Wonka ★★★☆☆
Directed by Paul King. Starring Timothée Chalamet, Calah Lane, Keegan-Michael Key, Paterson Joseph, Matt Lucas, Sally Hawkins, Rowan Atkinson, Jim Carter, Olivia Colman, Hugh Grant. PG cert, gen release, 116 min
The Paddington team embark on a Willy Wonka prequel with modest success. Composer Neil Hannon, emperor of Ulster baroque, has just the right angular energy for a musical – and it is a musical, despite what songless trailers may suggest – that takes in a substantial degree of sub-Dickensian macabre. Colman and Joseph are excellent as different classes of villain. Grant gives good Oompa-Loompa. Sadly, little about Chalamet recommends him to the lead role. He doesn’t have the brash zip of a showman. His singing voice lacks the ironic trill that Gene Wilder used so well in the 1971 film. Full review DC
Anselm ★★★★☆
Directed by Wim Wenders. Featuring Anselm Kiefer, Daniel Kiefer, Anton Wenders. PG cert, limited release, 98 min
Fine 3D documentary on German artist Anselm Kiefer from a legendary contemporary. The film investigates some of the more slippy and intellectually taxing debates of the art world. There is a sense of director and subject trying to make sense of mortality, creative responsibility and the place of Germany in a changed world. There is nothing patronising about Wenders’s approach, no sense of him offering an “easy way in”. Yet those unfamiliar with Kiefer will find huge vistas opening up. It is as if Wim were pointing us towards a more-austere Picasso. DC
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Trenque Lauquen ★★★★★
Directed by Laura Citarella. Starring Laura Paredes, Ezequiel Pierri , Rafael Spregelburd , Elisa Carricajo , Verónica Llinás. Mubi, 260 min
Vast, hugely gripping Argentinian drama that begins as a missing-person mystery and then spins off in every direction. Director Laura Citarella cannily wields narrative like a magician might, misdirecting the audience or obfuscating. Many reveals, as deftly orchestrated by the cinematography, remain tantalisingly behind closed doors. There are similarities with the mumblecore sci-fi of Shane Carruth’s Upstream Colour and The Endless, but Trenque Lauquen daringly stakes out its own spooky terrain. A four-hour film told across 12 chapters and arriving in two parts, this epic is a remarkable achievement. TB
The Peasants/Chlopi ★★☆☆☆
Directed by DK Welchman and Hugh Welchman. Starring Kamila Urzędowska, Robert Gulaczyk, Mirosław Baka, Sonia Mietielica, Ewa Kasprzyk. 16 cert, gen release, 116 min
Adapted from Władysław Reymont’s early 20th-century cycle, a tome that occupies a Peig Sayers-sized space in Polish culture, The Peasants is the rapey tale of winsome wench, Jagna, a much-maligned village beauty given to late Malickian twirling in turn-of-the-century Poland. The directors utilise the same painstaking, hand-drawn approach that prettified Loving Vincent, their 2017 animated biopic of van Gogh. Some 40,000 handpainted oil paintings were used in the making of The Peasants, an astonishing and laborious feat. The effect, alas, is not unlike putting lipstick on a pig. TB
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