Apr 24, 20208 minMonsters from the SeaLeviafan (Левиафан), dir. Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2014 Zvyaginstev's earlier 2003 film, Vozvrashcheniye (The Return) impressed for the manne...
Apr 5, 20207 minCrime and PunishmentLes Quatre Cents Coups, dir. François Truffaut, 1959 The 400 Blows - an odd and misleading English translation - is regarded as one of th...
Apr 4, 20209 minMother and SonLe souffle au cœur, dir. Louis Malle, 1971 I came across this film as part of a retrospective of the French New Wave - a movement this pa...
Mar 26, 20209 minA Descent into Madness El hoyo, dir. Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, 2019 The "allegory of the long spoons" is a thought experiment which contextualises effortlessly th...
Mar 3, 202010 minPassion AblazePortrait de la jeune fille en feu, dir. Céline Sciamma, 2019. Much has been made of the concept of the "male gaze" in the arts, particula...
Feb 5, 20205 minA Eulogy for JacquesJacquot et Nantes, dir. Agnès Varda, 1991 The legendary French auteur, Agnès Varda, passed away in March 2019, aged 90, and what has ...
Feb 1, 20205 minSilence is GoldenThe Lodger, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1927. Silent Hitchcock Retrospective, Harvard Film Archive, 2020. I have to confess that my interest i...
Jan 26, 20205 minDestructive NecessitiesThe Souvenir, dir. Joanna Hogg, 2019 Honor Swinton Byrne is Julie, a young sensitive woman raised in a loving and supportive middle-upper...
Jan 20, 20203 minThe Power and the LightThe Lighthouse, dir. Robert Eggers, 2019 As a psychological thriller, The Lighthouse crawls under your skin in ways many other films in t...
Jan 16, 20205 minMidsummer MadnessMidsommar, dir. Ari Aster, 2019 Hereditary, Aster's previous film, impressed me for its fine sense of characterisation and for what I rec...
Jan 12, 20205 minIgnorance is BlissThe Farewell, dir. Lulu Wang, 2019 Lulu Wang's screenplay is perhaps one of the most impeccably crafted pieces of writing I have come acr...
Jan 5, 20203 minThe Devil in a Red DressIn Fabric, dir. Peter Strictland, 2019 On first viewing, it's tempting to sum up In Fabric as a ludicrous indulgence of horror-noir clich...
Jan 3, 20204 minCan We Camp-Up Hitler?JoJo Rabbit, dir. Taika Waititi, 2019 The first thing to say is that it's stupidly outrageous that a 10 year old kid can give such a bril...
Dec 27, 20193 minLittle Women, Big HeartsLittle Women, dir. Greta Gerwig, 2019 If ever we needed film to supply a much-needed tonic for our caustic, worrisome times, Greta Gerwig...
Dec 27, 20191 minIn praise of sight and soundPan's Labyrinth, dir. Guillermo del Toro, 2006 I saw this on a restored 35mm print: what a revelation. The depth of colours, the rich den...
Dec 17, 20195 minTarantino's Nirvana?Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, dir. Quentin Tarantino, 2019 To watch this new movie is to witness Tarantino not as we’ve come to expect -...
Nov 22, 20192 minGrass, Anyone?Greener Grass, dir. Jocelyn DeBeer, Dawn Luebbe, 2019 Set in the syrupy world of soccer moms, everyone in this turgid town wears braces f...