Essays
This sixty-year-old short film based on pictures and observations by Henri Cartier-Bresson is a scarily accurate and perceptive portrait of England then and now (still: ©La Cinémathèque Française) “What’s at the bottom of being English? Perhaps the answer is: no. A prohibition, an inhibition, far from whole hearted but
Essays
Artwork by Neven Udovičić The upcoming edition of the Cannes Film Festival is bracing itself for possible interruptions by striking workers this week, who would certainly ensure their voices were heard by making the screens go dark. Simultaneously in the United States, screenwriters are striking to protest unfair working conditions
Essays
E. Elias Merhige’s cult classic makes us look between the frames People who worry about the distinction between the life lived and the life examined need to check out that thing called cinema. Watching a film always involves a degree of push-pull between watching the screen, and being afraid
Essays
Artwork by Neven Udovičić Watching films can be uncomfortable when they ask us to leave some of our ego at the door. Not to be confused with our brain, of course, which in fact tends to go into overdrive when our more self-indulgent impulses quiet down. Cinema is often talked
Essays
On Charles Vanel's Dans la nuit Charles Vanel was one of the most prolific French actors of his or any time. His career spanned more than 75 years (1910 to 1988) and comprises nearly 200 credits, though he is perhaps best known for his role in Henri-Georges Clouzot’
Essays
On Juraj Lerotić's Safe Place, Florian Zeller's The Son and the Netflix series Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story tw: discussion of depression and suicide This Be The Verse By Philip Larkin They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to,
Essays
Artwork by Neven Udovičić Any list of the best films of all time suggests the idea of consensus. Yet so much of creativity, both in terms of writing for the journalists voting in polls, and for the filmmakers who make the films being voted for, is about resisting consensus to
Essays
Directors Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret on their feature debut The Worst Ones When does a fascination for colourful characters fall into condescending and morbid curiosity? Where is the line between being given a chance and being used? Such questions of ethics and respect have always animated documentary filmmaking, but
Essays
American director Paul Schrader on his film Master Gardener, controversy, Facebook, Taxi Driver and more Marrakesh was one of the locations for Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist — “not a film I should have made,” according to Paul Schrader, who was back in town for the Marrakech Film Festival to accompany
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The Lynchian, existential sequel celebrates its tenth anniversary Already embedded within the concept at the heart of the Universal Soldier franchise is an acute bitterness about the American military’s treatment of the men who do its dirty work. In the first film, soldiers thrown into the meat grinder that
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Artwork by Neven Udovičić The films discussed in this issue all, to some degree, use provocation to fulfil their goals. Speaking to Mark Asch, Daniel Goldhaber explains that his film How to Blow Up a Pipeline isn’t designed to advocate for a specific politics, but rather to shake up
Essays
On Babak Anvari's I Came By (2022) The hypocrisies of modern life, where all of us are complicit in the suffering and exploitation of others whether we choose to be or not, are not a new field of creative exploration for filmmakers (heard of Fight Club, anyone?). Beyond