Ok, so when I first started this blog, I envisioned covering the GFF and only occasionally posting the odd interesting film review in between times. But certain events have changed things. Can you guess what event I mean? So Covid has already changed how I interact with cinema. The pandemic is still not over, but…
A hard watch. Because this isn’t about things coming together, it is about them falling apart. A Fish Tale follows Johnny, a Ghanaian fisherman who came to Israel to learn modern fishing techniques. Over the course of 10 years, he tries with everything he has to accomplish this single task, so that he may bring…
Fascinating documentary looking the popular music of Nigeria from the 50s to the 70s. It takes in highlife and juju music, interviewing many of biggest names of their time. And through their musical legacy, seeing the history and character of Nigeria as it emerged from colonialism. So many things you don’t even know you don’t…
Absolutely exquisite. Joel Coen adapts the Shakespeare play for the screen, with a stellar cast and resplendent cinematography. With spartan yet evocative set design, filmed in black-and-white, light is used not only to frame the story, but transform scenes. In my post on French Review, I criticised Wes Anderson’s use of visual symmetry as hollow,…
What the fuck was that? Titane is a film that will leave you asking the question, what did I just see? If I had to say what it’s about, if I had to put it into words, I’d say that a psychopath, who sees themselves more mechanical than human, falls pregnant by a Chevrolet, and…
An intimate and powerful film, Flee shows the life of Amin, a gay Afghani refugee who fled to Denmark during the Afghan Civil War in the 90s. Mixing animation and archival footage, it is a memoir of Amin’s life up until he finds refuge. Simultaneously, it has contemporary scenes where Amin and the filmmaker discuss…
Mm. I really loved Jim Cummings’s first two films, but this is just . . . fine. The trailer had me a bit skeptical but trailers are frequently deceptive. Clearly inspired by the Ashley Madison leak and the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal, The Beta Test focuses on a guy at the centre of an attempt to…
Petite Maman is a quiet, gentle film about childhood understanding of grief and mortality. It is about Nelly, who is 8-years-old and has just lost her beloved grandmother. She is very close to her own Mum, Marion, and goes with her to her grandmother’s family home to help clear it out. While playing in the…
Paris, 13th District is a film about a fuckboy and various women he meets. The characters feels very much like twenty-somethings, although the only time I can recall anyone mentioning their age it was in their early 30s. Anyway, you know that thing in your 20s where you’re flatmates and coworkers and friends and lovers,…
Ali and Ava is about ordinary people falling in love. To be honest, it’s actually weird to see a romance set in such realism. No one in this is a vampire, or a model, or a sexually twisted billionaire. In this movie, love looks like what it looks like for most of us, meeting someone,…