April

An alternately (and sometimes simultaneously) harrowing and hallucinatory story of an OB-GYN who discovers that her every attempt at nurturing life leads only to more death.

It is a disorienting, all-consuming sensorial experience and made all the much better to those willing to surrender to its mysteries.

April’s frames seek to embody a dizzying span of human experience, even if Dea Kulumbegashvili occasionally strains to corral it.

Kulumbegashvili leaves us wondering if the only solution for all of us is to completely return to nature.

There is so much rugged poetry contained in this film, and yet the palpable, gnawing horror is what sees it through.

An uncompromising, intensely felt panorama of female identities, agencies and desires under attack, April manages to be both a work of controlled formal rigor and unleashed, often overwhelming human feeling.

April is cinema in motion, cinema lost in time. And we are watching its evolutions. [Full review in Spanish]

It might be on point message-wise, but its story is strained.

April shows even more sparks of Akerman in her directorial touch and singularity in the art Kulumbegashvili constructs.

Full frame, long continuous shots, minimal coverage and mostly from its protagonist's POV -- is effective in creating the dread and isolation that Nina feels in an oppressive society where she sees no reprieve for women.