Film
The opening frames of Steve McQueen’s Blitz situate us in the midst of all the horror and chaos of Hitler’s lightning war – his blitzkrieg – on Britain in 1940-41. Bombs rain down on the densely populated streets of London’s East End, while firefighters and air raid patrol (ARP) wardens rush to counter the raging flames, dragging bodies, alive or dead, from the rubble. ... (read more)
Mexican filmmaker Michel Franco often darkly depicts the complex dynamics within dysfunctional families. That one of the protagonists in his latest film, Memory, has early onset dementia is by no means a red flag that this will be a hackneyed disease-of-the-week movie. Dementia has been a common theme in many recent films (Still Alice [2014] and The Father [2020] being good examples), sometimes to potent effect, though audiences’ resistance to the well-worn subject may be understandable. ... (read more)
My favourite Ralph Fiennes performance is in Fernando Meirelles’s The Constant Gardener (2005). Fiennes plays a British diplomat stationed in Africa, forced to unravel the conspiracy that led to his wife’s murder. Investigating her death, he comes to know her better than he did when she was alive; it is a backwards love story about honouring legacies we might not fully comprehend. Fiennes’s role as Cardinal-Dean Thomas Lawrence in Edward Berger’s new Vatican thriller Conclave plays out in a similar key. ... (read more)
The first act set-up of a biopic is almost always laborious. Grandiose voiceover and lines of dialogue are laden with the knowing weight of history; various conflicting images of the subject and their ‘truth’ are forced, often boringly, into narrative harmony. Lee, the feature début from respected cinematographer Ellen Kuras (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, [2004]) and long-time passion project of its star, Kate Winslet, is quick to fall prey to these generic obligations. Characters portentously refer to one another by their full names (‘What are you going to do now, Lee Miller?’) and historical turning points are neatly condensed into one-liners (‘We’re getting ready, aren’t we, for the invasion of Europe?’). ... (read more)
Where David Cronenberg’s body horrors of the 1980s and 1990s, such as Videodrome, The Fly, and Crash, were fascinating because of the fusion of technology and the human form, a new wave of genre films is anxiously asking: how much can we tweak and tinker before our bodies start to bite back? Like Theseus’s ship, how much can we swap out before nothing of our true self remains? Cosmetic surgery is booming in the 2020s, promoted via social media and normalised across every age group, so it is no wonder that a new generation of filmmakers have bodily modification on the brain. ... (read more)
The Apprentice begins with footage of Richard Nixon addressing a television audience. It is 1973 and the Senate Watergate hearings are underway. ‘People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook … Well, I’m not a crook,’ Nixon intones.
... (read more)Montessori (★★★★★) and There’s Still Tomorrow (★★★★1/2)
Italian Film Festival
by Angela Viora •
08 October 2024
Who are we to judge women like Maria Montessori, Lili d’Alengy, or Delia? Maria, whose son was raised by a nanny in the countryside while she devoted her life to educating children; Lili, who abandoned her disabled daughter to build a life as a courtesan; and Delia, trapped in an abusive relationship, demeaned and beaten daily – why don’t these women make different choices? ... (read more)
The Critic begins with a voice-over in Ian McKellen’s gravelly yet sonorous tones. After defining the term ‘critic’ (‘judge’, according to its Latin and Greek etymology), he declares, ‘The drama critic is feared and reviled for the judgement he must bring, but the truth is imperative, the critic must be cold and perfectly alone. Only the greats are remembered.’
... (read more)Confidenza (★★★★★), Parthenope (★★) and Comandante (★★★★★)
Italian Film Festival
by Angela Viora •
26 September 2024
Confidenza, Daniele Luchetti’s latest film, adapted from Domenico Starnone’s novel (2019), was translated as ‘trust’ for this year’s Italian Film Festival, which features an exceptional line-up. ... (read more)
In the opening shot of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation – one of the great opening shots in cinema – a slow, telescopic zoom scans the lunchtime crowd on a sunny day in San Francisco’s Union Square. As if by accident, the camera settles on Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), a middle-aged man in a grey raincoat whom we may not have even noticed if it weren’t for a busking mime sidling over and beginning to mimic his movements. ... (read more)