mervyn-verstellung's - Favourites List

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Claire Denis' first English-language feature sees a group of convicts assigned to a difficult space mission with the belief they will be freed if they are successful.

The film follows Monte (Robert Pattinson), one of the convicts aboard the mission a few years after its launch as he raises his daughter in complete isolation on the empty spacecraft as it heads towards it's final destination...

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"Jojo Rabbit" follows a lonely German boy Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis), whose world view is turned upside down when he discovers his mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) is hiding a Jewish girl Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) in their attic.

Aided by his wildly idiotic imaginary friend, Adolf Hitler (Taika Waititi), Jojo must confront his blind nationalism.

Using brain-implant technology, corporate assassin Tasya Vos (Andrea Riseborough) takes control of other people's bodies to execute high profile targets. As she sinks into her latest assignment Vos becomes trapped inside a mind that threatens to obliterate her.

The chocolate business has been good to Russian exile Hermann. He enjoys the good life with his beautiful wife Lydia. But Hermann is addicted to out-of-body experiences and when he meets a tramp on a business trip, he hatches an insane escape plan.

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In the darkest days of World War II, two partisans, Sotnikov (Boris Plotnikov) and Rybak (Vladimir Gostyukhin) set out for supplies to sustain their beleaguered outfit, braving the blizzard swept landscape of Nazi occupied Belorussia.

When they fall into the hands of German forces and come face-to-face with death, each must choose between martyrdom and betrayal, in a spiritual ordeal that lifts the film's earthy drama to the plane of religious allegory. With stark, visceral cinematography that pits blinding white snow against pitch black despair, 'The Ascent' finds poetry and transcendence in the harrowing trials of war.

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Willem Dafoe gives a mesmerising performance as legendary painter Vincent van Gogh in 'At Eternity's Gate'.

Covering his time in Arles and Auvers-sur-Oise, we find a complex, troubled soul who is seeking a new visual language while also struggling to make sense of himself and his connection to those around him, including friend and fellow artist Paul Gauguin (Oscar Isaac) and a confiding priest (Mads Mikkelsen).

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Nathalie (Isabelle Huppert) teaches philosophy at a high school in Paris and divides her remaining time between her family, former students and her eccentric mother.

But when her husband announces he is leaving her for another woman she finds a newfound freedom suddenly thrust upon her that is simultaneously liberating and disconcerting. Featuring a remarkable performance from Huppert, 'Things to Come' is an intelligent, poetic and naturalistic exploration of one woman's pursuit of contentment in the face of adversity.

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"Toni Erdmann" is a touching and remarkably funny portrait of an offbeat father-daughter relationship. Sandra Huller plays Ines, a highly-strung career woman whose life in corporate Bucharest takes a turn for the bizarre with the arrival of her estranged father Winfried (Peter Simonischek).

An incessant practical joker, Winfried attempts to reconnect with Ines by introducing the titular eccentric alter ego to catch her off guard, unaware of how capable she is of rising to the challenge... This breakout German comedy, which has been met with universal critical acclaim, is as humanist as it is absurdist - a film about the importance of celebrating the humour of the everyday.

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"Promising Young Woman" is a bold new vision that has ignited a debate starring Academy Award Nominee Carey Mulligan as 'Cassie': a wickedly smart but singularly focused woman, who in order to overcome events from her past lives a double life by night. Following an unexpected encounter.

Cassie is given the chance to right the wrongs of the past.

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Following the closure of a gypsum mine in the Nevada town she calls home, Fern (Frances McDormand) packs her van and sets off on the road in this "exquisite film" (Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal).

Exploring an unconventional life as a modern-day nomad, Fern discovers a resilience and resourcefulness unlike any she's known before long the way, she meets other nomads who become mentors in the vast landscape of the American West.

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"Bacurau" is a wild, genre-blending siege thriller from Kleber Mendonga Filho (Aquarius, Neighbouring Sounds) and Juliano Dornelles. Set in the remote back-country of Brazil, it follows a tight-knit village community's bloody and brutal fight for its own survival.

With unforgettable turns from Udo Kier and Sonia Braga, this is an audacious, original and spectacularly violent blend of neo-Western, revenge thriller and political allegory.

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On a secluded farm, a man is bedridden and fighting through his final breaths while his wife slowly succumbs to overwhelming grief. Siblings Louise and Michael return home to help, but it doesn't take long for them to see that something's wrong with - mom, something more than her heavy sorrow.

Gradually, they begin to suffer a darkness similar to their mother's, marked by waking nightmares and a growing sense that an evil entity is taking over their family.

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Fresh from an unceremonious dumping by her boyfriend of 10 years, Paula (Laetitia Dosch) finds herself wandering the streets of Paris - jobless, homeless, and single - who no idea of what life holds for her next.

At 31 years old, with little to show for it but a kidnapped cat and a sense of adventure, she sets out to reinvent herself - new job, new friends, new life - and finds that these things never do come easily.

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We all dream of being someone else...but for Claire (Najarra Townsend), that dream goes from an obsession to a living nightmare.

Hairstylist by day, serial killer and collector of scalps by night, Claire's lonely existence is thrown into turmoil when her regular client, Olivia (Brea Grant), asks her to style her hair for her wedding day. Increasingly fixated on Olivia's seemingly flawless life, Claire vows to lock up her scalp collection and change her ways for good - only to discover that repressing your deadly desires is easier said than done...

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Trapped in a violent, controlling relationship with a wealthy and brilliant scientist, Cecilia Kass (Elisabeth Moss) escapes in the dead of night and disappears into hiding. But when her abusive ex suddenly dies, Cecilia suspects his death was a hoax.

As a series of eerie coincidences turn lethal, threatening the lives of those she loves, Cecilia's sanity begins to unravel while she desperately tries to prove she is being hunted by someone nobody can see.