At the movies: I am Love (Io sono l'Amore).

My take on the new Tilda Swinton epic, which I recommend heartily.

At the movies: 35 Shots of Rum.

Lionel (Alex Descas) is a conductor on Paris’ subway system, a man living simply with his student daughter Joséphine. They live in a small apartment building, along with a taxi driver named Gabrielle and a young businessman, always traveling, named Noé, and together the four have evolved a weird sort of family life- one defined by absence, distance, and uncertainty just as it is by blood, love, and obligation.

Director/co-writer Claire Denis (Beau Travail, Trouble Every Day) is one of the most gifted filmmakers currently working, and with this film, she refines her organic and sensual method of storytelling into something truly comforting and lovely. Critics all over the world have been rapturous in their response, though with the indifference that many audiences have been showing toward challenging foreign cinema, it remains to be seen if that will be enough to bring viewers in.

If nothing else, 35 Shots of Rum will be responsible for countless drunken slow dances to The Commodores’ “Nightshift” over the next few years and several quality rice-based dinners.

Denis has made something magical here: a family drama where nothing feels clichéd, conflict isn’t forced where it isn’t needed, and we spend time with people we’d genuinely like to get to know. Hearts are stoked and broken, lives get irrevocably changed without a moment’s notice, and when the film finally ends, you just want to spend more time in its world. There’s a pervasive loneliness milling around these characters in the periphery, which is why their choice not to be alone is thrilling on a purely emotional level.

Magical and intoxicating.

At the movies: Summer Hours (L'Heure d'Ete).

Following their mother’s death, three siblings, all with different homes, lives, and children of their own, must try and take the physical remnants of their family history and figure out what to do with them. So much love, so many lives, and so very many things- and there’s no way to keep everything. And there’s no way to keep everyone together.

Conceived as a piece commemorating the twentieth anniversary of France's Musee d'Orsay, Summer Hours (L'Heure d'Ete) finds director Olivier Assayas moving from his globalization trilogy (Demonlover, Clean, and Boarding Gate) to focus on family, and in the process he's made one of the most beautiful and restrained dramas of the year. We have one mother, three children, five grandchildren, two dogs, a housekeeper, and an exquisite country house filled with several lifetimes worth of memory and objects.

There are no big scenes, no flare-ups or crying jags, just a rapturous dive into the eddies and whorls of the time that we spend as families. What remains of someone once they've gone? Family bonds, and love, and security- these things are ephemeral. And who really decides what the tactile remnants of our loved ones mean? It is as remarkable an analysis of human behavior and the rippling, fragmented nature of death. With Juliette Binoche, the legendary Edith Scob (Franju's Eyes Without a Face), and Charles Berling.

Assayas has combined his interest in globalization with a rock-solid emotional center, refining his interests and making a film that gets under the skin of even those who were unaffected by his sleek technothrillers. Audiences all over the world have been transfixed by this subtle and moving effort, and even the staunchest stoic will be a little teary.

Summer Hours will resonate with anyone who has had to navigate estate taxes and sentimental values, putting prices on things once beloved and having to move out and move on. Never manipulative or venal, this film is graceful and haunting, and its final scene unforgettable.

At the movies: Must Read After My Death.

Built from the ground up with the footage shot by and the voice recordings of a family coming apart at the seams in the mid-to-late 60s, Must Read After My Death is the sound of crisis even as it unfolds over images of an uneasy serenity. Using no narration or external set-up, we are immersed in the life of Allis, a mother and wife on the brink of life, and it is a hypnotic and haunting experience; material originally used as therepeutic devices and means of communication become time-delayed weapons.

Think of films like Capturing the Friedmans, Tarnation, and Dear Zachary: nonfiction cinema built around primary sources documented and recorded by the people involved in them. Morgan Dews' film not only helps change the game plan for contemporary nonfiction cinema, it's also changing the way we think of film distribution, working with a plan for access that makes several of the VOD programs used by many independent distributors seem lagging.

This film hits hard and shows no mercy; charting the arcs of a family's life without censoring them. Documentary enthusiasts and anyone intrigued by the mysteries of family should check it out without hesitation. And if it isn't playing near you or at a convenient time, you can check it out online at your leisure thanks to Gigantic Releasing's new universal VOD approach to distribution.