Nora Lee Mandel
Tomatometer-approved critic
Movies reviews only
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Other People's Children (2022) |
Reflecting her experiences when she was writing the script, Zlotowski expressively features a 40-year-old Parisienne facing infertility. A passionate affair with a hunk and fond relationship with his daughter are complexly viewed with the female gaze. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Mar 01, 2023
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Bella (2022) |
Informative, absorbing bio-doc about work on stage and off of dancer/choreographer Bella Lewitzky. With an amazing array of dance and archival clips, from early performances in '30s through her company’s final curtain call in '97, primary voice is hers. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Feb 16, 2023
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Shttl (2022) |
Debut French director Ady Walter brilliantly immerses the audience into what was once Galicia on June 21, 1941. The camera walks through a vivid crowd of pressures and antagonisms not usually seen in more typical schmaltzy remembrances of such shtetls. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Feb 01, 2023
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Where Life Begins (2022) |
Sets up a usual movie conflict in an unusual location with more visual contrast than emotional authenticity. Trying to add an atmosphere of sexual tension, there is a bit of suspense as to choices of Ultra-Orthodox young woman and hunky Italian farmer. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Jan 30, 2023
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March '68 (2022) |
Integrating archival footage into both sides of involving romantic story of a young couple drawn into political protests, Lang intensely builds up how antisemitism was fomented to make Jews scapegoats for the power plays within the Communist government. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Jan 26, 2023
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Alegría (2021) |
Lively story, through interactions and title character explicitly emphasizes the picturesque enclave of Melilla, in N'ern Morocco, is where people of three faiths get along. She has to make peace within her own Jewish family for a satisfying celebration. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Jan 23, 2023
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America (2022) |
Israeli writer/director Graizer creates a lush, tragic romantic triangle. Appealing characters’ colorful environs reflect their presents and their pasts that determine their fates. Sensitive layers keep the melodrama from overwhelming the affecting story - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Jan 23, 2023
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Charlotte (2021) |
Uses animation effectively to tell the dramatic story of German-Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon (1927 – 1943) to appeal to a wide audience of adults. Script emphasizes the romantic and emotional inspirations in her life, more than other interpretations. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Jan 19, 2023
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No Bears (2022) |
An effective, personalized allegory for the role of cinema within the Iranian theocratic, authoritarian regime and an incisive, yet humanistic indictment of oppression, from a traditional village on up. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Dec 24, 2022
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Call Jane (2022) |
Immediately relevant, the story becomes more about a conservative wife and mother’s personal awakening in 1968 than Chicago's Jane Collective working to provide abortions to diverse women. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Oct 26, 2022
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Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle (2021) |
The conflicting human interactions that shaped the commitment of the last Japanese soldier straggler of WW2. Flashbacks to his training regimen provide psychological rationales. Emotions are the most unpredictable factors. Left open is if he was a fool. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Oct 09, 2022
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Last Flight Home (2022) |
An intimate, cinema verité countdown, interspersed with home and career footage and photos, documentary is an inspiration and guide for any family facing the same decisions in the 10 states and D.C. that permit "End of Life Option", shown in California. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Oct 08, 2022
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Plan A (2021) |
The Paz’s suspenseful English-language fictionalized dramatization, aimed at a wide audience, has a mostly well-acted international cast, especially galvanic German actor Diehl as central fictional “Max” and fierce Dutch actress Hoeks as composite role. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Oct 03, 2022
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Four Winters: A Story of Jewish Partisan Resistance and Bravery in WWII (2020) |
Mintz does a great service in providing last testimony of Jewish partisans of the Holocaust, especially women. A key visual element are photographs that amazingly a woman partisan developed during the war. These testaments confront stereotypes of Jews. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Sep 15, 2022
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My Imaginary Country (2022) |
Guzmán captures the energy and dynamics of Chile’s 2019 protests with electrifying street footage. In comparisons to the coup of 1973 and decades under dictatorship, he finds new hope from these youth, women, and indigenous activists. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Sep 13, 2022
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Riotsville, USA (2022) |
Remarkably researched and pointedly juxtaposed archival broadcast and military footage forces a reckoning with racial strife from the 1960s to now. This documentary is especially essential for those first looking back at the 1960s. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Sep 13, 2022
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The Survivor (2021) |
Levinson focuses on producer/star Foster’s powerful performance, physically and the emotions from PTSD. But the women’s roles are particularly sensitive in showing situations during and after the Holocaust not usually seen in commercial American films. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Aug 25, 2022
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The New Greatness Case (2022) |
Amidst ghosts of Stalinism, a mother is radicalized by frightening Kafkesque entrapment of her teen daughter for attempting to "overthrow the Russian Fed." through the titular, non-existent conspiracy. A frightening look inside authoritarian “justice”. - FF2 Media
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| Posted Jul 16, 2022
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Freaks Out (2021) |
A phantasmagoria version of Rome in 1943 that crosses Fellini and Tarantino, and borrows from films such as "The Wizard of Oz", "Freaks", and "The Producers", with an unusually appealing Jewish female “superhero” in the fantasy realm. [Spoiler alert] - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Jul 16, 2022
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Attachment (2022) |
A "horror" film that's more supernatural, drawing on Jewish influences that combine folk traditions and humor, debut director Bier Gislason breezes by plot holes to twist around expectations about a Jewish mother and demon stereotypes. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Jul 16, 2022
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Karaoke (2022) |
Well-meaning in centering around a 60s Sephardic couple in a nice high-rise apartment whose relationship- is turned upside-down when they get too friendly with the new Penthouse resident. But this all gets dragged out slowly, and goes on way too long - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Jul 16, 2022
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My Name Is Sara (2019) |
Absorbing, realistically touching story of how a Jewish girl faced daily fear amidst Holocaust in Ukraine with amazing pluck and determination. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Jul 16, 2022
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Midwives (2022) |
Footage from five years with a Buddhist midwife and her Muslim Rohingya apprentice in the director's native Myanmar viscerally captures the rising ethnic tensions promulgated by the genocidal military. - FF2 Media
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| Posted May 24, 2022
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You Resemble Me (2021) |
Amer potently immerses the audience in the dysfunctional family’s dislocated lives in a poor neighborhood outside Paris, where Hasna’s childhood separations left her vulnerable to radicalization. - FF2 Media
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| Posted May 24, 2022
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Anaïs in Love (2021) |
Starts out as a tongue-in-cheek satire of French millennials rom coms. But just when you think the only reason to watch is the captivating performance of Demoustier as the fictional "Anais", the film takes an emotional turn with surprising substance. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Apr 26, 2022
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Babi Yar. Context (2021) |
Unique, extraordinary, and essential archival evidence on the dark shadow that Ukraines 20th century history casts over the country today, despite being a bit long, slow, and confusing. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Apr 02, 2022
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Beautiful City (2004) |
Intense universal story of love and death within societal strictures. Farhadi is observant of power of human emotions to let the story and characters unfold slowly like an onion. Each becomes more complex. (2006 review - Film Movement re-release 2022) - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Mar 12, 2022
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Rose (2021) |
Saada's lovely, lively first film warmly reflects her parents' Tunisian roots and her love of music from Yiddish and Maghreb cultures. Audience will cheer Fabian's progress. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Jan 28, 2022
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A Son (2019) |
Intense close-up on a Tunisian family at intersection of first world tech and capitalism with third world tradition and war in a desert that is frightening and beautiful. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Dec 27, 2021
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Betrayed (2020) |
Another outstanding reckoning with how Scandinavian countries dealt with Nazis in WW2. Several scenes are vivid demonstrations of the full scale collaboration of the title. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Dec 22, 2021
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Minyan (2020) |
Steel's 1st fiction feature after 2 involving documentaries, he is better at creating period mise en scènes than 3D people in them, a poignant story marred by stereotypes. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Oct 24, 2021
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Prism (2021) |
Questioning whether the camera can be trusted to see Black skin, three international directors explore technological vs. cultural biases, philosophical and practical ways. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Oct 24, 2021
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All About My Sisters (2021) |
Searingly intimate portrait of extended family, from farm to town, is a devastating look at how China's decades-long "One Child Policy" has led to three-generations of PTSD. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Oct 24, 2021
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Luzzu (2021) |
Beautiful looking and thoughtfully substantive, universal, yet all Malta, authentic to tradition, yet plugged into contemporary issues, fresh, yet steeped in cinema history. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Oct 24, 2021
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Bergman Island (2021) |
On the ironic locale for a Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman, films-within-films focus on emerging directors struggling to find their voice, without feminist conclusion. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Oct 12, 2021
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A Night of Knowing Nothing (2021) |
Fiction/non-fiction hybrid luminously captures revolutionary spirit of Indian film students, with visual and verbal insights into intersection of freedom, love and idealism. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Oct 09, 2021
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Hester Street (1975) |
Beautifully restored in 4K from 35mm original negative by Cohen Film Collection, with help of daughter of director Joan Micklin Silver. Even more vital and timeless now. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Oct 02, 2021
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Azor (2021) |
In a pointed social and political criticism, Fontana slyly stings the elites that benefited from the junta, showing them with the personification of their Swiss bank accounts. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Sep 20, 2021
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The Outsider (2021) |
Subtitled "The Battle To Build The 9/11 Museum", over 7 years of access to exhibit planning, narrowly focuses on Creative Director vs senior staff opinions, not outsiders. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Aug 20, 2021
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The Lost Leonardo (2021) |
Complex story of ostensible DaVinci painting and connoisseurs, art dealers, and collectors has been told in print. But is a thrilling, visual story with colorful characters. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Aug 19, 2021
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The Scars of Ali Boulala (2021) |
Inside look at results of irresponsible corporate sponsorship that sent unsupervised teens around the world to sell branded skateboards, with drugs and macho recklessness. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Aug 19, 2021
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The First Step (2021) |
Verité camerawork is involving at uneasy meetings of anti-addiction communities in White WV and Black/Latino L.A. Lack of legislation details makes the lobbying just frenzy. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Aug 19, 2021
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The Death of My Two Fathers (2021) |
A rambling memoir of director's complicated, blended, bi-racial, bi-national, bi-cultural alt-lifestyle family, with insights into impact of counter-culture on one Black man. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Aug 19, 2021
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Claydream (2021) |
A must for animation history fans! Answers almost all that you ever wondered about the rise and fall of "Claymation" - and its corporate re-birth as Laika Studios. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Aug 19, 2021
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Do Not Hesitate (2021) |
Fraught, taut story sets young soldiers into a Middle East desert. Fable-like, but morality tale is well-embodied, well-supported by the production design, and tense score. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Aug 19, 2021
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Italian Studies (2021) |
Pretentious, beautiful looking muddle...Articulate group of NYC street kids are appealing, but adult temptation attraction to one is borderline uncomfortable. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Aug 19, 2021
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Catch the Fair One (2021) |
Realism is deep in the atmosphere of a gritty noir about human trafficking...Once the violent story gets going, Kali Reis fills the screen like a major action hero avenger. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Aug 19, 2021
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Dating & New York (2021) |
Pleasantly thin distraction, , with a sweet musical theater framing, charming location sketches, and amusing New York City touches. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Aug 19, 2021
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No Man of God (2021) |
Ironic that a male FBI profiler is portrayed without sexual abuse of fictional female profilers. Emphasis is on agent's realization of how little separates him from Bundy. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Aug 19, 2021
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Ballad of a White Cow (2021) |
Gripping drama intersects two caught up in Iran's brusque legal system. Almost oppressively sad, tensions ratchet up from increasing social, economic, and family pressures. - Maven's Nest
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| Posted Aug 19, 2021
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