Critics reviews

Portman's commitment to making the film almost entirely in Hebrew, with no stars apart from herself, is admirable, and she demonstrates some talent behind the camera, particularly in realizing the stories Fania tells Amos. But it takes a genius to craft a movie from material that's deeply rooted not just in words, but in feelings that are so complex as to be nearly indescribable. Even Stanley Kubrick didn't start with Lolita.

While the elusive plotting hinders the story's power, Portman proves herself a director with a keen compositional eye, and one comfortable with integrating flashbacks into narrative. She evokes childhood with similar proficiency, making the film's earlier sections particularly gripping.A Tale of Love and Darkness might not say quite what it wants to, but that's because it has so much on its mind. As far as problems go, it's a good one to have.

There was a special out-of-competition screening of Natalie Portman's negligible directing debut, A Tale of Love and Darkness.

Portman leans on this narration a little too heavily, and the film's more powerful moments tend to be wordless. During the civil war, we see a number of assassinations that play out in near silence: in one, a woman hanging out her washing on a terrace is shot by a sniper, and the sheet she's pegging up suddenly blooms with blood. The film feels like a personal project for Portman, but thankfully never a vanity one. It's a fine piece of work – and you sense there's better to come.

Is this like a parody of European filmmaking? It is! I say it's all to the good, though, particularly since I imagine Portman could have labored for eight years trying to make Pitch Perfect 2. Instead, however, she's taken what could have been Alex Haley's Roots and turned it into Calvin Klein's Oz.