The less I explain, the better. Laetitia Colombani carefully constructs the film from two distinctive points of view, while counting on the audience to bring their memories of Audrey Tautou’s other characters with them. It’s very precisely constructed with clever twists that change our perception of what we’ve seen previously in the film. It’s almost like a more subjective version of Run, Lola, Run and I throroughly enjoyed He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not.

It’s a love letter to cinema from Olivier Assayas in a beautiful new transfer. While it may not be for everyone, if you’re a fan of the French New Wave, you are in for a treat.

Charlie Kaufman is a distinctive writer of quirky films that usually subvert formal structures and are built around narcissistic characters who lack self-awareness. To say that Synecdoche, New York takes places within Kaufman’s usual territory would be an understatement and in his directorial debut he takes it one step further in a messy, frustrating and fascinating film. Filled with strange images, characters and situations that sometimes make sense and sometimes don’t, it’s one of the most unique films that I’ve seen over the past year. I don’t think that it’s for everyone, but it is so dense and lovingly constructed that I think people will be talking about it for long time.
What kind of strange is it, you may ask? (he asked rhetorically). There are parts that are a bit dreamlike and surreal, but not in the way that David Lynch does it (with Lynch it seems more intuitive). There are parts that are like Jean-Luc Godard (but not as political or ecstatically cinematic). It’s quite neurotic and darkly funny and emotionally brutal at times.
It’s unsettling with complex performances from the cast who have to work within very strange parameters. I don’t think that I’ve seen a film that operates with such a strange sense of time and identity with days or years passing between cuts and the elements blurring the distinctions between places, times and people. Magical surreal images are sprinkled throughout the film with an absurd sense of humour that sometimes is poignant.
This is a unique vision and one that I need to revisit to start to piece together more.

The biographical drama is a well-worn genre and while it allows for important stories to be told, the conventions often will make the films a bit boring. Luckily with Gus Van Sant’s Milk he avoids the traps and with a wonderful performance by Sean Penn, the film blends a bit of documentary with solid performances and a bit of style to create a film that is powerful and entertaining. Establishing the context and touching on early and significant moments in Harvey Milk’s life, the film focuses mainly on Milk’s activist and political career in a clever balancing of the needs of the biographical story and a character study. The film is filled with an infectious energy and enthusiasm of those who surrounded Milk as played by the great cast. Van Sant handles with the film with a light touch and the two hours breeze by as we watch the brave and bold fighter for gay rights struggle and laugh and live.

In Julia Loktev’s Day Night Day Night we accompany a woman who is a suicide bomber as she prepares. With any politics stripped away and with a minimalist and intimate style, it’s an unsettling, tense and very human look at a character in an extreme situation. Shot an edited in a style that is simple, close and claustrophobic, it becomes increasingly gripping and compelling as the inevitable approaches.

Arnaud Desplechin’s Un Conte de Noël (A Christmas Story) is filled with characters and moments that are unforgettable. The characters aren’t neccessarily likable, but they are fascinating to watch. Desplechin weaves an intricate plot that pulls the characters together at Christmas. The matriarch played by Catherine Deneuve finds out that she is has cancer that could be fought with a transplant from someone in her family. But with his trademark bold style, it’s not a melodrama about fighting cancer, but about the tensions, battles and triumphs that happen within the family. It was a bit confusing at first, but as I kept watching the film more pieces start to fit together and I absolutely loved it.

Agnes Varda is a gifted and often overlooked filmmaker who was associated with the French New Wave and pioneered many of the techniques and styles later popularized by other members of the movement. In Le Bonheur (Happiness), she paints a strikingly beautiful story of a man who commits adultery. Every frame looks like a painting and she uses her trademark long shots and carefully-composed frames along with lovely music as the husband happily decides to cheat on his wife. It’s very jarring at times as it casually unfolds, but as it goes on the events that we’re seeing work completely at odds with the way they are presented. It’s unique and powerful, just like Agnes Varda.

Sometimes a film is like something that is cooked. You can have all of the proper ingredients and when it comes out of the oven it just didn’t work. With “How to Lose Friends & Alienate People”: there are some strong performances, funny moments and a great idea, but overall it just doesn’t work. I love Simon Pegg, but within the script there is a tendency to tone things down and as the film progresses it becomes more and more predictable. At times the film felt as if the production was rushed with some surprisly obvious technical flubs such as the boom in the shot or the distinctive shadow of the camera and a person beside the camera. For a film that was satirizing the world of celebrity and journalism, it pulls too many punches and falls into a romantic comedy formula that washes away the satirical edge.

Claire Denis has a gift for capturing small and beautiful details in her films and Friday Night is simply follows a woman as she leaves her apartment to move in with her boyfriend and drives across Paris during the gridlock of a transit strike when she meets a stranger and spends the evening with him. Telling the story elliptically and with a minimal amount of dialogue it’s a poetic sketch of a moment in time.

With a powerful performance by Melissa Leo at the centre of the film, Frozen River is an understated look at the choices a woman makes as she tries to make a better life for herself and her children. Set in the winter along the US and Canadian border, it’s the gripping story of how someone gets involved in smuggling people across the border. Shot on location with a documentary feel by Courtney Hunt, it’s a powerful film that presents realistic characters in an honest and brave way.