Beanpole (Kantemir Balagov, 2019)

Life and death in Leningrad at the end of the Second World War. Performances are well-judged and often engrossing, and the very carefully managed colour palette sometimes reminded me of Béla Tarr's Autumn Almanac, though here it's put to much less sarcastically anti-naturalistic effect. I was generally disposed to be on its side, but unfortunately the narrative patterning ultimately reveals itself as just a few notches too neat - though it's never entirely predictable - and the film's hold on me had slipped by the time it finished.