Possibly one of the finest ‘body horror’ films of the post-2000s era, Fargeat’s sophomore film takes on sexism and ageism in the entertainment industry with a middle finger so pointed that the violence and gore become saliently and nihilistically rewarding.
Kaurismaki adapts Shakespeare for the dog-eat-dog world of industrialising Finland with this decent black-and-white revenge noir filled with moments of absurdist humour and conniving tactics.
Maldoror’s only completed narrative feature about a woman trying to locate her imprisoned husband is a work of Angolan solidarity, made at a time when a war of independence was waged against their Portuguese oppressors.
Erice is back after 31 years with a compelling but somewhat unconvincing work that is part mystery, part love letter to cinema, and a meditation on mortality, old age and the passing of time, as an unresolved case of a missing actor is reopened after many decades.
‘Exploring’ features the filmographies of filmmakers that I’ve largely completed and celebrates them on the week of their birthdays.
A terrifically entertaining movie that sees Tsui Hark utilising all manner of dizzying cinematography, creative editing and special effects to deliver a manic piece of action-fantasy cinema about two seductive snake demons who transform into humans.
One of Lelio’s best-known works, this somewhat nondescript Chilean film strongly focuses on characterisation and performance as a divorcee navigates her silver years in hopes of starving off chronic loneliness.
The desire to be eternally beautiful—and eternally relevant—in the modelling world is the subject of Ninagawa’s exuberant and darkly ironic sophomore feature.
An epic of intimate, heart-wrenching moments as Kinoshita’s incredibly moving anti-war film centers on a teacher newly posted to a class of first-graders in a poor Japanese seaside village during the late 1920s.
Moving in unexpected ways, this meta-filmic documentary about a director who conducted a series of film classes for a group of German girls in 1968, brings everyone back for a reunion as they revisit those wonderful days when filmmaking seemed to have limitless pedagogical possibilities.
Eternality Tan 