Blasphemy, I know, but this is the first Fellini I've ever seen. And it's a good (if slightly overwhelming) start: JULIET is a non-stop verbal and visual kaleidoscope, throwing outsized personalities, garish costume & production design and a giddy cinematography sensibility into a melodrama which might otherwise have been a rather subdued chamber piece.

At over two hours that might have tested an audience's patience, but the film brings something new to proceedings constantly, peeling back a layer of its lead's…

Varda's testament to the collective destruction of youth and the elements we least like about ourselves is a poetic, circular thing, both leaving mysterious ellipses between shots and bedding down with a location or family for significant periods of time before moving on and, eventually, coming back on itself.

Mona, the vagabond of the title, may spend her life travelling, but she never actual gets anywhere, often crossing paths with strangers she's met before and leaving more than just a…

Awful in the way only bad remakes can be. There's nothing inherently wrong with the technical filmmaking on show, but the vulgar superficial warping of Park Chan-Wook's original film feels forced and unnatural where the 2003 movie is graceful in its inevitability. It also doesn't help that, while Spike Lee is no slouch cinematically, his visuals come off as sloppy when compared to Park's masterful, elegant compositions.

Other things that hurt the film include Brolin's detestable characterisation (who would want…