Love is a complicated, nebulous thing in Bresson’s minimalist, if surprisingly sensual, adaptation of Dostoevsky’s ‘White Nights’, about two wounded, disillusioned souls that can’t seem to operate beyond their present malaise.
Three men learn the bloodiest lesson ever from a rightfully vengeful woman in Fargeat’s stylish and gleefully exploitative first feature, a lean and mean modern throwback to the New French Extremity movement.
Bresson’s acrid final feature may be seen as a ‘counter-feit/fict-ion’, exploring the transactionality of exploitation through an anti-narrative, as a fake bill sparks an irreversible chain of events.
Varda’s Golden Lion winner is a bleak exploration of a young female drifter’s (Sandrine Bonnaire in an extraordinary performance) unapologetic defiance of the personal and social obligations that seek to tie down her free self.
Delon’s star-making turn draws us into a tricky narrative about an even trickier trickster, as themes of impersonation and immorality are explored in this elegant adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’.
Controversies aside, Audiard once again tackles admirably something outside of his comfort zone as his unorthodox musical thriller exudes the necessary vitality it needs to tell the story about a Mexican cartel boss who desires to transition into a woman and lead a new life.
Complex, abstract and utterly existential, Resnais’ first feature in colour deals with the past, present and future as battlegrounds of half-truths, and edited in a fragmented ‘shards-like’ style, as a woman’s ex-lover pays her a visit.
A textbook example of how to produce a handsome adaptation of an iconic novel, Polanski fashions a naturalistic if elegiac tale featuring an excellent Nastassja Kinski in a breakthrough performance.
Some centuries-old Beninese treasures are returned by France, sparking debate over its neocolonial political posturing sublimating as cultural diplomacy as Diop’s quaint Berlinale Golden Bear-winning documentary highlights the dissonances inherent in this ‘homecoming’.
Far from the kind of erotica that masquerades as political art, Terayama’s largely uninteresting cult oddity featuring Klaus Kinski is an absurd tale of sadomasochism as a white man forces his mistress to become a prostitute to test her deep love for him.
Eternality Tan 