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…
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,…
Ok, so we all know that I’m not a sports fan, but golf in particular draws my ire as a racist, sexist, elitist game, played almost exclusively by wankers who have a picture of an Audi as their profile photo on Tinder. So I very nearly didn’t go see this movie, which would have been…
Ok, I lu-huve Jane Campion. I was hoping this would deliver the promise her name brings, and it is so sumptuous, the cinematography, the score. I was a little hesitant about seeing Benedict Cumberbatch as a cowboy. I had dreads about a twangy accent and this pale, cat-faced thespian trying to embody a rugged steerhand.…
It’s a Wes Anderson movie, aye? I know some people cream themselves over Wes Anderson, but I very much like his movies on a case by case basis. While people laud their iconic look, this is one of them that’s a triumph of style over substance. That’s fine if you like his style, but I…
Great Freedom is a moving, heartbreaking journey of one man’s life through the prison system, as a 175 convict. Hans is a convicted homosexual. He comes to prison straight from the concentration camps. Not only were queer men sent to die in the camps, but after the war, survivors were sent back to prison, since,…