Céline Sciamma’s Petite maman: Portals to the past

Sciamma’s fifth feature film is immediately striking in its gentleness as well as emotional and visual beauty, but what lies beneath the apparent simplicity are rich layers of structural echoes and quiet metaphors.

M. Night Shyamalan’s Old: Twelve against time

Although the framing story and twist are surprisingly prosaic, for long stretches of the main body Old conjures up a combination of tension, absurdity and chaos that few other films have achieved.