Film Reviews & More
★★☆☆☆ “An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,” Percy Shelley once wrote in his sonnet England in 1819. He was firing his barbs at King George III but the words could just as well be used for any number of English monarchs including Henry VIII.
★★★★★ Turkish master director Nuri Bilge Ceylan returns to the Cannes Croisette with About Dry Grasses, a wonderful wintry meditation on male fragility and the way we often make our own hells and then deceive ourselves that we’re trapped.
★★★★☆ From sub-Saharan Africa to Afghanistan, Syria to Iraq and Iran, the climate crisis, drought, war, and oppression has created a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. It is treated as an ethical conundrum, but it isn’t. Either we wish to save those who are in danger of dying, or all our talk of human rights is just so much hot air. This is the core concern of Green Border.
★★★★☆ South Korean-born American director Kogonada’s After Yang is a moving, subtle and grounded work of science fiction that doesn’t necessarily get to the core of its myriad issues, but certainly hits the heart. How refreshing to see a version of the future not dictated by the grim pessimism that Black Mirror revels in.
★★★★☆ On 10 January 2016, everything went wrong. It was reminiscent of the poem The Day Lady Died by Frank O’Hara: “everyone and I stopped breathing”. In the years following the death of David Bowie we’ve had Brexit, Donald Trump as President, a global pandemic killed millions of people and we are now on the brink of a third world war.
The head of this year’s Venice jury Julianne Moore awarded the festival’s top prize, the Golden Lion, to Laura Poitras’ All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, her profile of artist Nan Goldin and her campaign against the Sackler family. It’s a brilliant, committed piece of activist cinema.
★★★☆☆ David Cronenberg first made Crimes of the Future in 1972. It was a disturbing account of a plague that killed all sexually mature women. It was transgressive, low-budget, and shocking. Now, with a reputation built over half-a-century of work, Cronenberg has returned to the scene of his Crimes with an A-list ensemble in tow.
★★★★★ A family car journey isn’t always an enticing premise – either for a film or in real life. But in Panah Panahi’s feature debut Hit the Road, the ride is one that both the audience and the family featured probably wish would last forever. It’s an intimate, frequently funny, poignant and deeply moving piece of work.
★★★★☆ Justin Kurzel first made his name with his breakout film Snowtown, a true crime murder story that shone an unflattering light on small town Australia. Following some missteps, Nitram is a solid return to form as well as a return to similar territory. It’s based on the Port Arthur massacre that cost the lives of 35 people.
★★★☆☆ A bland title – much like a bland line of conversation – can hide an abyss the way a household fridge can hide a corpse. François Ozon is a master at this kind of observational understatement that touches on something deeper. In his new film Everything Went Fine, it is the fine details that holds weight.
★★★★☆ Following Ex Machina and Annihilation, writer and director Alex Garland returns to the green, green pastures of home with a new chiller on just how toxic masculinity can be. Jessie Buckley plays Harper, a woman in need of a retreat following the tragic end of her relationship with James (Paapa Essiedu).
