The film gives us a rich, clammy idea of Russia's horrors as we follow a woman (Vasilina Makovtseva) into a bureaucratic hell.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 18, 2018

It's a fitfully interesting insight into a determined woman's fight for justice but, with its corruption and frustrating cycles of fruitless administration, this is best read as an allegory of Russia itself, which could hardly be more topical.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 12, 2018

A Gentle Creature has a warped, nightmarish-like feel anyway.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 11, 2018

Leading man Neumann is a find in his screen debut, with the looks of 'Liberty Valance'-era Lee Van Cleef.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 10, 2018

After two-and-a-half hours of punishing, brutal drama, you'll probably feel almost as battered as the poor heroine.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 10, 2018

When she realises that her odyssey is pointless and that there are far more pressing concerns in Mother Russia than a missing prisoner, Loznitsa takes a bold stylistic U-turn before unloading a final shotgun cartridge to the face in a silly coda.

| May 26, 2017

Loznitsa's construction of this world apart - which is, of course, a grotesque allegory for Russia itself - is as immersive as it is unnerving.

| Original Score: 5/5 | May 26, 2017

The sheer scope of the project demands recognition. It misses the moon by a galaxy, but at least it is has the nerve to take the shot.

| Original Score: B- | May 26, 2017

Krotkaya is a vision of hell, conducted with the horrible brio of an angry parody by Shostakovich.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 25, 2017

A captivating, hallucinatory plunge into Russia's atrophied civil society, in which a woman's search for answers is rewarded with humiliation and abuse.

| May 25, 2017

It certainly provides a convulsive, if not cathartic kind of horror.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 25, 2017

A Gentle Creature is not what one might call a fun watch. But it's also obviously not just horror for horror's sake.

| May 25, 2017