Aquarius Excellent Brazilian film from Kleber Mendonça Filho, whose Neighbouring Sounds I also really enjoyed last year, about a 60-something widow battling to stay in her home as developers try to kick her out. Just a really good character study, with Sonia Braga excellent as a woman who retains a fierce independence but is also unafraid to rely on family, friends and others. Great soundtrack, great colour and look.
The Chaser Korean action thriller madness as an ex-cop (aren't they always?) pimp tries to find the guy who he believes has abducted and stolen a couple of his girls, who turns out to be a serial killer. Pretty much two hours of people chasing each other, shouting at each other, and occasionally fighting. Pretty grim and gruesome when the action lets up, and there's a strangely amateurish quality to some of it, but it's breathless stuff. Based on a true story apparently, although I imagine a lot of the running around is embellishment.
Ordinary People I hardly ever check the films on Netflix but they seem to have chucked a bunch of foreign festival fare on there recently so I had a look at this Filipino effort about a homeless teenage couple whose baby is abducted. Obvious comparisons with the Dardennes aside, it's a decent film, straying a bit into poverty porn but also quite unsubjective and unjudgmental in the way it portrays its characters: there's no romanticisation of their lifestyles or personalities, or street life and the way different marginalised groups turn on one another. Well-acted and particularly well-directed - you can almost feel the humidity of the Manila streets the characters traipse around.
I think it's the first film I've seen from the nation - never quite plucked up the patience for a Lav Diaz - and I found the setting and language fascinating, with its occasional random streams of English words.
