Visually stunning, contemplative and disruptive, Denis’ brilliant take on toxic masculinity—for men, and by men—revolves around one French Foreign Legion sergeant’s attraction and repulsion towards a new recruit.
Godard’s work goes right into the heart of French youths at odds with politics and sex, locating the mounting angst and ennui as he imbues his freewheeling drama with a serious ‘documentary’ disposition.
Marker’s early documentary is a remarkable gem that constantly surprises with its eclectic approach to observing the world, in this case, Siberian culture, history and its peoples.
Dupieux’s outstanding single-location film works as a sardonic meta-filmic commentary on art and performance as an audience member with a gun takes a theatre show hostage for producing ‘boring work’.
One of 2024’s absolute gems, this rapturous, stunningly-edited Sundance award-winning documentary sets the GOATs of American jazz against the tumultuous political history of Congo’s struggle for independence during the decolonisation phase of the Cold War.
Truffaut’s overlooked sophomore feature, a playful crime-noir, is shot with a rare, improvisational style, about a bit-part piano player who unexpectedly gets embroiled with lowly if persistent gangsters.
Assayas’ first feature isn’t really great but it still is an enigmatic treatise on the tension between youthful idealism and fatalism as a group of friends with music ambitions rethink their existence after a plan goes awry, leaving blood in their hands.
A Trans-Siberian train journey turns into a ‘Trans-Mongolian’ detour on the steppes as a group of Westerners find themselves ‘enjoying’ the hospitality of a Mongolian Princess and her people, in an oddly-structured but exuberant work that challenges exoticist assumptions in East-West cultural discourse.
Not particularly satisfying overall, but Huppert’s always fantastic playing characters with dark, ulterior motives in this psychological drama from Chabrol.
The pleasures of food and romance in cinema make an exquisite return with one of 2023’s most underappreciated gems, about a renowned chef and his long-serving cook in their autumnal years whom he one day hopes to marry.
Eternality Tan 