Luis López Carrasco has made one of the sharpest movies I have seen this year—with echoes of Warhol, Wiseman, and 90s tv news footage— along with a strong political commitment that transforms the interior of a café in Cartagena, Murcia into a site of testimony... laying bare Spain’s treatment of the working class and the distortions of neoliberalism.

The film depicts the Spain of 1992 (or the 2010s) with bar patrons turned talking heads reminiscing about both periods of Spain's…

“The Turin Horse” is obsessive in its attempts to strip life of all the elements that make it tolerable. And yet, Bela Tarr’s exploration of regret and hopelessness is remarkably kept alive by “the” elements that seem to subjugate humans. Never have I seen on film wind, fire, water, and earth take on this monumental power (even the horse gets an acting credit, and rightly so since, besides the computer generated “Okja,” seldom have I seen an animal show this…

Traveling alone in a new city is always exciting. You are left to experience things by yourself, to reflect on past choices, to misremember events, and to record little incidents that with time take the weight of secrets. You drink and eat when you want, stop to look at buildings or people, visit museums, and check Grindr. Basically, you become invisible, allowing for moments of reflection, or hypervisible, allowing for unexpected experiences to unfold, fortuitous sex being a key one…