A Thousand Months

The first half of the film was a solid if somewhat unremarkable drama. From the moment the kid is introduced though the film tries more and more to be funny meaning in turn that I struggled to take its more serious moments seriously. It's like the antithesis of Kaurismaki - in his films the humour makes you care all the more for the characters and get all the more engaged in the drama, whilst here the humour just left me distanced and cold.

Credit to the director Bensaïdi for his skill as a visual director and for crafting vivid moments within the narrative that stand out. As almost a string of vignettes that connect together as a wider story however it cannot sustain itself for its length, meandering at points when it is in dire need of being tightened in tone and ideas. By the end there is no sense that there is enough depth to it because each strand of it is unbalanced to each other and doesn't completely link together.