Volver is Spanish for to come back. In this case, the characters, in particular the female lead, come back to their roots and to deal at long last with a painful past. The first scene, featuring also the film’s titles, makes the point clear: two sisters, Raimunda and Sole (short for Soledad), with Raimunda’s…

The titles are displayed in a remarkably unusual way: only a few roll on the screen as the film is off with a visually arresting, fascinating start; then the narrative unfolds till a climax of sorts takes place; and lo and behold here come the titles rolling in full, with most of the film’s credits…

The usual throngs of the bustling New York streets fill the screen, shot by a camera standing still as it takes the medium and long shots, but always moved from one corner to another, hence the swift jumble of pictures opening the film. Some faces may catch the attention, often because…

To enter the film is to come into what is a different country, just like the past is, according to Leslie Poles Hartley. The images are a long series of old photographs, portraits of folks from various ages but clearly from a lower class backgrounds. The camera zooms or glides as faces follow each…

Michel Poiccard is a small gangster from Paris, a young man who is obstreperous, obstinate, childish, cavalier. After stealing a car in a seaside town he rashly fires on a patrolman – the crime makes the headlines over the few days the narrative takes place and sets in motion a big police operation…

Five nuns from the Kolkata-based mission of a Catholic religious order, the Convent of the Order of the Servants of Mary, are tasked with opening a dispensary and a school in a distant district in the Himalayas, Mopu, whose local Hindu leader, an old general, has decided to grant an old palace…

“Born of well-to-do parents, Benedetta Carlini entered the convent at age nine. At twenty-three, she began to have visions of both a religious and erotic nature. Benedetta was elected abbess largely because of these visions, but she later aroused suspicion by claiming to have had supernatural contacts with…

The story is divided into four parts, boldly altering and editing the contents of the eponymous novel by French writer Georges Bernanos. The first depicts the lead character through his discussions with his mentor. Donissan is a priest living in a corner of northern France at the onset of the 20th century…

The movie goes back a long way, and in depth, to the origins of one of the most mythical and appealing characters associated with the European Middle Ages. Robin Hood was named in old ballads, with some key features clearly settled in the 15th century; he was somehow rediscovered…

Actions do not only entertain but also enlighten the plot and its meaning, through repetitions, details, contrasts. In 1191 a banquet is held in the castle of Guy of Gisbourne, a noble allied to Prince John, who is jockeying for the top job in England after his brother and ruling king, Richard…

On the one hand there is Lieutenant Conan, a conscript who is later in the story promoted to the rank of captain, and the group of soldiers he picked up from anywhere, including the military’s jails. They are commandos, making daring attacks…

Major Delaplane is a middle-aged army doctor, a vigorous, candid, and grumpy character with a mission: two years after the end of the First World War, he must find out the bodies, dead or alive, of the French soldiers who went missing into action, to allow their families to have a corpse to…

A fool’s ascent: Redmont Barry, a dull and poor gentleman, is forced to leave his native Irish village after a duel his love for his cousin Nora caused. Supported by her family, the flirtatious girl was far more interested in getting married with a rich captain of the English army, John Quin, than…

A group of villagers, fervently praying with their priest that God would chase away the field mouses invading their farms, stands still at the center of the establishing shot, on the verdant edge of a cliff in Brittany, but it does not last and they are soon scrambling along…

He had just jerked his left arm away, but that was enough to shove the boy and make him lose his balance. The victim fall down the staircase, getting knocked out and badly injured in the backbone. Wei Bu was quarreling with his high school’s bully because the aggressive teenager claimed that Wei Bu’s…