The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (2022) | Directed by Peter Baynton and Charlie Mackesy

 5/5

Peter Baynton and Charlie Mackesy’s The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is an absolutely lovely little short film and one of the best made for children in a very long time. The animation is stellar, made to look like a picture book come to life, complete with all the rough edges and stray lines. It’s remarkable how effectively the film weaves aphorisms and lessons into a simple fable, managing to make the whole experience engaging and utterly captivating from beginning to end. There are lessons and truths here that, while designed for children, we adults would do well to listen to some of the simplicity of the wisdom here – especially these lessons of kindness towards others. Everyone with a child in their life should have them watch this wonderful film about finding home, finding family, and loving and caring for the different parts of yourself.

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Stress Is Three (1968) | Directed by Carlos Saura

 4/5

Carlos Saura’s Stress Is Three continues the Spanish auteur’s interrogation of machismo and masculinity. The black-and-white cinematography perfectly suits the film’s tone – especially as we see begin to see more of Fernando’s subjective perspective on the world around him. Like so many of Saura’s films up to this point, we have older men with younger women (this is commented on throughout the film as being unusual), and this is one reason for Fernando’s insecurity within his marriage. The editing is fantastic – quick cuts intensify and fragment the action, further pushing the couple away from one another. It’s extremely compelling to watch the ways that the husband’s petty jealousy and insecurity end up pushing his wife further away from him – his attempts to control her, to spy on her, his certainty that she is being unfaithful ends up being what causes a major rift in their marriage. Once again, Saura ratchets up the tension with his editing rhythms (short bursts of aggression, constant attempts at one-upping each other) until the explosive ending. While it may not have as much of the rich symbolism as earlier Saura films, it’s still quite strong.

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Sneakers (1992) | Directed by Phil Alden Robinson

 4/5

Phil Alden Robinson’s Sneakers is a thoroughly charming, early-‘90s thriller – even if it does require a Herculean suspension of disbelief in order for the film’s anticlimactic finale to work (why do no men with guns come for them as they take their leisurely drive away from the villain’s lair?). But even with these flaws, it’s a film with great dialogue, an outstanding cast (where else do you get Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, Dan Aykroyd, River Phoenix, David Strathairn, Mary McDonnell, and Ben Kingsley?), and delightful chemistry between everyone onscreen. It follows all of the conventions of your standard heist film, but its ambition never exceeds its grasp, so it all remains a bit of a fun, pleasant lark. The filmmaking is fairly workmanlike and pedestrian, but that really isn’t much of a detriment in something so amiable and charming.

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Peppermint Frappe (1967) | Directed by Carlos Saura

 4.5/5

Carlos Saura’s Peppermint Frappe is another incisive and biting interrogation of masculinity. You can easily see the influence Vertigo had on the film (especially in the way references are woven throughout its fabric), but it’s refreshing to see Saura explore the ways that this impulse in men to shape and control the women in their lives is so incredibly destructive, toxic, and perverse. There’s also an exploration of privilege in Spanish society under Franco, as well as the entitlement wealthy men feel toward women’s bodies, luxuries, and indeed, anything they want. There are different levels to this privilege, so while our nominal protagonist might have power in one setting, the husband of the woman he loves wields much more power in others. The use of color throughout is striking, with gorgeous bursts of green and red in tight compositions that stick with you long after the film has ended. Saura also uses long sequence shots that encircle the characters, placing us in the viewpoint of the menacing, roving, and hungry eyes of the film’s men. There’s only one way this film could end, and Saura keeps ratcheting up the tension until we reach its inevitable, gruesome conclusion.

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Enola Holmes (2020) | Directed by Harry Bradbeer

 2/5

Harry Bradbeer’s Enola Holmes is an uneven mess of a film. Millie Bobby Brown shows the limits of her range as a performer – she’s a bit too earnest and stilted and the dialect never fully lands. Henry Cavill’s Sherlock Holmes is charming, but the rest of the cast are merely caricatured villains or antagonists for Enola to square off against. As soon as the plot kicks into gear and “the game is afoot,” it can be a thoroughly delightful and pleasantly entertaining diversion. But whenever it dips into its teenage romance subplot, the film turns tedious and plodding, finding itself bogged down by a milquetoast romantic interest and no chemistry between the performers. However, worse than this are the narrative digressions that take us away from the central mystery (or really, mysteries) of the film, such as the nearly twenty minutes spent at a boarding school that is completely incidental to the rest of the film. And when the resolution to one of the film’s major mysteries (what happened to Enola’s mother?) is handled so haphazardly, the film winds up ending on a completely unsatisfying note.

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The Treatment (2019) | Directed by Álvaro Carmona

 4.5/5

Álvaro Carmona’s The Treatment is an outstanding social satire about vanity, narcissism, and our callous indifference to human life. The performances are all pitch perfect – there isn’t a false note in the cast. The film is hilarious, the comic timing is so precise – a ruthless commentary about the things society has come to value over life and a basic care and concern for others. It’s an absolute treat to watch, even as it makes us squirm with recognition.

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Plastic Killer (2022) | Directed by José Pozo

 3/5

José Pozo’s Plastic Killer is a clever and witty little film that uses horror and thriller tropes to explore the dangers of plastic on society – as well as the extremes that so many of us take in our activism and pursuit of justice. The performances are all delightful – big and over-the-top – but they work in the context of this satire. There’s so much going on narratively within such a short runtime that the film’s message gets a bit muddled, but the filmmaking itself is strong and compelling.

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Almost Home (2022) | Directed by Nils Keller

 3.5/5

Nils Keller’s Almost Home is a beautifully produced sci-fi short with impressive thought and attention put into the world-building, never overwhelming the film but always there in the background. As a medically vulnerable person in this current pandemic, I appreciate that the film’s central dilemma is taken so seriously and with such nuance and honesty – in the midst of a new pandemic, should a medically vulnerable person risk their life or go back into isolation? This is a film that illustrates the deep heartbreak and sadness of continued isolation, of watching friends and family go on without you. It shows the real worry about how to keep safe if you don’t isolate. These are the real emotions and concerns that those of us with disabilities and medical vulnerabilities must continue navigate on a daily basis now that so many in our lives have decided that the pandemic is over. And it is so refreshing to see a film take these emotions and concerns seriously. The fight in the film’s third act – complete with zero gravity pushing and pulling between mother and son – seems overwrought and out-of-place in a film that is otherwise so grounded in the characters’ emotional experiences. However, this is still a wonderful and emotionally rich film that, at the very least, held deep resonances for me and left me feeling seen and known and heard in this time when disability and medical vulnerability are becoming more and more ignored and made invisible in society.

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The Hunt (1966) | Directed by Carlos Saura

 4/5

Content Warning: The film contains several extended scenes of animal cruelty.

Carlos Saura’s The Hunt is a brutal portrait of toxic masculinity and class privilege. Existing as stand-ins for the corruption and decadence at the heart of fascist Spain, it would be all too easy to make each of the four men in this hunting party carbon copies of each other, flattening them each into caricature. It’s impressive seeing the ways that Saura differentiates each of them, giving them all fully developed and richly drawn characters. The use of voiceover throughout is exceptional – by handing the voiceover off between the four primary characters, it helps us drill deeper into their petty grievances, their hopes and fears, their insecurities. And all of this ramps up the always escalating tension that runs throughout the film. The rabbit hunt is a brutal and a difficult scene, but the repetition of images and quick editing rhythms conveys a grotesquerie and a decadence, a stomach-churning disregard for life that had taken hold among the elite within Franco’s Spain. Whether the men are drinking, shooting for sport, looking through their magazines at pinup models, or leering at underage girls, we’re constantly presented with their avarice and greed. The gut-wrenching finale is explosive – the logical outcome of this unchecked sense of entitlement and arrogance. It may be a brutal film, but it’s incredibly honest.

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Nakam (2022) | Directed by Andreas Kessler

 4/5

Andreas Kessler’s Nakam is a gorgeously shot and beautifully performed short film that grips our attention from the very first frame. In exploring the difficult choices faced by Jewish resistance fighters during World War II, the film’s central dilemma is absolutely gut-wrenching. The father and son dynamic at the heart of the film is heartbreaking and painful, and while I would have like to see it developed more (especially in contrast to the boy’s relationship to other resistance fighter), it remains satisfying within the context of this short film.