From Spanish Snow Whites to animated snowmen, James Croot selects his cinematic highlights (and lowlight) of 2013.
Before Midnight
From Vienna to Paris to the southern Peloponnese. While remaining true to the contemporary, realistic dialogue, weighty themes and meditative mood that marked out the original Before Sunrise as one of the most memorable small movies of the 1990s, writer- director Richard Linklater and his two co-writing stars (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) have also ensured its concerns have grown up along with its original Generation X audience. Delving into more dramatic depths than previously, this third installment has Hawke and Delpy delivering two terrific performances as moods quickly change from playful to prickly and potentially poisonous. Roll on 2022.
Blancanieves
Snow White like you’ve never seen or heard before. Spanish writer-director Pablo Berger’s 1920s-set, Grimm-inspired fairytale is not only shot in crisp, gorgeous black and white, it’s also silent, save for a beautiful, haunting score by Alfonso de Villalonga. Nightmare-inducing and bewitching all at once, the vivid imagery it conjures makes it feel like the missing link between the fever-dream metaphors of Pedro Almodovar
