A Man Afar – 5

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I was left totally blank – which, not coincidentally, was the main character’s only expression – by this story of an older dental technician in Caracas who picks up young men for his sexually deviate purposes and doesn’t mind being beaten up, rejected and exploited. Then at the end he maybe manipulates his young charge into killing the man’s father, but for what reason we’re never told. And then he turns the young man in. Nothing made sense or was particularly enjoyable to watch – compared, say, to Viva, which had a similar setting.

Sunset Story – 5.5

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Aimless and about an hour too long, it gave the impression of being transcribed from the Scottish equivalent of Gone With the Wind and better suited to a TV miniseries – both of which turn out to be the case. Just when we thought we’d reached the end of a pointless but pleasant glance at life in rural Scotland, the “bad thing” we sort of knew was coming showed up and made a mess of the story. We did get a view of Scotland as a very different place with a lot of taciturn folk.

Alex and Eve – 5

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Harmless piffle for the schmaltz-inclined. Originality: zero. Subtlety: zero. Believable characters: zero. Surprises: zero. But as I said, it won’t hurt you, unless you’re overly sensitive to caricatures and stereotypes, in this case Greeks and Lebanese. Others loved it; I found it silly.

Tangerine – 8

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Yo, bitch, whatcha doin’ in my movie! Chasing Chester, not waiting for Godot, not waiting for anyone. Great characters and gritty streets – L.A. like you’ve never seen it, nor want to: “City of Stars Bail Bonds” being a typical background sign. All roads lead to Donut Time, and at the film’s climax all the principals – the Armenian cabbie, his wife, daughter and mother-in-law; the two transgender hookers, their pimp and their hostage, plus Mamasan behind the counter – converge. I can’t remember what exactly happens, not much is resolved, and everyone goes back to their realistic, crummy lives after having had their moment in the iPhone lens. Special kudos to Mickey O’Hagan as the pathetic loser girlfriend, dragged around by her hair on one shoe – a performance for the ages.

Nobody From Nowhere (Un Illustre Inconnu) – 6

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A very bizarre story, slightly more engaging than annoying, in which an undistinguished real estate agent tries out the personas of his clients. Perhaps it is intended as a meditation on identity: do clothes make the man, or will a wax mask do it, or the voice? Or do you have to take on his personal relationships as well? But why does our “hero” choose a reclusive violinist as the personality he will inhabit for the rest of his life? And why do we think his imposture, which defies credibility in the first place, will hold up during five years in prison? And why does he willingly go in for a crime he didn’t commit? And how could the police possibly pin the non-crime against the wrong person on him? And how dare the director start his film at the end, go into flashback mode to tell the story, then carry the plot another half-hour after we reach what we thought was the end? And who would have bought an apartment from this “nobody” in the first place?

Number One Fan (Elle L’Adore) – 8

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An attractive but slightly loony fan of singer Vincent Lacroix is asked, as a favor, to dispose of his girlfriend’s body and then, as a result, is treated as a murder suspect. Meanwhile, the police team investigating the disappearance is having their own, typically French, problems. Lives are hanging in the balance, but it’s not really that serious, as there was no murder in the first place. “Oh, what a tangled web we weave,” etc., seems to be the message of this droll detective thriller, anchored by the wonderful character remarkably performed by Sandrine Kiberlain. Clever, delightful, and like the best French movies, it couldn’t have cost much to make.

Villa Touma – 6.8

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Maybe because there are three sisters, the blurb described this film from Israel as Chekhovian. In fact, it was as much Dickens or O’Henry – or whoever it was who wrote Cinderella. The plot is simple: an unwanted niece comes to live with her three aunts, remnants of a Christian community in Ramallah who exist in an isolated time warp. As the niece struggles to adapt, we see her disruptive effect on the aunts’ lives. They have distinct personalities, and in case we miss the point, the mean aunt has bug eyes and a hook nose, while the good aunt is pretty. Other than the surprise ending, the plot is predictable, but I enjoyed the glimpse of another culture.

Timbuktu – 8

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If, as I do, you want a foreign film to immerse you and teach you about an alien culture, then Timbuktu will satisfy you and more. There is a plot of sorts, but the film is more a series of vignettes, showing what life is like for the unfortunate residents of this city in Mali which has been taken over by a fundamentalist jihadist group. The overlords don’t speak the local language or observe local customs, applying their version of sharia’, which results in a woman lashed for her music, a couple stoned to death for adultery, a woman abducted for marriage and the main character executed for accidentally killing a neighbor. We get the feeling that everyone we see, however fleetingly, is a real person, even the jihadis. The landscape is beautifully photographed, and everyone moves at the same desert-slow pace. With music forbidden and dialogue minimal, we fall into a kind of trance as we experience life in Timbuktu.

Wet Bum – 7.5

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A very sweet look at the difficult life of a 14-year-old girl, struggling with all the issues an uncool teenager faces: mean friends, menial job, older brother, first crush, mother who doesn’t understand you, etc., etc. The actress is remarkable, as most of the film is told through lingering closeups of her face, and I didn’t detect a false note in the entire film. Some cliches, maybe – like the scary old man at the nursing home with a heart of gold – and the recurring feather symbolism was a bit overt, but as a first feature by a young Canadian woman, drawn from her own experience, this was charming.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night – 7

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From the Cinema of the Bizarre, an Iranian vampire love story, filmed with about a $10,000 budget and seven actors. The ending left the audience looking at each other in bemusement, but until that point it was sort of a fun story that made sense on its own terms. It’s funny how I left The Homesman with a list of 17 implausibilities, yet nothing of that sort bothered me here, once we were shown the chador-wearing girl’s fangs.