music and the settings in which it was originally played, Anna Magdalena's voice guides us, providing the film's peculiar, illusive texture. - Hyperallergic
Read More
| Posted Nov 07, 2018
|
|
|
|
On Body and Soul (2017) |
There is a real tinge of sadness to On Body and Soul, which serves as a quaint allegory on dating in the age of Tinder: a hint that visiting mysterious strangers in our dreams is at times as close we get to intimacy. - Hyperallergic
Read More
| Posted Nov 07, 2018
|
|
|
|
Life and Nothing More (2017) |
Esparza's vision of motherhood, as a fortress whose foundations must hold even on the shakiest of grounds, pulls us into a soaring emotional tide, and keeps us entranced, marveling at Williams's talent and charm as a non-professional actor. - Hyperallergic
Read More
| Posted Nov 07, 2018
|
|
|
|
All These Sleepless Nights (2016) |
Throughout, what makes All These Sleepless Nights distinct, beyond the three protagonists philosophical, artistic musings and their charisma, is the camera's ability to convey the state of intoxication and the dreaminess of the nocturnal juvenilia. - Brooklyn Magazine
Read More
| Posted Aug 08, 2018
|
|
|
|
A Woman's Life (2016) |
The narrative is suffused with subtle yet piquant moral commentary. - Brooklyn Magazine
Read More
| Posted Aug 08, 2018
|
|
|
|
The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography (2016) |
Elsa Dorfman's work is ephemeral yet grand: using a giant 20" x 24" camera, that is now discontinued, Dorfman has produced some of the world's largest Polaroid images, showing that unwieldy technology does not need to be limiting when used imaginatively. - Frieze
Read More
| Posted Aug 08, 2018
|
|
|
|
The Death of Louis XIV (2016) |
In the final scenes,... the painterly mise-en-scene and cinematography - golden and ochre hews, Venetian reds, soft camera focus and the glowing whiteness of doctors' caftans, illumined by multiple light sources a la Vermeer - turn death into a feast. - Frieze
Read More
| Posted Aug 08, 2018
|
|
|
|
The Human Surge (2016) |
Williams sympathizes with his protagonists, though his film is too fluid and keen on catching the quirkiness of everyday speech and capturing languid moods to act as agitprop. - Frieze
Read More
| Posted Aug 08, 2018
|
|
|
|
La Camioneta: The Journey of One American School Bus (2012) |
Kendall makes his documentary memorable by resisting the urge to give crime center stage. Instead he focuses on the lives being quietly and doggedly built, even if at a great risk. - Guernica
Read More
| Posted Aug 08, 2018
|
|
|
|
The End of Fear (2018) |
What of art then? Is its thrill ever about aesthetics alone? This question is just one of many raised by Barbara Visser's smart, approachable, and entertaining documentary The End of Fear. - Reverse Shot
Read More
| Posted Aug 08, 2018
|
|
|
|
Ghost Hunting (2017) |
[It's] ultimate point [is] in the nuances -- the surplus of contradictory feelings, the dark humor, the contextualizing, the bodily language, and finally the words. All these make the film's final impact far more complex than one would assume. - Reverse Shot
Read More
| Posted Aug 08, 2018
|
|
|
|
Railway Sleepers (2017) |
The result is beguiling: a lullaby of sorts, it seduces with its rhythm, while every once in a while, a sudden, odd flash stirs us to alertness. - Reverse Shot
Read More
| Posted Aug 08, 2018
|
|
|
|
Uncertain Terms (2014) |
His latest film and fourth feature, Uncertain Terms, is perhaps Silver's most mature depiction of imperfect love to date. - Reverse Shot
Read More
| Posted Aug 08, 2018
|
|
|
|
Org (1979) |
A kaleidoscopic behemoth of a film. - Village Voice
Read More
| Posted Jul 23, 2018
|
|
|
|
Faust (2011) |
Sokurov's [Faust] has a distinctly human scale, yet he flattens the tale's meaning. - Reverse Shot
Read More
| Posted Apr 12, 2018
|
|
|
|
Post Mortem (2010) |
Post Mortem is only Larran's second feature, but he has already proven a distinct style-an unmistakable deadpan-and an interest in political and personal utopias. - Reverse Shot
Read More
| Posted Apr 12, 2018
|
|
|
|
Bitter Seeds (2011) |
Bitter Seeds is one of those rare films whose storytelling economy is matched by visual eloquence. - Guernica
Read More
| Posted Apr 12, 2018
|
|
|
|
Northeast (2011) |
Northeast never finds enough direction, or gathers enough oomph, to leave a lasting impression. - The L Magazine
Read More
| Posted Apr 12, 2018
|
|
|
|
Meet the Fokkens (2011) |
A prostitute's sexual freedom is a fiction; though this isn't news, the film confronts the issue with rawness and panache. - The L Magazine
Read More
| Posted Apr 12, 2018
|
|
|
|
Ricky on Leacock (2012) |
Weiner seems star-struck, and treats viewers to too many chats over home-cooked dinners and film-award ceremonies. - The L Magazine
Read More
| Posted Apr 12, 2018
|
|
|
|
Farewell, My Queen (2012) |
It might be that Marie still waits for a true incarnation, but Jacquot's pushing her beyond likeability is refreshing. - The L Magazine
Read More
| Posted Apr 12, 2018
|
|
|
|
The Woman in the Fifth (2011) |
It is a pity that Pawlikowski abandons his quietly haunting impressionism in the film's more literal second half. - The L Magazine
Read More
| Posted Apr 12, 2018
|
|
|
|
Gerhard Richter Painting (2011) |
Shows the process behind Richter's fancy free abstract paintings, but leaves the greater forces and themes that make him not only a famous or a rich painter but an important one unexamined. - The L Magazine
Read More
| Posted Apr 12, 2018
|