\n<\/p>\n
Stream it on Netflix<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hard-core pornography, international drug mafias and a doctoral candidate\u2019s literary explorations of critical gender theory: True to its title, this dark comedy<\/a>, adapted from a novel by Juan Pablo Villalobos, involves such a bizarre mishmash of references and tones that it stretches plausibility \u2014 albeit to wonderfully entertaining ends.<\/p>\n The madness begins when Juan Pablo, a student in Mexico, is accepted into a Ph.D. program in Barcelona. After an unexpected call from his troublesome cousin, things take a shocking and bloody turn. Juan Pablo is still on the path to a Ph.D., but now at the mercy of a murderous gangster. He is made to follow a series of strange instructions \u2014 including changing thesis topics and attempting an affair with a lesbian classmate \u2014 whose rationale remains a mystery to our unfortunate hero (and to the viewers) until the very end.<\/p>\n A modern, noir-infused twist on Surrealist literature and cinema, \u201cI Don\u2019t Expect Anyone to Believe Me\u201d makes less sense as a narrative than as a string of expertly constructed moments with their own internal logic. Every self-contained scene or bit \u2014 be it Juan Pablo\u2019s mother\u2019s recurring voice messages, full of insults veiled as love, or the friendship his girlfriend develops with an Italian vagabond \u2014 is densely packed with references, gags and deadpan performances, keeping the film balanced on the razor\u2019s edge of irony and pathos. It all adds up to a melancholy allegory about the unpredictability of life and writers\u2019 futile ambitions to lend it order and meaning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n This gorgeous drama by Lina Rodriguez begins with two quiet, stark bits of exposition. A dark-haired woman gets into the trunk of a car, and a couple, with two toddlers in tow, drives the vehicle across a border checkpoint. Next, we see the woman, Aurora (No\u00eblle Sch\u00f6nwald), at an interview with an officer, explaining the violent circumstances that led her to flee Colombia and seek asylum in Canada, leaving her daughter temporarily behind.<\/p>\n After that point, \u201cSo Much Tenderness\u201d never concerns itself with the how<\/em> of Aurora and her daughter Lucia\u2019s circumstances. The film unfolds as a series of vignettes that drop us into different points in the duo\u2019s lives: Aurora teaches Spanish at a language class; Lucia stocks grocery items at a supermarket; they each go on dates with different men. The knotty bureaucracy of immigration \u2014 hearings, permits, the process of assimilation \u2014 is elided; instead, we are suspended in these recent immigrants\u2019 quotidian experiences. Yet a tension is always palpable \u2014 not just in the brief flashbacks of Aurora\u2019s memories or the mysterious figure from her past she spots around town, but also in that unspoken feeling of unsettlement that sticks like lint to the characters\u2019 uprooted lives.<\/p>\n Stream it on Ovid<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In a high school in France, teenage dancers \u2014 many of them from the banlieues \u2014 make politics and poetry with their bodies. From the very first set piece in \u201cRookies,\u201d a documentary about the dance troupe at the Turgot school in Paris, the kineticism of its diverse class is palpable. The camera captures a hip-hop battle as a rush of close-ups of limbs, popping and locking and swaying energetically. But what lends gravity to these scenes of movement is the commentary from the students that the directors, Thierry Demaizi\u00e8re and Alban Teurlai, weave throughout.<\/p>\n Turgot has removed geographical zoning restrictions for this course, meaning that kids from all over the city, from various economic and racial backgrounds, mingle together. Talking-head interviews and intimate exchanges between teachers and students bring to the fore all the meanings these young people infuse into dancing. For some, moving their bodies with confidence is a feminist awakening; for others, the classes form a utopian bubble in a deeply divided world; and for yet others, it\u2019s outright salvation.<\/p>\n Rent or buy it on Amazon Prime Video<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Be warned before you read any further that this Tamil-language thriller is best watched with minimal context; its pleasures lie in its myriad surprises and twists, deployed with precision by the director, S.U. Arun Kumar. But if you need more persuasion, here\u2019s a tease.<\/p>\n In a small town in Southern India, a young man, Eeswaran (Siddharth), lives with his sister and raises his 8-year-old niece, Sundari (Sahasra Sree), with tender \u2014 and often overprotective \u2014 paternal care. The first half of \u201cChithha\u201d is a sweet portrait of this uncle-niece relationship, with sparkling performances by both actors. But every now and then, smatterings of menace and suspense interrupt these charming goings-on and scramble our bearings. There\u2019s the woman from Eeswaran\u2019s past who has re-emerged in town, and with whom he exchanges resentful glares; there\u2019s also a specter of sordid sexual violence that eventually takes over the narrative.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n If \u201cChithha\u201d offers the satisfactions of the classic revenge thriller, driven by the nobly enraged hero, its strength lies in how it also undercuts these tropes to offer a sharp critique of male saviorism. Come for the chills and kills, but stay for the sobering lesson on the reality of a woman\u2019s life in a man\u2019s world.<\/p>\n\u2018Rookies\u2019<\/h2>\n
\u2018Chithha\u2019<\/h2>\n
\u2018Phases of Matter\u2019<\/h2>\n