Revisiting the murder mysteries of his award-winning 2013 feature, Stranger by the Lake, but with a more darkly comic tone found in much of his other work, French writer-director Alain Guiraudie’s latest, Misericordia (Miséricorde), plays like two films at once: The first is a sinister, small-town homicide story in the vein of Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt, in which a man shows up to wreak havoc on the seemingly innocent. The second is a twisted variation on Pasolini’s Teorema, in which a family is torn apart by a visitor’s pervasive sexuality and refusal to leave them alone.
The two movies don’t always crystallize into one, and if you’re looking for a credible crime thriller in which everyone behaves logically, Misericordia may not be for you. If, on the other hand, you’re looking for an exploration of repressed sexual desire and religious hypocrisy in backwoods France,...
The two movies don’t always crystallize into one, and if you’re looking for a credible crime thriller in which everyone behaves logically, Misericordia may not be for you. If, on the other hand, you’re looking for an exploration of repressed sexual desire and religious hypocrisy in backwoods France,...
- 5/20/2024
- by Jordan Mintzer
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Terry Gilliam has been to Cannes with three of his own films since 1983, but one of his favorite memories of the festival takes him back to that very first time, at the 36th edition, as the co-writer and co-star of Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. Along with Graham Chapman and the film’s director Terry Jones, he’d emerged from the Carlton hotel’s iconic entrance, then bedecked with promotion for the upcoming Bond movie Octopussy, to encounter a camera crew. Jones started grabbing people at random, shouting, “Who Ees Monty Python???” in a ridiculous foreign accent, and got so carried away that, when they reached the hotel’s famous terrace, he accidentally did it to Gilliam too.
The crowd loved it, and the day only grew stranger. Out on the Carlton’s jetty, they gave an interview to British news channel ITN, with Jones hiding behind Graham...
The crowd loved it, and the day only grew stranger. Out on the Carlton’s jetty, they gave an interview to British news channel ITN, with Jones hiding behind Graham...
- 5/20/2024
- by Damon Wise
- Deadline Film + TV
As Cannes Film Festival kicks off, the Paris-based international sales company MK2 Films has revealed it has acquired three films and made substantial investments in new restorations, set against the backdrop of a strong presence at Cannes Classics.
MK2 Films has entered into a collaboration with the Niki Charitable Art Foundation on the global rights (excluding the U.S.) for two films directed by artist Niki de Saint Phalle: “Un Rêve plus long que la nuit” (1976) and “Daddy” (1973). “Un Rêve plus long que la nuit” has been restored in 4K by L’Immagine Ritrovata (Bologna-Paris) under the supervision of Arielle de Saint Phalle and with funding from Dior. It was presented at Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, New York Film Festival and the new Los Angeles Festival of Movies. “Daddy” will soon be available in a restored version. MK2 Films described it as a “unique feminist work by one of...
MK2 Films has entered into a collaboration with the Niki Charitable Art Foundation on the global rights (excluding the U.S.) for two films directed by artist Niki de Saint Phalle: “Un Rêve plus long que la nuit” (1976) and “Daddy” (1973). “Un Rêve plus long que la nuit” has been restored in 4K by L’Immagine Ritrovata (Bologna-Paris) under the supervision of Arielle de Saint Phalle and with funding from Dior. It was presented at Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, New York Film Festival and the new Los Angeles Festival of Movies. “Daddy” will soon be available in a restored version. MK2 Films described it as a “unique feminist work by one of...
- 5/14/2024
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
Though Richard Linklater’s Hit Man is about to debut in theaters and on Netflix––just after his under-the-radar documentary God Save Texas: Hometown Prison came to Max––the ever-prolific American was recently in Paris for Nouvelle Vague, his chronicle of the making of Godard’s Breathless. (If not more: casting notices for Jean-Pierre Léaud around the time of François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows and Martin Lassale around the time of Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket popped up.) With filming recently wrapped, one might expect a fall premiere––expectations bolstered by today’s unveiling of our first real look, courtesy (who else!) Cahiers du cinéma.
Therein one can find Guillaume Marbeck as Jean-Luc Godard (previously unveiled in a cast-and-crew portrait) and filming of a scene on the Champs-Elysees. Meanwhile, Jean-Louis Fernandez shared a set photo suggesting the production design team should be paid handsomely.
Find them below:
View this post...
Therein one can find Guillaume Marbeck as Jean-Luc Godard (previously unveiled in a cast-and-crew portrait) and filming of a scene on the Champs-Elysees. Meanwhile, Jean-Louis Fernandez shared a set photo suggesting the production design team should be paid handsomely.
Find them below:
View this post...
- 5/9/2024
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Laurent Cantet's Palme d'Or winner The Class Photo: UniFrance The French director Laurent Cantet who struck gold at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008 with the Palme d’Or winner, The Class, has died at the age of 63.
Laurent Cantet Photo: Veeren Ramsamy for UniFrance The film was based on the novel Entre les murs which was a semi-autobiographical account of the author François Bégaudeau's own experiences in the school system in Paris - and featured him in the lead role of the teacher confronting “problem children.”
Beside the Palme d’Or the film also was nominated for an Oscar as Best Foreign Language Film.
Cantet was a filmmaker who showed a lively interest in social issues and themes, often used non professional actors and took a naturalistic approach to his subjects. His kindred spirits would be Ken Loach and the Dardenne Brothers as well as the traditions of Roberto Rossellini and Robert Bresson.
Laurent Cantet Photo: Veeren Ramsamy for UniFrance The film was based on the novel Entre les murs which was a semi-autobiographical account of the author François Bégaudeau's own experiences in the school system in Paris - and featured him in the lead role of the teacher confronting “problem children.”
Beside the Palme d’Or the film also was nominated for an Oscar as Best Foreign Language Film.
Cantet was a filmmaker who showed a lively interest in social issues and themes, often used non professional actors and took a naturalistic approach to his subjects. His kindred spirits would be Ken Loach and the Dardenne Brothers as well as the traditions of Roberto Rossellini and Robert Bresson.
- 4/25/2024
- by Richard Mowe
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
The red carpet will soon roll out for the 77th Festival de Cannes. The international film festival, playing out May 14-25, has a distinct American voice this year. “Barbie” filmmaker Greta Gerwig is the first U.S. female director name jury president. Many veteran American helmers are heading to the French Rivera resort town. George Lucas, who turns 80 on May 14, will receive an honorary Palme d’Or. Francis Ford Coppola’s much-anticipated “Megalopolis” is screening in competition, as is Paul Schrader’s “Oh Canada.” Kevin Costner’s new Western “Horizon, An American Saga” will premiere out of competition and Oliver Stone’s “Lula” is part of the special screening showcase.
Fifty years ago, Coppola was the toast of the 27th Cannes Film Festival. His brilliant psychological thriller “The Conversation” starring Gene Hackman won the Palme D’Or and well as a Special Mention from the Ecumenical Jury. The film would earn three Oscar nominations: picture,...
Fifty years ago, Coppola was the toast of the 27th Cannes Film Festival. His brilliant psychological thriller “The Conversation” starring Gene Hackman won the Palme D’Or and well as a Special Mention from the Ecumenical Jury. The film would earn three Oscar nominations: picture,...
- 4/25/2024
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
There are many dozens of classic prison movies, everything from “The Shawshank Redemption” to Robert Bresson’s “A Man Escaped” to several Clint Eastwood movies, and many of them revolve around the human spirit, the will to live beyond the psychological claustrophobia of incarceration. But perhaps there’s been no prison movie like “Sing Sing,” a new A24 drama starring Colman Domingo, about a theatre troupe that finds escape from the realities of incarceration through the creativity of putting on a play.
Continue reading ‘Sing Sing’ Trailer: Colman Domingo Stars In A24’s Acclaimed Prison Drama at The Playlist.
Continue reading ‘Sing Sing’ Trailer: Colman Domingo Stars In A24’s Acclaimed Prison Drama at The Playlist.
- 3/6/2024
- by Edward Davis
- The Playlist
Between last week’s release of his under-the-radar documentary God Save Texas: Hometown Prison and the June release of his wildly entertaining crowdpleaser Hit Man Trailer: Glen Powell Shapeshifts for Richard Linklater’s Comedy, Arriving in June”>Hit Man, Richard Linklater is embarking on his next film. Set to shoot this month and April in Paris, his new feature will capture the beginnings of the French New Wave, centered on the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 debut masterpiece Breathless.
We now have our first piece of casting as our new Jean Seberg has been unveiled. Zoey Deutch has revealed her Seberg look on Instagram, with hair colorist Tracey Cunningham confirming it’s for the role of the French New Wave Icon, who made her breakout in Godard’s debut. The film will mark a reunion following Everybody Wants Some!! for Linklater and Deutch, who will deliver the latest portrayal of...
We now have our first piece of casting as our new Jean Seberg has been unveiled. Zoey Deutch has revealed her Seberg look on Instagram, with hair colorist Tracey Cunningham confirming it’s for the role of the French New Wave Icon, who made her breakout in Godard’s debut. The film will mark a reunion following Everybody Wants Some!! for Linklater and Deutch, who will deliver the latest portrayal of...
- 3/5/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For regular updates, sign up for our weekly email newsletter and follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSHard Truths.Mike Leigh’s forthcoming Hard Truths will reunite him with Marianne Jean-Baptiste, star of Secrets and Lies (1996). It will be the British director’s first film set in the present day since Another Year (2010).Jia Zhangke has divulged some details of We Shall Be All, now in the early stages of post-production. In production off and on since 2001, the film will be his first feature since Ash Is Purest White (2018). “I travelled with actors and a cameraman to shoot, without a script, without any obvious story,” the director told Variety. “This is a work of fiction, but I have applied many documentary methods.”Robert Bresson’s rarely seen Four Nights of a Dreamer is being restored by MK2 Films, set for a spring release.
- 2/28/2024
- MUBI
Mubi Picks at Posteritati is a series in which we invite our favorite artists to the prestigious movie art gallery in New York City to discuss their favorite movie posters of all time.We met with celebrated cinematographer Sean Price Williams and prolific film critic Nick Pinkerton, now making waves for their first film as a writing-directing team in The Sweet East. As the film plays in theaters nationwide, they stopped by Posteritati to share their selection of the best movie posters of all time, including Raymond Savignac's cartoonish designs for Robert Bresson, Walerian Borowczyk's handwritten erotica, and more.
- 2/26/2024
- MUBI
Kumar Shahani, one of the pioneers of India’s arthouse parallel cinema movement, died at a hospital in Kolkata on Feb. 24 after a period of illness. He was 83.
Shahani studied screenwriting and direction at the Film and Television of India, where he was tutored by Indian master Ritwik Ghatak. He won a French government scholarship for higher studies in France, where he studied at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinématographiques and assisted Robert Bresson on “Une Femme Douce” (1969).
He returned to India and directed his first feature “Maya Darpan” in 1972. Shahani was known for his formalist style of filmmaking and his landmark films include “Tarang” (1984), “Khayal Gatha” (1989) and “Kasba” (1990).
Internationally, Shahani’s work was particularly appreciated at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, which programmed several of his films including “Maya Darpan,” the short “Var Var Vari,” “Tarang,” “Kasba,” the documentary “Bhavantarana” and “Char Adhyay.” “Khayal Gatha” won the Fipresci prize...
Shahani studied screenwriting and direction at the Film and Television of India, where he was tutored by Indian master Ritwik Ghatak. He won a French government scholarship for higher studies in France, where he studied at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinématographiques and assisted Robert Bresson on “Une Femme Douce” (1969).
He returned to India and directed his first feature “Maya Darpan” in 1972. Shahani was known for his formalist style of filmmaking and his landmark films include “Tarang” (1984), “Khayal Gatha” (1989) and “Kasba” (1990).
Internationally, Shahani’s work was particularly appreciated at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, which programmed several of his films including “Maya Darpan,” the short “Var Var Vari,” “Tarang,” “Kasba,” the documentary “Bhavantarana” and “Char Adhyay.” “Khayal Gatha” won the Fipresci prize...
- 2/25/2024
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
The world of Indian cinema mourns the loss of Kumar Shahani, a visionary filmmaker whose contributions have left an indelible mark on the landscape of parallel cinema. Shahani, who breathed his last on Sunday at the age of 83, leaves behind a legacy rich with artistic brilliance and innovation.
Born into a world enamored with the magic of storytelling, Kumar Shahani embarked on a journey that would redefine the contours of Indian cinema. His alma mater, the Film and Television Institute of India (Ftii) in Pune, served as the crucible where his cinematic sensibilities were honed. It was here that he found himself under the mentorship of the legendary director Ritwik Ghatak, who recognized in Shahani a spark of genius.
Following in the footsteps of his mentor, Kumar Shahani ventured into the realm of filmmaking with a thirst for experimentation and a keen eye for detail. His sojourn to France, where...
Born into a world enamored with the magic of storytelling, Kumar Shahani embarked on a journey that would redefine the contours of Indian cinema. His alma mater, the Film and Television Institute of India (Ftii) in Pune, served as the crucible where his cinematic sensibilities were honed. It was here that he found himself under the mentorship of the legendary director Ritwik Ghatak, who recognized in Shahani a spark of genius.
Following in the footsteps of his mentor, Kumar Shahani ventured into the realm of filmmaking with a thirst for experimentation and a keen eye for detail. His sojourn to France, where...
- 2/25/2024
- by Chesta Singh
- ReferSMS
Mk2 Films, the Paris-based outfit behind Justine Triet’s Oscar-nominated “Anatomy of a Fall,” is set to restore Robert Bresson’s “Four Nights of a Dreamer,” a romantic drama which competed at the Berlinale in 1971 and disappeared from screens in 1985.
MK2 Films, the division of a major arthouse cinema chain in France, will digitize “Four Nights of a Dreamer” in 4K and will bring it to global theatres in 2024.
“Four Nights of a Dreamer” is the 10th film directed by Bresson and the only one which wasn’t restored. His other credits include “Mouchette,” “Au Hasard Balthazar” and “Pickpocket.”
Inspired by Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel “White Nights,” “Four Nights of a Dreamer” revolves around a meeting on the Pont Neuf between a dreamy young man and a distraught young woman who will confide in each other over four nights. It stars Guillaume des Forêts, Isabelle Weingarten, Jean-Maurice Monnoyer. The film...
MK2 Films, the division of a major arthouse cinema chain in France, will digitize “Four Nights of a Dreamer” in 4K and will bring it to global theatres in 2024.
“Four Nights of a Dreamer” is the 10th film directed by Bresson and the only one which wasn’t restored. His other credits include “Mouchette,” “Au Hasard Balthazar” and “Pickpocket.”
Inspired by Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel “White Nights,” “Four Nights of a Dreamer” revolves around a meeting on the Pont Neuf between a dreamy young man and a distraught young woman who will confide in each other over four nights. It stars Guillaume des Forêts, Isabelle Weingarten, Jean-Maurice Monnoyer. The film...
- 2/16/2024
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Andrei Tarkovsky’s penultimate film, 1983’s gorgeously haunting Nostalghia, also marked new territory for the director. His first film made outside the Ussr, the Cannes Best Director winner (a prize he shared with Robert Bresson for L’Argent), was also a unique collaboration with writer Tonino Guerra, frequent collaborator of Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, and Francesco Rosi. Now restored in 4K in 2022 by Csc – Cinetecanazionale in collaboration with Rai Cinema at Augustus Color laboratory, from the original negatives and the original soundtrack preserved at Rai Cinema, the restoration will begin rolling out on February 21 at NYC’s Film Forum via Kino Lorber and we’re pleased to exclusively unveil the trailer.
Here’s the synopsis: “Andrei Tarkovsky explained that in Russian the word ‘nostalghia’ conveys ‘the love for your homeland and the melancholy that arises from being far away.’ This debilitating form of homesickness is embodied in the film by Andrei,...
Here’s the synopsis: “Andrei Tarkovsky explained that in Russian the word ‘nostalghia’ conveys ‘the love for your homeland and the melancholy that arises from being far away.’ This debilitating form of homesickness is embodied in the film by Andrei,...
- 1/31/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
The question of how to get the most authenticity possible out of actors has been riling up filmmakers for as long as the film medium has existed. William Wyler ("Ben-Hur") did 40 takes; Robert Bresson ("Pickpocket") insisted on simple movements and monotone line deliveries; Italian Neorealists cast people off the street; Robert Altman ("Nashville") let actors improvise; Andrei Tarkovsky ("Solaris") kept them in the dark about how the story would end.
When it comes to horror, the quest becomes even more daunting: How do you convince viewers that the people they're seeing on screen are genuinely disturbed and terrified, while also securing enough distance between actors and characters to keep the shoot sustainable? Some films have attempted to split the difference by instilling genuine scares, discomfort, and emotional distress on their actors. Others assembled their respective violent scenarios to within an inch of their lives, placing performers into circumstances that were...
When it comes to horror, the quest becomes even more daunting: How do you convince viewers that the people they're seeing on screen are genuinely disturbed and terrified, while also securing enough distance between actors and characters to keep the shoot sustainable? Some films have attempted to split the difference by instilling genuine scares, discomfort, and emotional distress on their actors. Others assembled their respective violent scenarios to within an inch of their lives, placing performers into circumstances that were...
- 1/15/2024
- by Leo Noboru Lima
- Slash Film
Rodrigo Moreno's The Delinquents is screening exclusively on Mubi in many countries.The Delinquents.Words have no owner. They simply are. They live in the speakers of a language, but no one has possession of a verb or a noun. If anyone can come close to such ownership, it is an artist, who puts the word in a complex combination that is theirs alone. A filmmaker's material is not words—though some might say a shot is its equivalent—but rather the world. Through framing, cutting, and duration, the director makes a movie their own, yet what is shot does not obey the will of the filmmaker. The material of the world is the filmmaker's lyrics, and the world does not belong to them.The arrangement and rearrangement of material—whether of words or of the world when it is filmed—into new works of art can be linked...
- 12/18/2023
- MUBI
Tran Anh Hung’s The Taste of Things is almost halfway done before it even hints that there’s something going on within its fin-de-siècle setting besides the creation and consumption of beautiful meals. The film’s first half hour is in fact just that, with Eugénie (Juliette Binoche), a veteran cook in the manor home of Dodin (Benoît Magimel), the epicure for whom she’s been working for over 20 years, making an extravagant, multi-course meal for him and his friends. The men eat the food, then compliment Eugénie on her cooking.
Given the close yet unfussy attention paid to the choreography of cooking, with Jonathan Ricquebourg’s camera flowing sinuously through the kitchen and peeking into pots as ingredients are added and steam billows out, it would have been satisfying if Hung had just concluded the film with well-fed Frenchmen chatting over a digestif. Fortunately, he’s interested not...
Given the close yet unfussy attention paid to the choreography of cooking, with Jonathan Ricquebourg’s camera flowing sinuously through the kitchen and peeking into pots as ingredients are added and steam billows out, it would have been satisfying if Hung had just concluded the film with well-fed Frenchmen chatting over a digestif. Fortunately, he’s interested not...
- 11/29/2023
- by Chris Barsanti
- Slant Magazine
When Martin Scorsese finally won the directing Oscar for 2006’s The Departed, he inspired a handful of film buffs to point out the supposed travesty implied by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences long ignoring the landmark titles on the filmmaker’s resume in favor of a remake. Few pointed out, or seemed to recall, that America’s most beloved living auteur, was not only no stranger to remakes, but took up the business of remaking, rebooting, and paying homage as a more than honorable foundation for a now-legendary body of work.
New York, New York was essentially a ticker-tape parade for old Hollywood’s Technicolor musical legacy, while Taxi Driver was a tribute either to Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket or John Ford’s The Searchers, depending on which auteur lens (Paul Schrader or Martin Scorsese) you look at it through. And 1973’s Mean Streets, the director’s third feature,...
New York, New York was essentially a ticker-tape parade for old Hollywood’s Technicolor musical legacy, while Taxi Driver was a tribute either to Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket or John Ford’s The Searchers, depending on which auteur lens (Paul Schrader or Martin Scorsese) you look at it through. And 1973’s Mean Streets, the director’s third feature,...
- 11/15/2023
- by Jaime N. Christley
- Slant Magazine
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSStranger by the Lake.Production has begun on Alain Guiraudie’s next noir-esque feature, Miséricorde, with Dp Claire Mathon—their third collaboration after Stranger by the Lake (2013) and Staying Vertical (2016). The plot centers on a 30-year-old man named Jérémie who returns to a village in southern France, his prior home, for an old friend’s funeral, only to find himself at the center of a police investigation.Recommended VIEWINGJanus Films have shared a trailer for a new 4K restoration of Glauber Rocha’s Black God, White Devil (1964). A virtuosic, formally experimental work of militant cinema, it tells the story of Manoel, a cowherd who, after murdering a ranch owner, flees to join a religious cult headed by a self-proclaimed saint, only to find himself back among violence. A landmark of Brazil’s Cinema Novo...
- 11/9/2023
- MUBI
The Movie Orgy.The title is a kind of ontological dare: can an assemblage of movies all lay on top of each other, swap positions, feel each other? Surely humans love, as they say, “to watch,” to raise voyeurism up as art. But when left to its own devices, does cinema also experience such base urges? Asked another way: when we say “the movie orgy,” don’t we mean “editing”? Disparate parts colliding with and enveloping one another, penetrating and being penetrated, and finally mutating after coming together? Cinema is transformed by—and transforms (us) through—the spaces between the images. A classier writer might cite Robert Bresson, speaking to Cahiers du cinéma at Cannes in 1957: “The cinema must express itself not with images, but with relationships between images, which is not at all the same thing.” A happy vulgarian—I betray that I am one, as I suspect Joe Dante,...
- 10/31/2023
- MUBI
Among the myriad reasons we could call the Criterion Channel the single greatest streaming service is its leveling of cinematic snobbery. Where a new World Cinema Project restoration plays, so too does Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight. I think about this looking at November’s lineup and being happiest about two new additions: a nine-film Robert Bresson retro including L’argent and The Devil, Probably; and a one-film Hype Williams retro including Belly and only Belly, but bringing as a bonus the direct-to-video Belly 2: Millionaire Boyz Club. Until recently such curation seemed impossible.
November will also feature a 20-film noir series boasting the obvious and the not. Maybe the single tightest collection is “Women of the West,” with Johnny Guitar and The Beguiled and Rancho Notorious and The Furies only half of it. Lynch/Oz, Irradiated, and My Two Voices make streaming premieres; Drylongso gets a Criterion Edition; and joining...
November will also feature a 20-film noir series boasting the obvious and the not. Maybe the single tightest collection is “Women of the West,” with Johnny Guitar and The Beguiled and Rancho Notorious and The Furies only half of it. Lynch/Oz, Irradiated, and My Two Voices make streaming premieres; Drylongso gets a Criterion Edition; and joining...
- 10/24/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
NYC Weekend Watch is our weekly round-up of repertory offerings.
Roxy Cinema
Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives, Chinatown, The Third Man, and Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond all show on 35mm.
Anthology Film Archives
Five films by Robert Bresson screen in Essential Cinema this weekend.
Lincoln Center
NYFF Revivals closes with Un rêve plus long que la nuit on Sunday.
Museum of the Moving Image
Reverse Shot celebrates its 20th anniversary with a months-long programming run, continuing this weekend with Inside Llewyn Davis and Lake Mungo.
IFC Center
sex, lies, and videotape, The Holy Mountain, Being John Malkovich, Friday the 13th: Part VI, and Gregg Araki’s Nowhere play while Oldboy screens in a new restoration.
The post NYC Weekend Watch: Chinatown, Robert Bresson, Inside Llewyn Davis & More first appeared on The Film Stage.
Roxy Cinema
Woody Allen’s Husbands and Wives, Chinatown, The Third Man, and Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond all show on 35mm.
Anthology Film Archives
Five films by Robert Bresson screen in Essential Cinema this weekend.
Lincoln Center
NYFF Revivals closes with Un rêve plus long que la nuit on Sunday.
Museum of the Moving Image
Reverse Shot celebrates its 20th anniversary with a months-long programming run, continuing this weekend with Inside Llewyn Davis and Lake Mungo.
IFC Center
sex, lies, and videotape, The Holy Mountain, Being John Malkovich, Friday the 13th: Part VI, and Gregg Araki’s Nowhere play while Oldboy screens in a new restoration.
The post NYC Weekend Watch: Chinatown, Robert Bresson, Inside Llewyn Davis & More first appeared on The Film Stage.
- 10/13/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Playwright Annie Baker has developed a distinctive style in which silences often speak louder than words, the words themselves mean more than what’s actually said, and routine conversations and events have the power of earth-shattering revelations. It’s an approach to drama that demands us to pay close attention to every line of dialogue and every flicker of emotion on an actor’s face, lest we miss crucial details. In some ways, that’s a deeply cinematic approach to dramaturgy, recalling the economy of Robert Bresson and Harold Pinter’s work, except that Baker’s is far more emotionally immediate.
The plot of Baker’s quiet and often moving feature directorial debut, Janet Planet, details the bond between 11-year-old Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) and her acupuncturist mother, Janet (Julianne Nicholson), in rural Western Massachusetts in the summer of 1991 just before Lacy enters the sixth grade. The closest that the film...
The plot of Baker’s quiet and often moving feature directorial debut, Janet Planet, details the bond between 11-year-old Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) and her acupuncturist mother, Janet (Julianne Nicholson), in rural Western Massachusetts in the summer of 1991 just before Lacy enters the sixth grade. The closest that the film...
- 10/8/2023
- by Kenji Fujishima
- Slant Magazine
The first image in writer-director Raven Jackson’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt—a close-up of a hand squeezing a freshly caught fish, its reflective scales mirrored by the twinkling, gauzy light captured on 35mm by cinematographer Jomo Fray—quickly immerses us in the film’s world. The relationship between bodies and the natural world that surrounds them, mediated by the physical properties of film, is central to Jackson’s work. As the scene progresses, the camera’s focus remains resolutely on what may seem like its incidental textures, tracking the interplay of skin, earth, and water as if they were brushstrokes on a canvas.
The elemental poeticism of these images is clear evidence of Jackson’s promise as a filmmaker, and yet this opening sequence also points to why All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt amounts to a limited showcase for her talents. Essentially all of the film’s aesthetic,...
The elemental poeticism of these images is clear evidence of Jackson’s promise as a filmmaker, and yet this opening sequence also points to why All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt amounts to a limited showcase for her talents. Essentially all of the film’s aesthetic,...
- 10/6/2023
- by Brad Hanford
- Slant Magazine
These last few years the Criterion Channel have made October viewing much easier to prioritize, and in the spirit of their ’70s and ’80s horror series we’ve graduated to––you guessed it––”’90s Horror.” A couple of obvious classics stand with cult favorites and more unknown entities (When a Stranger Calls Back and Def By Temptation are new to me). Three more series continue the trend: “Technothrillers” does what it says on the tin, courtesy the likes of eXistenZ and Demonlover; “Art-House Horror” is precisely the kind of place to host Cure, Suspiria, Onibaba; and “Pre-Code Horror” is a black-and-white dream. Phantom of the Paradise, Unfriended, and John Brahm’s The Lodger are added elsewhere.
James Gray is the latest with an “Adventures in Moviegoing” series populated by deep cuts and straight classics. Stonewalling and restorations of Trouble Every Day and The Devil, Probably make streaming debuts, while Flesh for Frankenstein,...
James Gray is the latest with an “Adventures in Moviegoing” series populated by deep cuts and straight classics. Stonewalling and restorations of Trouble Every Day and The Devil, Probably make streaming debuts, while Flesh for Frankenstein,...
- 9/28/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
There are literally hundreds of films and TV shows about or featuring King Arthur going back well over a century – there are silent films, musicals, animated films, comedies, dramas. You name it, there is a King-Arthur-themed version of it. There are not a small number of “Best of…” lists floating around the internet as well. But how do you know which of the recommendations is really going to scratch your King Arthur-shaped itch?
MGM+’s new series about King Arthur, The Winter King, is a combination of gritty historical fiction and “low” fantasy. It is also fairly grim and violent. But there are lots of different ways to tell a story about King Arthur and his knights, with or without round table, Merlin, the Lady of the Lake and so on. Here, we’ve rounded up a few of our favourite films and TV shows about or featuring King Arthur,...
MGM+’s new series about King Arthur, The Winter King, is a combination of gritty historical fiction and “low” fantasy. It is also fairly grim and violent. But there are lots of different ways to tell a story about King Arthur and his knights, with or without round table, Merlin, the Lady of the Lake and so on. Here, we’ve rounded up a few of our favourite films and TV shows about or featuring King Arthur,...
- 9/10/2023
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
Bertrand Bonello’s sci-fi drama “The Beast,” which premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Sunday, follows a star-crossed duo, trying — and failing — to make love work across three timelines. Moving between 1910, 2014 and 2044, the film mixes period drama, speculative sci-fi and bouts of genuinely chilling horror — particularly in a middle section set in contemporary Los Angeles.
There, aspiring actress Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) catches the attention of Louis (George MacKay), a self-described incel with a violent hatred for women. Bonello based the character on Elliot Rodger, a 2014 mass killer who uploaded a misogynist manifesto to YouTube before claiming seven lives. The filmmaker also re-created scenes from Rodger’s infamous video verbatim in the film.
Why did you choose to cite Elliot Rodger?
When I learned of the story back in 2014, I was shocked by the atrocious attack, of course, but I was also shocked by his words, so much so that...
There, aspiring actress Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) catches the attention of Louis (George MacKay), a self-described incel with a violent hatred for women. Bonello based the character on Elliot Rodger, a 2014 mass killer who uploaded a misogynist manifesto to YouTube before claiming seven lives. The filmmaker also re-created scenes from Rodger’s infamous video verbatim in the film.
Why did you choose to cite Elliot Rodger?
When I learned of the story back in 2014, I was shocked by the atrocious attack, of course, but I was also shocked by his words, so much so that...
- 9/3/2023
- by Ben Croll
- Variety Film + TV
The well-liked film critic is fondly remembered as a passionate supporter of arthouse films.
Figures from the UK and international industry have been paying tribute to the beloved former Guardian, Screen International and Evening Standard film critic Derek Malcolm, who died aged 91 at the weekend.
“Derek Malcolm was a great critic and a true friend of the Venice Film Festival. Even at the Lido he exercised his great curiosity and sensitivity towards global cinema. It’s a big loss for film culture,” Alberto Barbera, artistic director of the Vernice Film Festival, told Screen.
Legendary US documentary maker Fred Wiseman reminisced...
Figures from the UK and international industry have been paying tribute to the beloved former Guardian, Screen International and Evening Standard film critic Derek Malcolm, who died aged 91 at the weekend.
“Derek Malcolm was a great critic and a true friend of the Venice Film Festival. Even at the Lido he exercised his great curiosity and sensitivity towards global cinema. It’s a big loss for film culture,” Alberto Barbera, artistic director of the Vernice Film Festival, told Screen.
Legendary US documentary maker Fred Wiseman reminisced...
- 7/18/2023
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
Since Sofia Bohdanowicz introduced Deragh Campbell’s Audrey Brenac in Never Eat Alone, the eye-gravitating protagonist has always been on some inquiry, not unlike a non-criminal investigator. In A Woman Escapes, Audrey ventures into new territory for her fifth film, where she heals from losing her friend Juliane in Paris at her grandmother’s home. Along the path, Williams and Çevik play fictional versions of Audrey to help her in her grief through filmmaking while separated during the pandemic.
Containing dialogue and imagery recalling Robert Bresson’s A Man Escaped, this explicit homage to the French auteur allows the three filmmakers to expand what experimental film could be. Throughout her work, Bohdanowicz seeds a bridge between fact and fiction to evoke the audience’s connection with their existing reality. She, Williams, and Çevik emit a patient, inquisitive approach to gazing at the world: Williams’ 3D layering of subtitles and physical...
Containing dialogue and imagery recalling Robert Bresson’s A Man Escaped, this explicit homage to the French auteur allows the three filmmakers to expand what experimental film could be. Throughout her work, Bohdanowicz seeds a bridge between fact and fiction to evoke the audience’s connection with their existing reality. She, Williams, and Çevik emit a patient, inquisitive approach to gazing at the world: Williams’ 3D layering of subtitles and physical...
- 6/7/2023
- by Edward Frumkin
- The Film Stage
Although he is rightly judged as being in the vanguard of British independent cinema, Mark Jenkin nonetheless seems out of place in such company. Unlike his contemporaries—Peter Strickland, Lynne Ramsay, Andrea Arnold, Clio Barnard, and Jonathan Glazer, among others—he is a strict formalist, creating expressions through the rhythms and combinations of images and sounds rather than through conventional narratives or theatrical gestures. And what makes him yet more unique, both in the UK and internationally, is the breadth of his creative abilities: he writes, directs, shoots, edits, produces, and scores each of his films, and sometimes even develops the film himself, as with his BAFTA-winning debut feature, “Bait.” Like “Bait,” his latest work, “Enys Men,” is rather difficult to categorize.
Continue reading ‘Enys Men’: Director Mark Jenkin Talks ‘Bait,’ Robert Bresson & His Upcoming Time Travel Movie at The Playlist.
Continue reading ‘Enys Men’: Director Mark Jenkin Talks ‘Bait,’ Robert Bresson & His Upcoming Time Travel Movie at The Playlist.
- 3/28/2023
- by Oliver Weir
- The Playlist
While we’ve known the results of Jeanne Dielman Tops Sight and Sound‘s 2022 Greatest Films of All-Time List”>Sight & Sound’s once-in-a-decade greatest films of all-time poll for a few months now, the recent release of the individual ballots has given data-crunching cinephiles a new opportunity to dive deeper. We have Letterboxd lists detailing all 4,400+ films that received at least one vote and another expanding the directors poll, spreadsheets calculating every entry, and now a list ranking how many votes individual directors received for their films.
Tabulated by Genjuro, the list of 35 directors, with two pairs, puts Alfred Hitchcock back on top, while Chantal Akerman is at number two. Elsewhere in the top ten are David Lynch, Francis Ford Coppola, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Orson Welles, Yasujirō Ozu, and Stanley Kubrick, and tied for the tenth spot is Wong Kar Wai and Ingmar Bergman.
Check out the list below,...
Tabulated by Genjuro, the list of 35 directors, with two pairs, puts Alfred Hitchcock back on top, while Chantal Akerman is at number two. Elsewhere in the top ten are David Lynch, Francis Ford Coppola, Jean-Luc Godard, Agnès Varda, Orson Welles, Yasujirō Ozu, and Stanley Kubrick, and tied for the tenth spot is Wong Kar Wai and Ingmar Bergman.
Check out the list below,...
- 3/5/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Now in his mid-80s, Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski proved that age is just a number when his film Eo premiered in Cannes last year, earning him the Jury Prize for this picaresque story of a donkey on the move, from good situations to bad. His lucky streak continued this year when the film was Oscar-nominated for Best International Feature — surprisingly, his first nod from the Academy in a career spanning 60 years.
Related Story Pawel Mykietyn Admits He Loved The “Crazy” Of Composing Music For A Wandering Donkey In Poland’s Oscar Entry ‘Eo’ – Sound & Screen Related Story 'Fire Of Love' Team On Their Volcanic Love Story For The Ages – Contenders Film: The Nominees Related Story Alice Rohrwacher & Alfonso Cuarón's 'Le Pupille' Draws Inspiration From Classic Italian Cinema – Contenders Film: The Nominees
Accompanied by his wife and writing partner Ewa Piaskowska for a panel at Deadline’s Contenders Film: The Nominees event,...
Related Story Pawel Mykietyn Admits He Loved The “Crazy” Of Composing Music For A Wandering Donkey In Poland’s Oscar Entry ‘Eo’ – Sound & Screen Related Story 'Fire Of Love' Team On Their Volcanic Love Story For The Ages – Contenders Film: The Nominees Related Story Alice Rohrwacher & Alfonso Cuarón's 'Le Pupille' Draws Inspiration From Classic Italian Cinema – Contenders Film: The Nominees
Accompanied by his wife and writing partner Ewa Piaskowska for a panel at Deadline’s Contenders Film: The Nominees event,...
- 2/18/2023
- by Damon Wise
- Deadline Film + TV
A circus donkey embarks on a long, lonely journey, meeting human kindness and cruelty, in this strangely beautiful Oscar contender
By far the most intriguing category at the 95th Academy Awards is that of best international feature. While German director Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front seems an obvious pack leader (it’s up for nine awards – including best picture), there’s buzz around Colm Bairéad’s The Quiet Girl (the first Irish feature to be nominated in this category), and enthusiastic support for Santiago Mitre’s historical drama Argentina, 1985. But the dark horse – or rather donkey – is Eo, the strangely wonderful Polish entry from veteran director Jerzy Skolimowski, inspired by Robert Bresson’s 1966 French masterpiece Au hasard Balthazar.
“This film was made out of our love for animals and nature,” says a closing intertitle, reassuring viewers that “the animals’ wellbeing on set was always our first...
By far the most intriguing category at the 95th Academy Awards is that of best international feature. While German director Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front seems an obvious pack leader (it’s up for nine awards – including best picture), there’s buzz around Colm Bairéad’s The Quiet Girl (the first Irish feature to be nominated in this category), and enthusiastic support for Santiago Mitre’s historical drama Argentina, 1985. But the dark horse – or rather donkey – is Eo, the strangely wonderful Polish entry from veteran director Jerzy Skolimowski, inspired by Robert Bresson’s 1966 French masterpiece Au hasard Balthazar.
“This film was made out of our love for animals and nature,” says a closing intertitle, reassuring viewers that “the animals’ wellbeing on set was always our first...
- 2/5/2023
- by Mark Kermode
- The Guardian - Film News
Teenage FaceTime detectives, talking shells and a donkey: February is an eclectic, not to mention eccentric, month for cinema.
Throughout the year, there is a near-constant deluge of new releases arriving – on the big screen and small – and it’s hard to know which to prioritise. This new column will pick out the five best films for you to move to the top of your watch list each month.
In February, there are plenty of surefire blockbusters on the way – from acclaimed Puss in Boots sequel The Last Wish and new M Night Shyamalan thriller Knock at the Cabin (both 3 February), to Marvel’s wordily titled Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (17 February). Smaller indies, like Saint Omer, Blue Jean and Joyland, will also be arriving on the 3, 10 and 24 February, respectively.
Meanwhile, James Cameron will engage in a box office battle with himself after Avatar: The Way of Water became the...
Throughout the year, there is a near-constant deluge of new releases arriving – on the big screen and small – and it’s hard to know which to prioritise. This new column will pick out the five best films for you to move to the top of your watch list each month.
In February, there are plenty of surefire blockbusters on the way – from acclaimed Puss in Boots sequel The Last Wish and new M Night Shyamalan thriller Knock at the Cabin (both 3 February), to Marvel’s wordily titled Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (17 February). Smaller indies, like Saint Omer, Blue Jean and Joyland, will also be arriving on the 3, 10 and 24 February, respectively.
Meanwhile, James Cameron will engage in a box office battle with himself after Avatar: The Way of Water became the...
- 2/4/2023
- by Jacob Stolworthy
- The Independent - Film
This year’s 15-film shortlist for the best international feature Oscar was, by Academy standards, a reasonably diverse one. Four Asian films, two from the Americas and one from Africa helped to counter the branch’s traditional Eurocentric bias; of the remaining European selections, meanwhile, three came from filmmakers of color.
So, there was some disappointment today that the final nominees were somewhat less varied, with Santiago Mitre’s Argentine entry “Argentina, 1985” the only exception in a field of European titles from white male directors. That South Korea’s entry, Park Chan-wook’s critically adored romantic noir “Decision to Leave,” failed to make the cut was one of the morning’s biggest eyebrow-raisers; that the three female-directed titles on the shortlist, Marie Kreutzer’s BAFTA-nominated “Corsage,” Alice Diop’s “Saint Omer” and Maryam Touzani’s “The Blue Caftan,” were also passed over was a further disappointment.
This was as competitive...
So, there was some disappointment today that the final nominees were somewhat less varied, with Santiago Mitre’s Argentine entry “Argentina, 1985” the only exception in a field of European titles from white male directors. That South Korea’s entry, Park Chan-wook’s critically adored romantic noir “Decision to Leave,” failed to make the cut was one of the morning’s biggest eyebrow-raisers; that the three female-directed titles on the shortlist, Marie Kreutzer’s BAFTA-nominated “Corsage,” Alice Diop’s “Saint Omer” and Maryam Touzani’s “The Blue Caftan,” were also passed over was a further disappointment.
This was as competitive...
- 1/24/2023
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
When an independent filmmaker wants to hypnotize an audience, show off his chops, and make a grand statement, a surefire way to do it — at least if he has the talent — is to create his own version of a “Pulp Fiction”-meets-“Boogie Nights” violence-hanging-in-the-air climax set to a succulent needle drop. In “Magazine Dreams,” the writer-director Elijah Bynum (“Hot Summer Nights”), in his second feature, creates a splendid example of one of those scenes. It’s when his antihero, a bodybuilder named Killian Maddox (Jonathan Majors), has started to fall apart — though you could say that he’s been falling apart from almost the first scene.
Nursing a rage that’s epic and unhinged, Killian, as the “Sopranos” theme song put it, has got himself a gun. It’s a major one: a machine gun that could strafe an elephant. But he’s got it turned on a poor quivering middle-aged man,...
Nursing a rage that’s epic and unhinged, Killian, as the “Sopranos” theme song put it, has got himself a gun. It’s a major one: a machine gun that could strafe an elephant. But he’s got it turned on a poor quivering middle-aged man,...
- 1/21/2023
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
If you grew up wanting to be a filmmaker, you are inescapably indebted to the directors of your youth. While your work will likely be infused with the going style (e.g. any kid hopping into what is now an old-fashioned artform won't be able to expunge countless hours of TikTok videos from their brain), you'll probably be standing on the shoulders of Barry Jenkins, Chloe Zhao and Ryan Coogler -- which means you'll be drawing from their reservoir of inspiration. Whether you know it or not, Robert Bresson, Agnes Varda, and Jean-Luc Godard are speaking through you. Every artist is always looking backward.
Steven Spielberg might've been the youngest of the 1970s New Hollywood film brats, but aesthetically, he was more deeply in touch with the just-ended era of studio filmmaking than any of his peers. He wanted to harness the groundbreaking technology at his blockbuster disposal to make classical,...
Steven Spielberg might've been the youngest of the 1970s New Hollywood film brats, but aesthetically, he was more deeply in touch with the just-ended era of studio filmmaking than any of his peers. He wanted to harness the groundbreaking technology at his blockbuster disposal to make classical,...
- 1/14/2023
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
Speaking to Variety by Zoom from Warsaw, Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski – the director of Oscar contender “Eo” – sits on his sofa with his dog Bufon, a German Shepherd, by his side.
Bufon, or “Buffon” as Skolimowski prefers to spell his name – as a tribute to the Italian soccer player Gianluigi Buffon – is an actor, having appeared in an early scene in “Eo” as a “chained barking beast,” in Skolimowski’s words. It is the only time that Bufon has been secured by a chain. “He was very, very nervous about that,” Skolimowski says.
Skolimowski and Ewa Piaskowska – “Eo’s” co-writer, producer (alongside Skolimowski), and Skolimowski’s wife – lived for many years in California, but then they came back to Poland, and moved to a 19th century hunting lodge deep in a wild forest. “We lived away from civilization, but enjoyed the full spectacle of nature once we left the house,...
Bufon, or “Buffon” as Skolimowski prefers to spell his name – as a tribute to the Italian soccer player Gianluigi Buffon – is an actor, having appeared in an early scene in “Eo” as a “chained barking beast,” in Skolimowski’s words. It is the only time that Bufon has been secured by a chain. “He was very, very nervous about that,” Skolimowski says.
Skolimowski and Ewa Piaskowska – “Eo’s” co-writer, producer (alongside Skolimowski), and Skolimowski’s wife – lived for many years in California, but then they came back to Poland, and moved to a 19th century hunting lodge deep in a wild forest. “We lived away from civilization, but enjoyed the full spectacle of nature once we left the house,...
- 1/13/2023
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
Photo: 'Eo’ or 'Io' Director of ‘The Shout’, Jerzy Skolimowski, creates an ode to Robert Bresson’s ‘Au Hasard Balthazar’. The world proves to be an unforgettable place for Eo, a gray donkey with melancholic eyes as he meets people good and evil as he goes through his journey of life. Never does Eo lose his innocence as he traverses through a world that often can be perverse and harmful. Eo navigates the world, being what it is, connoted as the ass to the world, he acts as a bounce board to life as all he wants is to find connection and love. Things to do: Subscribe to The Hollywood Insider’s YouTube Channel, by clicking here. Limited Time Offer – Free Subscription to The Hollywood Insider Click here to read more on The Hollywood Insider’s vision, values and mission statement here – Media has the responsibility to better our...
- 1/13/2023
- by Devon James
- Hollywood Insider - Substance & Meaningful Entertainment
Following The Film Stage’s collective top 50 films of 2022, as part of our year-end coverage, our contributors are sharing their personal top 10 lists.
Tempting though it is to use a year-end roundup as an opportunity to speculate about the future of cinema, the truth is I actually have no idea if it’s in its death throes or not. As with any other year in recent memory, 2022 saw an abundance of both terrific filmmaking and unimaginative slop (with plenty of shades between). I pray that the former ultimately prevails over the latter, especially as said slop becomes even more ubiquitous and less watchable. Until then, I can’t do much besides advocate for what I like.
So here’s what I like. My ten favorite films of 2022, plus five honorable mentions. There are several others I enjoyed that didn’t quite make the cut and others still that I omitted due to ineligibility.
Tempting though it is to use a year-end roundup as an opportunity to speculate about the future of cinema, the truth is I actually have no idea if it’s in its death throes or not. As with any other year in recent memory, 2022 saw an abundance of both terrific filmmaking and unimaginative slop (with plenty of shades between). I pray that the former ultimately prevails over the latter, especially as said slop becomes even more ubiquitous and less watchable. Until then, I can’t do much besides advocate for what I like.
So here’s what I like. My ten favorite films of 2022, plus five honorable mentions. There are several others I enjoyed that didn’t quite make the cut and others still that I omitted due to ineligibility.
- 1/10/2023
- by Cole Kronman
- The Film Stage
All the real cinephiles know that to find the best films in the world, one has to look beyond English-speaking cinema. "Parasite" brought some much-needed attention to non-English language cinema in America when it swept the Oscars in 2019, and the world has not stopped producing incredible films in the years since. Luckily for you, I watched dozens of the best films from around the world this year and picked out the cream of the crop so you didn't have to. I expanded my search beyond the festival circuit and found movies that excel in every genre, from action and adventure to slow-burning dramas, so there will be something in here for everyone.
The global cinema of 2022 is haunted by the pandemic. It is up close and personal and a little bit scatterbrained. It is actively commenting on the cinematic tropes of yesteryear and transforming them into a spectacle. It is...
The global cinema of 2022 is haunted by the pandemic. It is up close and personal and a little bit scatterbrained. It is actively commenting on the cinematic tropes of yesteryear and transforming them into a spectacle. It is...
- 12/24/2022
- by Shae Sennett
- Slash Film
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Aftersun (Charlotte Wells)
One of the year’s most resonant films, Aftersun looks at the scratchy dynamics between a father and daughter while on vacation. It’s about memory, the finite nature of the relationships in our lives, and the difficulties of a parent’s diminishing mental health. Charlotte Wells knows where to put the camera in her debut—undeterred from taking risks, from placing her characters outside of the frame, from looking at shadows instead of the people themselves. Aftersun is a rare, tremendous first film, full of heart and focused melancholy; it breaks you down and fills you up simultaneously. The consistent inclusion of camcorder footage, and the fact that it enhances the story rather than becoming a distraction, further...
Aftersun (Charlotte Wells)
One of the year’s most resonant films, Aftersun looks at the scratchy dynamics between a father and daughter while on vacation. It’s about memory, the finite nature of the relationships in our lives, and the difficulties of a parent’s diminishing mental health. Charlotte Wells knows where to put the camera in her debut—undeterred from taking risks, from placing her characters outside of the frame, from looking at shadows instead of the people themselves. Aftersun is a rare, tremendous first film, full of heart and focused melancholy; it breaks you down and fills you up simultaneously. The consistent inclusion of camcorder footage, and the fact that it enhances the story rather than becoming a distraction, further...
- 12/23/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
How do you define a “big” movie? By impressive box office numbers? Enthusiastic critical reception? The highest-profile stars, boldest headlines, brightest debuts?
No matter which method you choose, it’s nice to note that the year’s biggest films were, overall, also among its best. So this list assumes you’ve already seen the ones that fit into all of the above categories: movies like “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and “Top Gun: Maverick,” but also “The Fabelmans,” “Nope” and “Tár.” Now it’s time to look a little deeper, think a little smaller: foreign films, documentaries, indies, and even kid flicks. Turns out, 2022 was blessed with an absolute abundance of hidden gems. Here are some that shined the brightest”
“Return to Seoul“
A gorgeous portrait of a messy life, “Return to Seoul” is simultaneously dazzling and delicate, intimate and immense. First-time actor Park Ji-Min turns in a truly stunning, tour-de-force performance as Freddie,...
No matter which method you choose, it’s nice to note that the year’s biggest films were, overall, also among its best. So this list assumes you’ve already seen the ones that fit into all of the above categories: movies like “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and “Top Gun: Maverick,” but also “The Fabelmans,” “Nope” and “Tár.” Now it’s time to look a little deeper, think a little smaller: foreign films, documentaries, indies, and even kid flicks. Turns out, 2022 was blessed with an absolute abundance of hidden gems. Here are some that shined the brightest”
“Return to Seoul“
A gorgeous portrait of a messy life, “Return to Seoul” is simultaneously dazzling and delicate, intimate and immense. First-time actor Park Ji-Min turns in a truly stunning, tour-de-force performance as Freddie,...
- 12/22/2022
- by Elizabeth Weitzman
- The Wrap
The ten best films of 2022, in five double features:
10. “Benediction” and 9. “Bros”
How does one become a fully integrated member of society — an artist, a lover, a participant in the marketplace of ideas — when that society constantly rejects your very presence and participation? Two of this year’s best took very different looks at gay creatives looking for love and fulfillment, about a century apart; “Benediction,” Terence Davies’ haunting biopic of WWI poet Siegfried Sassoon (Jack Lowden) takes a much different path than the raucous rom-com starring and co-written by Billy Eichner, but both films followed men seeking their heart’s desire in a world that judges that desire. (The exceptional LGBTQ films “Fire Island” and “The Inspection” fit this category as well.)
8. “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” and 7. “Women Talking”
Laura Poitras’ searing documentary about artist Nan Goldin and Sarah Polley’s screen adaptation of the novel by...
10. “Benediction” and 9. “Bros”
How does one become a fully integrated member of society — an artist, a lover, a participant in the marketplace of ideas — when that society constantly rejects your very presence and participation? Two of this year’s best took very different looks at gay creatives looking for love and fulfillment, about a century apart; “Benediction,” Terence Davies’ haunting biopic of WWI poet Siegfried Sassoon (Jack Lowden) takes a much different path than the raucous rom-com starring and co-written by Billy Eichner, but both films followed men seeking their heart’s desire in a world that judges that desire. (The exceptional LGBTQ films “Fire Island” and “The Inspection” fit this category as well.)
8. “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” and 7. “Women Talking”
Laura Poitras’ searing documentary about artist Nan Goldin and Sarah Polley’s screen adaptation of the novel by...
- 12/20/2022
- by Alonso Duralde
- The Wrap
Inspired by Robert Bresson’s 1966 classic “Au Hasard Balthazar,” Jerzy Skolimowski’s “Eo” also follows the life and times of a humble donkey. However, this latest offering by the 84-year-old Polish filmmaker is in no sense a direct remake of one of cinema’s enduring masterworks. So titled for the hee-hawing sounds a donkey makes, “Eo” (now in theaters) is an experimental donkey picaresque, dispensing with the ascetic filmmaking aesthetic for which Bresson was best known and instead capturing the world as vividly experienced — seen, felt, imagined, perhaps mourned — through all the senses of one noble ass.
Continue reading ‘Eo’: Jerzy Skolimowski On Presenting A Donkey’s Inner Monologue [Interview] at The Playlist.
Continue reading ‘Eo’: Jerzy Skolimowski On Presenting A Donkey’s Inner Monologue [Interview] at The Playlist.
- 12/17/2022
- by Isaac Feldberg
- The Playlist
A version of this story first appeared in the International issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.
Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski made his first film in 1960, but his new “Eo” was one of the most adventurous and freshest films to premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The central character is a wandering donkey who takes a road trip across Europe and has adventures that can be charming, frightening and heartbreaking. But “Eo” doesn’t sit back and observe its protagonist — instead, Skolimowski uses drones, effects and a jarring sound design to put viewers in the donkey’s head.
He spoke to TheWrap through a translator.
When your film premiered in Cannes, lots of people commented on how it had a boldness and youthful energy to it. At the age of 84, do you feel like a youthful filmmaker?
No, I am fully aware of my age and my limits. But...
Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski made his first film in 1960, but his new “Eo” was one of the most adventurous and freshest films to premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The central character is a wandering donkey who takes a road trip across Europe and has adventures that can be charming, frightening and heartbreaking. But “Eo” doesn’t sit back and observe its protagonist — instead, Skolimowski uses drones, effects and a jarring sound design to put viewers in the donkey’s head.
He spoke to TheWrap through a translator.
When your film premiered in Cannes, lots of people commented on how it had a boldness and youthful energy to it. At the age of 84, do you feel like a youthful filmmaker?
No, I am fully aware of my age and my limits. But...
- 12/6/2022
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
Polish maestro Jerzy Skolimowski calls Eo, winner of the Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize and just this week the Best Foreign Film award from the New York Film Critics Circle, “practically a road movie” whose POVs from the titular donkey “were the most effective element of the whole filming and editing.”
Eo is a vision of modern Europe seen through the eyes of a donkey on a stoic journey through a world where disaster and despair alternate with unexpected bliss. From Sideshow & Janus Films, it’s Poland’s entry into the Best International Feature Film Oscar race.
Related: The Contenders International – Deadline’s Full Coverage
Comparisons have been made to Robert Bresson’s 1966 study of the same breed of animal in Au Hazard Balthazar, something Skolimowski welcomes. During Deadline’s Contenders Film: International event, Skolimowski discussed the profound impact that movie had on him.
“I was a young unknown filmmaker...
Eo is a vision of modern Europe seen through the eyes of a donkey on a stoic journey through a world where disaster and despair alternate with unexpected bliss. From Sideshow & Janus Films, it’s Poland’s entry into the Best International Feature Film Oscar race.
Related: The Contenders International – Deadline’s Full Coverage
Comparisons have been made to Robert Bresson’s 1966 study of the same breed of animal in Au Hazard Balthazar, something Skolimowski welcomes. During Deadline’s Contenders Film: International event, Skolimowski discussed the profound impact that movie had on him.
“I was a young unknown filmmaker...
- 12/3/2022
- by Nancy Tartaglione
- Deadline Film + TV
When Sight & Sound’s once-in-a-decade poll ranking the greatest films of all time was released on Thursday, it was bound to provoke controversy and discourse within the film community. When it comes to something as arbitrary as ranking movies, such debates are inevitable: especially when a new film is sitting at the top of the list.
Sight & Sound voters selected Chantal Akerman’s “Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” as this decade’s greatest film of all time. It is the fourth film to ever receive the honor, after “Bicycle Thieves,” “Citizen Kane,” and “Vertigo.” But Paul Schrader isn’t sold on the pick.
The “Master Gardener” director took to his always colorful Facebook page to question the logic of the selection and question if the poll’s voters were committed to judging films by their artistic value.
“For 70 years, the Sight & Sound poll has been a reliable if somewhat...
Sight & Sound voters selected Chantal Akerman’s “Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles” as this decade’s greatest film of all time. It is the fourth film to ever receive the honor, after “Bicycle Thieves,” “Citizen Kane,” and “Vertigo.” But Paul Schrader isn’t sold on the pick.
The “Master Gardener” director took to his always colorful Facebook page to question the logic of the selection and question if the poll’s voters were committed to judging films by their artistic value.
“For 70 years, the Sight & Sound poll has been a reliable if somewhat...
- 12/3/2022
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
This review originally ran May 19, 2022, in conjunction with the film’s world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
Just two days into this year’s Cannes Film Festival, audiences have already confronted puking zombies, freak-out orgies and a surprise visit from the Trumps. But nothing could quite prepare festival goers for the outlandish offer of Jerzy Skolimowski’s “Eo,” which premiered in competition late Thursday night.
Following a donkey separated from a loving owner and cast into an unforgiving world, the film offers a neon buffed glow-up to Robert Bresson’s “Au Hasard Balthazar” and plays out more or less like a Nicholas Winding Refn influenced horror flick – which makes the fact that Skolimowski is an 84-years-young Polish man, the oldest director at Cannes, all the more surprising.
A through-and-through exercice de style as the French would put it, “Eo” has plenty on its mind and nothing much to say,...
Just two days into this year’s Cannes Film Festival, audiences have already confronted puking zombies, freak-out orgies and a surprise visit from the Trumps. But nothing could quite prepare festival goers for the outlandish offer of Jerzy Skolimowski’s “Eo,” which premiered in competition late Thursday night.
Following a donkey separated from a loving owner and cast into an unforgiving world, the film offers a neon buffed glow-up to Robert Bresson’s “Au Hasard Balthazar” and plays out more or less like a Nicholas Winding Refn influenced horror flick – which makes the fact that Skolimowski is an 84-years-young Polish man, the oldest director at Cannes, all the more surprising.
A through-and-through exercice de style as the French would put it, “Eo” has plenty on its mind and nothing much to say,...
- 12/2/2022
- by Ben Croll
- The Wrap
I have been breathlessly awaiting the release of Sight and Sound's once-a-decade poll on the 100 greatest films of all time. Even though the makeup of the list has absolutely no bearing on my own feelings about the films I love, I am always curious to get a lay of the land and see what kind of filmgoing consensus is out there, especially in a corner of the film community that isn't constantly obsessed with superheroes and the box office. This only comes around every 10 years, so it's important for us to treasure this celebration of Hollywood classics, art-house favorites, and international landmarks.
In this new 2022 update of the poll, 25 of the films that appeared on the previous list in 2012 are completely gone. This isn't a case of 25 films released in the last 10 years — or, actually, 24 new films, as the 2012 list featured 101 titles due to a tie — joining the list since it was last published.
In this new 2022 update of the poll, 25 of the films that appeared on the previous list in 2012 are completely gone. This isn't a case of 25 films released in the last 10 years — or, actually, 24 new films, as the 2012 list featured 101 titles due to a tie — joining the list since it was last published.
- 12/2/2022
- by Mike Shutt
- Slash Film
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