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I had a lot of expectations from this film, having been following Abramovic work, and appreciating it, for many years. I was disappointed. Marina 'tours' Brazil, seeking spiritual guidance and healing. She meets many types of healer saints and the film allows us a glimpse into the complex and varied means through which people try to alleviate their pain and despair. However the film carelessly drifts into a narcissistic journey, and everyone and everything in this film is about Marina's self indulgence. It suffers from two main shortcomings. Nothing about Brazil as a nation in crisis, and nothing about the way access to shooting had been obtained. There is a troubling sense of an ethical breach in this film: did all these people we watch really consented to being filmed? How was permission granted? How were the scenes arranged? Planned? Directed? The film could have been much more interesting if we as viewers understood more about the background, instead of forcing us to the not very interesting account of Marina's obviously very comfortable VIP travels. All in all, a pretentious documentary which leaves little to think about and enjoy at both the cinematographic and narrative levels.

Fans of Kusturica will not only recognize all the trademarks - the general hilarious feel, the music, the rhythm, the fast transitions from ugly to beautiful, from comic to tragic, from realism to surrealism - but will probably also enjoy them. To a degree. Because this film suffers precisely from that: we have seen it all before. Despairingly, no signs that Kusturica is exploring new grounds. Worse, it doesn't seem he is interested in exploring new grounds. Worst, it seems he doesn't care about offering anything new. On the contrary, this film is a kind of regression: the basic story is not interesting at best and sloppy at worst, the characters have no depth, and the machismo is as frustrating as ever. Don't expect subtle messages here, but do expect the bravado of another carnival. Having said all this, as the saying goes, the subversion of the cultural distinction between human and animals is pretty good.

Masterfully shot in Teheran, the film follows the ill fortunes of a theatrical married couple who, while rehearsing Miller's play Death of a Salesman, find themselves having to abandon their crumbling apartment and to seek alternative accommodation. The film is openly an allegory about social, urban and marital decay. But way beyond it, it is about the costs of masculine pride. By far more than a very good 'Iranian film', this is a superb statement about the unbearable consequences of trying to live up to codes of honour that centre on the female body. In my opinion, actress Taraneh Alidoosti is the hero of the film, both in her performance and in the role she occupies in the script. In contrast to appearances, she is the mover of everything that takes place in this fantastic film. A cinematic poem and a masterpiece in unfolding the twists of human psychology.

This is a fictional plot around the very real character of Pablo Neruda, the Chilean poet who, during the 1940's, had also been a senator in the Chilean congress on behalf of the communist party. The film is set in 1948, when the authorities crack down on communists - a time that may be viewed as a chilling precursor to 1970's Pinochet - and the basic plot is about Neruda's escapes from the police, endeavors that force him all over Chile. Luis Gnecco as Neruda is fantastic and so is Mercedes Morán as Delia, Neruda's aristocratic wife. At one level, the film offer a troubling inquiry into the personality of this esteemed poet-intellectual-communist. He is an admired spokesperson for the workers and the downtrodden but he is also a hedonistic drunk and a spoiled womanizer; rough and gentle, strong and weak, Neruda's character and image keeps shifting, and it is to the credit of this film that it never for a moment tries to offer a solution to these complexities. In one memorable episode, a waitress asks Neruda, as he sits at a club-restaurant surrounded by his intellectual-hedonistic friends, suffused with alcohol, whether equality means that everyone will live like he does or whether it means that he, Neruda, will settle for less. I shall not disclose his response.

The camera-work covers a wide range of scenes, from film-noire urban settings to stunning snow covered terrains, all very precisely accompanied by period costumes, designs, motorcycles and horses. However the film aspires, and succeeds, to be by far more than a good period piece. Rather, it is a film about obsession. The psychological roots of this obsession are only hinted to, and this is a good thing too. And the obsessed is Gael García Bernal, playing the detective who relentlessly pursues Neruda. His performance is nothing short of stunning. As the film progresses, and it never rests for a moment, we gradually lose, alongside the characters in the film, any firm grip on reality. Just like in captivating poetic gestures, it becomes less and less clear what is real and what is fiction, what is an event and what is a fantasmatic representation of it, who is a character that actually acts and who is an imaginary ghost. And this is the film's most important achievement.

After the screening in the London Film Festival, when the director and producer came on stage to speak with the audience (overwhelmingly from the Middle East), more than one person complained to them that the movie had too much humour in it while there was nothing amusing about Egypt's regime and the tragic events that came on the heels of its botched popular revolt. Clash is shot from within the interior of a police van. Inside a group of people - women and men, Islamists and secularists, young and old - are being moved around Cairo. They have all been arbitrarily and violently detained by the security forces during pro- and anti- regime demonstrations taking place on this day, and they are moved around simply because the prisons are already too full. The interactions among the people inside the van and their interactions with the security personnel and others outside it engulf the viewers with claustrophobia, anger, fear, horror, despair, and glimmers of hope that are quickly dispelled. And yes, as the Director explained, there are funny moments, simply because Egyptians are humorous. It is a bold and daring film, exposing all those who took part in it to the risks of the regime's displeasure. It has been approved for screening by the Egyptian censor, but not without some interventions that the director and producer preferred not to recall. All in all, a superb mirror of the suffocating air in present day Egypt.

I owe Jarmusch a debt of gratitude for being a formative figure in shaping my cinematic tastes. I shall never forget watching Stranger Than Paradise (1984) in NY in the early 1980s: the novelty, joy, patient camera movement, the fantastic way of playing Creedence Clearwater Revival's 'I Put a Spell on You' throughout the soundtrack. I have seen most of Jarmusch's movies ever since and more than three decades later, Paterson did not disappoint. Jarmusch is as creative as ever, gifting us with a wonderful film. The set is Paterson N.J., the protagonists are a bus driver also named Patterson and his artistically creative spouse. Paterson writes poetry, reads poetry, and encounters poetry wherever he goes and whoever he meets. This is it. And it is as engaging, uplifting, funny, and as insightful as a film can be. Patterson may be watched as a homage. It delicately portrays a particular place, Paterson New Jersey, reminding us that a place, any place, is always a product of the way its present mixes up with its past, of the way people both walk it and remember it. But the film is not only a homage to a place, it is also a homage to daily life, to the mundanity of just going to work and having a drink after a day's work. One striking feature of this film is that there are no bad characters here, no evil spirits, no mean intentions. In fact the only mean character in the film is the protagonists' dog, but even the dog is not too bad, just a drag. And miraculously, in spite of this, the film is totality innocent of naiveté. As if at the hands of a gifted anthropologist, the camera curiously follows and watches, and the film never falls into anything resembling judgment and condescension. It is truly genius in its ability to draw us into the perspective of the protagonists, to embrace their feelings and movements, to empathize with them and to fall in love with their numerous small encounters. Remarkably, one of the achievements here is that the film feels and looks timeless. It could be shot in the 1950s, or the 1970s, and yet it makes no attempt to hide the fact that it has been shot only recently. Incidentally, Paterson makes a point about not having a mobile phone. It does wonders to the film and its ability to give homage. A truly uplifting film.