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
On stargazing and the journey towards screening E. Elias Merhige’s Begotten, Din of Celestial Birds and Polia and Blastema in a planetarium 1. For me, the journey goes back twenty-five years. Early October 1998, at the Institut français, London, where I had organised ‘A Weekend with Andrzej Żuławski’. There
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
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This strange film begins like a slasher, four years before Hitchcock’s Psycho. A woman is found dead, killed in some unseen but brutal fashion by a man. A policeman on the scene talks of waves of such killings, which come and go without rhyme or reason. Though no one
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In M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin, gay couple Andrew (Ben Aldridge) and Eric (Jonathan Groff) and their young daughter Wen (Kristen Cui) have barely arrived in an isolated cabin in the woods when they are attacked by four strangers, who claim that if the family does not
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 Samuel R. Delany's The Orchid Writer and philosopher Samuel R. Delany has long envisioned a utopia, stemming from the unique potential of cities as sites of radical egalitarian communion. A constellation of concrete, glass and humanity that’s like a counterpoint to what has, typically, been prophesied
Essays
On Leonard Kastle's The Honeymoon Killers and Barbara Loden's Wanda At its heart, The Honeymoon Killers is a love story. This heart is black, and this love story twisted — defined by manipulation and violence more than anything else — but director Leonard Kastle goes to great pains
Essays
On Gerald Kargl's Angst For all its brutality, Angst isn’t above having fun. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a man — let’s call him The Psychopath — approaches a home, a woman answers the door, and The Psychopath shoots the woman. He flees and
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
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At the Marrakesh Film Festival, I took the opportunity to talk to Australian director Justin Kurzel, who was enjoying his first ever festival jury experience there, watching films alongside jury president Paolo Sorrentino, actors Vanessa Kirby, Diane Kruger, and Tahar Rahim, and filmmakers Nadine Labaki and Laïla Marrakchi. We talked