Alasdair Bayman

★★★★☆ Stories on the seductive power of fame are omnipresent in film. Focusing on one’s disastrous downfall, all suffered at their own hands, these tales date back to mythological tales of Icarus. Acting as a soothing antidote to this narrative arises Steve Sullivan’s documentary Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story. Carefully approaching the life of…

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★★★★★ Depicting British working class on film typically endures a mixed cinematic representation. Amongst illustrating life north of Watford as a poverty-ridden fuelled existence of nothingness, these inaccurate portrayals only serve to create a London centric approach to not only just cinema but culture itself in the UK. However, every now and again an artist…

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★★★★★ To modern audiences, screwball comedies serve as slapstick forms of the moving image. Yet, behind this, they unbalance gender politics in placing the dim-witted male against an intellectually superior female protagonist. No exception to this is Preston Sturges’ The Lady Eve starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda. Fighting his way into the director’s chair…

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★★★★☆ After the recent centenary of Ingmar Bergman and Criterion Collection’s release of a mammoth thirty-nine film Blu-ray box set, the appeal of Bergman as a definitive auteur feels reborn in this moment. Affirming audiences with piercing observations on human nature, Jane Magnusson’s follows up Trespassing Bergman with Bergman: A Year in a Life. Focusing specifically on…

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★★★★☆ A testament to the enduring legacy and reverence of Michelangelo Antonioni, The Passenger returns to UK cinema screens in a new 4K restored format. A somewhat underappreciated yet still important part of his oeuvre, the film’s final dazzling shot embodies all that makes The Passenger such an organic, spiritual and quietly disconcerting work. Marking the end…

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★★★★★ Deploying the Greek myth of Orpheus in a contemporary setting, mimicked nine years later by Marcel Camus in Black Orpheus, Jean Cocteau’s bewitching touch shines bright in Orphée. Restoring this eternal tale of love to the big screen, this new 2K restoration released by the BFI gives the film an elevated platform for reappraisal. Cocteau’s…

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★★★★☆ This month marks the re-release of Jacques Rivette’s 1966 film The Nun on DVD and Blu-ray. Marking a slow shift away from simply releasing canonical filmmakers of the French New Wave – not to discredit Truffaut or Godard – Rivette’s second feature is a gem of the pivotal cinematic movement. Playfully opening with an…

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★★★★☆ Existing in a similar milieu to her feature debut Songs My Brothers Taught Me, Chloé Zhao’s The Rider is a delicate portrayal of an up-and-coming rodeo rider coming to terms with life-changing injuries caused by participating in his beloved competition. In her second feature, Zhao expresses the essence of independent cinema in Italian neorealism by…

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★★★★☆ Hot on the heels of new additions to the coming of age genre like Eighth Grade and Lady Bird, Desiree Akhavan’s second feature, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, shines a light on institutionalised homosexual oppression in 1993’s America. Adorned with a glowing central performance by Chloë Grace Moretz, the actress elevates author Emily M. Danford’s…

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★★★★★ In amongst Donald Trump’s latest scandal for allegedly paying hush money during his presidential election campaign to Stormy Daniels, a pornographic film actor, and Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, one cannot help but picture Spike Lee sat rather smug knowing he has called out the president’s true nature in BlacKkKlansman. That smugness is…

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