Nobody makes films like Nobuhiko Ôbayashi does, and with his tragic death in 2020, we are never going to have films like them again. Luckily, we have Labyrinth of Cinema; after giving us a final filmic statement in 2017 with the wonderful Hanagatami, Ôbayashi lived long enough to make one more final film. This film … Continue reading The Labyrinth of Cinema (Review)
Tag: mubi
Cuatro Paredes (Review)
For a few minutes, you get some nicely framed, crisp images of a pretty house. The wide angle gives you a decent view and the scene is set in promising fashion. We know the film is going to be about absence, so the wide frame leaves room for absence - and for stillness. Yet still, … Continue reading Cuatro Paredes (Review)
Stump the Guesser (Review)
This 2020 short from Maddin, Johnson and Johnson feels like it comes from a parallel reality. This is true of both the craft and the narrative, both consistently surreal and beguiling. The result of this is an uproariously fun twenty minutes, in the hands of people with astonishing visual animations, that takes you on an … Continue reading Stump the Guesser (Review)
Have You Seen… Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris (1971/2021)?
Welcome to ‘Have You Seen….’ a regular column exploring an interesting film that is worthy of greater attention – for good or for ill. The focus is on the underseen, the undersung or the underrated – or just those films you just need to write about. The focus is analysis more than evaluation so, expect … Continue reading Have You Seen… Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris (1971/2021)?
Overseas (Review)
A vital and affecting exposé of a horrifying system. The filmmaker takes us inside a centre where Filipino women are trained to work as maids overseas, Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). The whole situation is horrible, the women are preparing to be sent off into slavery - given a meagre wage for exploitative contracts that they … Continue reading Overseas (Review)
Josep (Review)
Art can do so much, especially when intersecting with reality. It is so tempting, when presenting reality, to slip into the objective and the strictly realist - thinking it adds reality and truth. Of course, none of us experience the world objectively and art that explores reality is at its best when it takes advantage … Continue reading Josep (Review)
Citadel (Review)
The short film shot from a filmmaker’s room during lockdown has already become somewhat of a cliché (Mati Diop’s In My Room being a highlight of the genre). This view out of a London window during Covid lockdown fits firmly into that category, but filmmaker John Smith adds a political edge that makes this stand … Continue reading Citadel (Review)
The Woman Who Ran (Review)
Few films represent the complexity of everyday human interactions as well as Hong Sang-soo’s The Woman Who Ran. It is a film that asks a lot from its viewer but one that rewards in the process, presenting an effortlessly real but deeply cerebral portrait of everyday life. This is a narrative-light film, we follow Gam-hee … Continue reading The Woman Who Ran (Review)
Cold Meridian (Review)
The new ASMR based short film from Peter Strickland is exactly what you would expect. Exactly what you would expect in that it is almost indescribably strange and uniquely compelling - as all things Strickland are. With films like The Duke of Burgundy and In Fabric, Strickland has established himself as one of the most … Continue reading Cold Meridian (Review)
Nimic (Review)
Legendarily odd filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite, The Lobster and Dogtooth) delivers a characteristically bizarre short. Feeling like a direct descendant of Possession, this atonal and abstract tale of doppelgängers and replacement is a twisted delight. Matt Dillon (one of the very few good things about The House that Jack Built) stars as a passive … Continue reading Nimic (Review)
Assorted Opinions 