Allan has worked for Screen International since 1990 as a film critic and features writer. He is based in Edinburgh and is also co-director of Glasgow Film Festival.
Click here for more Screen critics’ top films of 2015
Top Five
- Son Of Saul
Dir Laszlo Nemes
You may feel the world really doesn’t need another film about the horrors of the concentration camps, but Nemes’ Son Of Saul silences any reservations. It is an immersive, unsettling and relentlessly visceral experience. Your heart races, your breath stops and all your senses feel under assault. You are Saul and you are a Sonderkommando in Auschwitz in 1944, not quite sure which way to turn, what you are hearing or what you are glimpsing out of the corner of your eye. Saul’s obsessive quest to provide a child with a proper burial provides the last vestige of humanity in this nightmare. The nimble, muscular cinematography from Matyas Erdely plays a key role in establishing that sense of complete chaos. His work on Son Of Saul and James White has made him one of the talking points of 2015. An extraordinary debut from Nemes that stands as the most haunting, harrowing film of the year.
CONTACT Films Distribution alexis@filmsdistribution.com - The Assassin
Dir Hou Hsiao-hsien
CONTACT Wild Bunch edevos@wildbunch.eu - 45 Years
Dir Andrew Haigh
CONTACT The Match Factory info@matchfactory.de - Slow West
Dir John Maclean
CONTACT Hanway Films info@hanwayfilms.com - Mountains May Depart
Dir Jia Zhangke
CONTACT mk2 juliette.schrameck@mk2.com
Best Documentary
The Fear Of 13
Dir David Sington
The Fear Of 13 underlines the notion that all you need for a compelling documentary is a great story. Stark simplicity is the strength of a film in which a convicted felon sits down calmly and tells us the story of his extraordinary life. Part confessional, part one-man show and completely spellbinding.
CONTACT Dogwoof ana@dogwoof.com
Best UK Film
45 Years
Dir Andrew Haigh
Haigh is maturing into one of the UK’s finest directors, and 45 Years shows him to be a master of subtle understatement and acute observation, as we witness the flaws in a lifelong relationship crack open. Charlotte Rampling’s study of devastation and horror deserves some Oscar attention.
CONTACT The Match Factory info@matchfactory.de
Undiscovered Gem
Paths Of The Soul
Dir Zhang Yang
Paths Of The Soul (Kang Rinpoche) may have screened at Toronto but this breathtaking film still seems to have slipped under the radar. The story of Tibetan villagers on a 1,200-mile “bowingpilgrimage” to Lhasa transforms a remarkable act of devotion into a truly epic tale of faith and endurance.
CONTACT Asian Shadows anne@chineseshadows.com
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