Up Close & Personal: Sadat Subverts the Spotlight in Stellar Melodrama
In her third directorial feature, No Good Men, which is part of a five film cycle with co-scribe Anwar Hashimi, Shahrbanoo Sadat creates something of an anomaly with a potent period piece which also exists on a rom-com continuum. The result is certainly a novelty in Afghan cinema, and moments of feminist centered levity feel heightened and empowered by the drastic political shifts about to consume its characters. Set in early 2021, on the eve of the Taliban’s return to power due to the withdrawal of US troops, the hard won respect of an outspoken, recently single camerawoman is about to be erased, though daily domestic issues make it difficult to glance too far ahead into the future.… Read the rest
Given its title, 
“The Zone wants to be respected. Otherwise it will punish.” Aleksandr Kayadonvsky’s line from Tarkovsky’s existential sci-fi classic Stalker (1979) comes to mind when viewing Sirat, the fourth and arguably most accessible feature from French-Spanish director Óliver Laxe, who once again returns to the metaphorical glories of a spiritual odyssey as previously explored in 2016’s Mimosas. But his latest is a pulsating, techno drenched mixture of mythological soul searching and contemporary intentional drug use all catalyzed by the search of a missing young woman. Layered, almost kaleidoscopic metaphors evolve through religious and politically minded themes, and the end result feels like a Gaspar Noe adaptation of 
