BLAISE (Belgium 2026) ***1/2
Directed by Jean-Paul Guigue and Dimitri Planchon
BLAISE is an animated feature film on awkwardness. Blaise is the son of the Sauvage family, who has a problem connecting with people on a social level. But he is befriended by an equally locally challenged girl. But Blaise’s parents are just as awkward. The mother, Carole, is trying her best to keep her job, working for an equally strange boss, by getting along, though with difficulty, with her staff. Her boss's father, Jacques, is termed a dumbass, which he is trying to disprove. The film has a Kafkaesque feel because of the absurdity and the going in rounds, though the culprit is not the government but the individual, as typically found in a Todd Solondz drama of discomfort. BLAISE looks like the animated feature Todd Solondz could have made. The Sauvage family just wants to be loved. Then, they also have to deal with each other, making matters worse. The animation is cute, especially the detailed wardrobe of each character and their mannerisms.
DU FIOUL DANS LES ARTERES (Fuel and flesh) (France 2026) ***
Directed by Pierre Le Gall
(Semaine de la Critique)
A lonely French trucker's routine life on the road takes an unexpected turn when he encounters a Polish driver. As feelings develop, he struggles to balance his demanding job with a chance at love, determined to make their connection work. The film is a hard sell, as it deals with hardcore gay content that many critics and audiences will avoid, but despite the grim setting, it attains authenticity and credibility in the way the director depicts the lives of lonely truckers as they do their jobs. The other plus is that the film benefits from the performance of Alexis Manenti, first seen in LES MISERABLES, where he played a racist cop nicknamed ‘piggy’. FLUEL AND FLESH is a hardcore film, but in reality, a hard-felt romance at heart. Unfortunately, the film falls into cliched territory of romantic films at the end.
FOREVER YOUR MATERNAL ANIMAL (Siempre Soy Tu Animal Materno)(Mexico/Belgium/France 2025) ***
Directed by Valentina Maurel
(Un Certain Régard)
After years in Europe, Elsa, 28, returns to Costa Rica and reunites with her younger sister Amalia, 20, who is drifting into a path as esoteric as it is existential. While their father, Nahuel, seeks reassurance through a series of romantic conquests and their mother, Isabel, immerses herself in republishing the erotic poems of her youth, Elsa hesitates: should she try to save a sister? Director Maurel’s raw, emotionally and psychologically intimate family drama is female-led, showcasing the diversity of women within the dysfunctional family. The mother is a strong, influential political poet, the male father a weaker character, while the young Amalai suffers from what appears to be a mental depression. The film is a compulsive watch as there is always something dramatic going on and one can only wish for the best for what appears to be Maurel’s doomed family.
PROMISED SPACES (À PROPOS DE PROMISED SPACES)(France/Germany/Serbia/Cambodia 2026) ***
Directed by Ivan Marković
It is too hot to sleep and too hot to stay awake, cries a character in the dead of night. And when it pours, the hot and wet make it even more uncomfortable. Sleepless from the heat, Sokun leaves his crowded construction dormitory and joins a community of fellow workers living in one of many unfinished high-rises. One such tower offers a long-awaited luxury home for its first tenant, Seda (who turns out to be quite the fussy non-nonsense bitch), who soon feels trapped in the vast gated complex. It is a changing landscape of a seldom-seen urban Cambodia, as a fishing village is slowly surrounded by the construction of high-rise luxury buildings. Marković’s (a German Serbian filmmaker) film can be described as a well-shot, candid, socially conscious look focused on class division, urban isolation, and the emotional cost of modernization.
THE STATION (Yemen/Jordan/ Franc/Germany/Netherlands/Norway/Qatar 2026) ***½
Directed by Sara Ishaq
Layal runs a women-only petrol station in Yemen: a rare haven in a war-torn country. The reason no men are around is that they are all taken up to fight in the war. Even up to the early age of 13. There, the rules are simple: no men, no weapons, no politics. When Layal’s younger brother faces enlistment, she reunites with her estranged sister to save the one life they still can. This is a female-oriented film with women in the spotlight. The film demonstrates how women survive in the face of danger and desperation. Women can be nastier and more resilient than their male counterparts. Even with the political setting, there is considerable suspense built into the story. This is a very well-made, credible nd realistic film that keeps one glued to the incidents from start to finish.
