Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 84: March/April/May 2020 i Little White Lies

“If a man says a woman is crazy or difficult, ask him, ‘What bad thing did you do to her?’ That’s a code word. He is trying to discredit her reputation.” These are the words of actress and activist Natalie Portman, spoken in a speech at Variety’s 2018 Power of Women event. Met with rapturous applause as her sentiments reverberated around a room filled with peers, she then laid out a series of ways to improve the American filmmaking industry in the wake of the explosive allegations levelled against producer Harvey Weinstein. Show business operates on perception. Gossip and tittle-tattle is part of its ecosystem. To be branded with a loaded moniker such as “difficult” can be an effective silencing method. And if we’ve learned one thing from Hollywood movies,…

BOY MEETS GIRL BOY FALLS IN LOVE WITH GIRL GIRL MAKES EXPLICITLY CLEAR THAT SHE HAS NO INTEREST IN BOY BOY STARTS FOLLOWING GIRL BOY PROCEEDS TO INFILTRATE GIRLS LIFE BOY LIES TO GIRL AND MANIPULATES HER BOY RUINS HER RELATIONSHIP WITH HER BOYFRIEND/ FRIENDS/FAMILY/COLLEAGUES BOY TRIES TO CONVINCE GIRL SHE IS CRAZY AND UNGRATEFUL BOY CONTINUES TO NOT TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER GIRL FALLS IN LOVE WITH BOY. Stalking is a pattern of fixated and obsessive behaviour which is repeated, persistent and intrusive. This unwanted attention can involve something as seemingly innocuous as regularly sending flowers or gifts, to making unwanted or malicious communications. It can escalate to damaging property and even assault. The parameters of this can be vague, but if the behaviour is persistent and clearly…

Directed by LEVAN AKIN Starring LEVAN GELBAKHIANI BACHI VALISHVILI ANA JAVAKISHVILI Released 13 MARCH 3 ANTICIPATION. A lot of unknowns with a promising premise. 4 ENJOYMENT. Every entrancing movement will leave you in awe, never wanting the film to end. 4 IN RETROSPECT. A powerful, poignant message of courage and self-acceptance. Spinning in dizzying circles of desire, Merab (Levan Gelbakhiani) repeatedly stumbles as he tries to land on his feet. The physically demanding steps of Georgian dance consume his every thought; it is only when the mesmerising Irakli (Bachi Valishvili) steps onto the dance floor that Merab snaps out of his daze. The two are opposites who slot together effortlessly; Merab’s sharp features compement Irakli’s broader shoulders as they orbit each other in a rigid dance of repressed longing. Levan Akin’s exquisite film follows Merab’s determination…

Directed by JULIAN JARROLD Starring MARK STANLEY, EMILY BEECHAM, ANNA FRIEL Released 6 MARCH David (Mark Stanley) is your classic overconfident city boy, a workaholic with a slick smooth veneer who does everything to the extreme. He attempts to impress ostentatious boss Jeff (Alistair Petrie) with his work hard, party hard antics and relentlessly pursues work colleague Vanessa (Emily Beecham) while he’s still married. As David eventually builds a shiny new life with Vanessa, the cracks begin to show in his emotional facade as he battles with the memories of the abuse he suffered throughout his childhood and subsequently spirals into self-destruction. Through a series of flashbacks, we’re shown the relationship dynamic between David, his mother (Anna Friel) and his father (Dougray Scott) in addition to the harsh environment that allowed his abuse…

Directed by LORCAN FINNEGAN Starring JESSE EISENBERG, IMOGEN POOTS, JONATHAN ARIS Released 27 MARCH Few young couples trying to get on the property ladder will have a worse time than Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg in Lorcan Finnegan’s Vivarium. A hefty dose of post-millennial malaise is filtered into conventional family life as the duo are plunged into a hellish suburbia that makes the headaches of mortgages and deposits seem like bliss. Finnegan swiftly tees up the nightmare as first-time buyers Tom (Eisenberg) and Gemma (Poots) meet Martin, a twitching, oddball estate agent played by Jonathan Aris. When he vanishes, they are trapped in a labyrinthine housing development named Yonder and tasked with raising a baby-like creature dumped on their doorstep. In critiquing the monotony of a life many couples crave, much of the…

Directed by SARAH GAVRON Starring BUKKY BAKRAY KOSAR ALI D’ANGELOU OSEI KISSIEDU Released 24 APRIL 3 ANTICIPATION. Sceptical the story was in the right hands, but definitely intrigued by it. 4 ENJOYMENT. My cheeks are sore from smiling. 4 IN RETROSPECT. A pleasure from top to bottom – I can’t wait to rewatch with my own girl’s school friends. It’s the first day back off summer break and Rocks (Bukky Bakray) comes home from school to a note from her mum saying she needs to clear her head, and to look after her younger brother. Rocks suspected this, querying the special breakfast her mum made that morning – yam and eggs – and asking whether she was alright. We learn Funke (Layo-Christina Akinlude) has abandoned her children before, and struggles to manage her medication. Director Sarah…

Directed by SCOTT GRAHAM Starring MARK STANLEY, AMY MANSON, MARLI SIU Released 13 MARCH Scottish writer-director Scott Graham regularly explores isolated communities in the furthest reaches of Scotland. His third feature, Run, advances his explorations of family and regret to Fraserburgh in the far northeast, a small town where the fishing industry dominates. Thirtysomething Finnie (Mark Stanley), a fish factory worker, has a malaise that’s sabotaging his relationships with teenage-sweetheart-turned-wife, Katie (Amy Manson), and their two sons. He lingers on memories of bygone, carefree nights spent racing cars, and the once boundless possibilities that dried up once the couple took on too much responsibility too young. He sees a similar fate befalling his teenage eldest, Kid (Anders Hayward), who partakes in the same drag race culture and whose girlfriend, Kelly (Marli Siu), is…

Directed by PABLO LARRAÍN Starring MARIANA DI GIROLAMO GAEL GARCÍA BERNAL SANTIAGO CABRERA Released 17 APRIL 4 ANTICIPATION. From Jackie O to pyromaniac reggaeton dancer Ema, Pablo Larraín isn’t holding back. 4 ENJOYMENT. A hypnotic and beautiful work driven by a killer performance. 4 IN RETROSPECT. You’ll remain under Ema’s spell for a long time after the credits have rolled. The port city of Valparaíso, Chile, is said to have been the home of the first volunteer fire department in South America. And the country still boasts an entire workforce of volunteer firefighters. In his latest feature – the Valparaíso-set Ema – Pablo Larraín rejects this local tradition, and allows fire to burn across an otherwise uninterrupted landscape. Larraín’s voluntary firestarter here is the eponymous Ema (Mariana Di Girolamo), a reggaeton dancer married to longtime collaborator…

Directed by AKI OMOSHAYBI Starring AKI OMOSHAYBI, PIPPA BENNETT-WARNER, KAREN BRYSON Released 24 APRIL Actor Aki Omoshaybi’s sweetly earnest debut feature is undone by its attempts to apply dramatic conventions to the most banal aspects of life. Set in London’s grey urban sprawl of housing estates, corner shops and anonymous streets, it is powered by the tension caused by lies spoken at the beginning of a new relationship. Single mum Jamie (Pippa Bennett-Warner) and the protagonist Kyle (Aki Omoshaybi) have a thoroughly modern meet-cute. They are both in line at a shop. She is attempting to make a purchase using her debit card, however the card machine doesn't work. He steps up to pay her bill with cash then chases after her and implausibly enough, she coughs up her number. Both parties instinctively…

Directed by MIKHAIL KALATOZOV Starring TATYANA SAMOYLOVA ALEKSEY BATALOV VASILIY MERKUREV 1957 Released 13 APRIL Blu-ray It’s become a cliché of film criticism to reference the dour, intellectually imposing work of Andrei Tarkovsky when writing about modern Russian cinema. Shots of fetid bogs, tall grass vibrating in the wind, or houses on fire, and the namecheck is instantly unlocked. Mikhail Kalatozov’s The Cranes are Flying, from 1957, predates the work of Tarkovsky, but instead harks back to the fizzing montages and crackling energy of silent era pioneers such as Sergei Eisenstein and Alexander Dovzhenko. This lapel-shaking wartime tragedy overflows with athletic tracking shots as characters dash through crowds or dart alongside steam trains. Immaculate, pristinely judged framing sees characters emphasised and de-emphasised through the use of light and shadow. The film is over…

In 1948, French film critic Alexandre Astruc coined the phrase “caméra-stylo” (“camera-pen” in English) to describe a personal and intellectual style of filmmaking that would flourish during the New Wave era. In 1995, Amy Heckerling made beloved teen film Clueless, in which Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone) held a pen topped by a pouf of pink fuzz to her face as her voiceover mused that, “Searching for a boy in high school is as useless as searching for meaning in a Pauly Shore movie.” Then she intentionally dropped the distinctive pen to get a cute boy’s attention. Pens are such a quotidian object that their cinematic symbolism can be overlooked. The fuzzy pen, a staple of ‘90s teen girls’ desks and cheesy mall shops, is an unsung hero and unquestionably one…

Directed by PEDRO COSTA Starring VITALINA VARELA VENTURA MANUEL TAVARES ALMEIDA Released 6 MARCH 5 ANTICIPATION. A new Costa is an event – not “event” like a party, “event” like an earthquake. 4 ENJOYMENT. An ideal introduction to Costa’s work – don’t be intimidated. 5 IN RETROSPECT. Rich, mysterious, rigorous and generous. Pedro Costa’s films are epic in scope, beginning with the lighting; pushed to extremities of brightness and darkness which suggest the origins of all human drama. Nocturnal frames are so voluptuously dark – he films in what Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy refers to as, “the Bible-black predawn,” when the only ones stirring are the maids at the bus stop – that you have to scan the shadows to see where people begin and their surroundings end. Make the effort. In low-angle chiaroscuro close-ups, people appear…

Directed by JULIANO DORNELLES KLEBER MENDONÇA FILHO Starring SÔNIA BRAGA UDO KIER BÁRBARA COLEN Released 13 MARCH 4 ANTICIPATION. A film that has galvanised the public in Brazil. Need to see this. 5 ENJOYMENT. Revolutionary and vital. 5 IN RETROSPECT. A film that is deeply embedded within, and knowledgable of, Brazil’s trecherous modern history. Up until very recently, on the rare occasion a Brazilian film became popular outside of the country, it seemed to cater to a specific type of first-world fantasy – often one of Brazil as a hypersexualised free-for-all land where people gun each other down mercilessly. A type of dehumanising content most foreign viewers could happily distance themselves from. With Kléber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles’s Bacurau, that is no longer the case. Set in a semi-distant future, in a small city in…

Directed by OLIVER LAXE Starring AMADOR ARIAS, BENEDICTA SÁNCHEZ, INAZIO ABRAO Released 20 MARCH Shots of lush greenery, verdant hillsides and the awe-striking spectacle of untrammelled, overgrown farmland blanketing the rolling hillsides take up the first hour of Spaniard Oliver Laxe’s hushed third feature, Fire Will Come. Later, the promise of the title is delivered and all those rich greens are superseded by reds, oranges and ochres as a terrific blaze tears across the landscape of rural Galicia. Following a short prologue in which a row of towering eucalyptus trees are felled by a digger, we are introduced to softly spoken pyromaniac Amador (Amador Arias) as he departs from a spell in Chokey to return to the family nest. This comprises of his elderly, eternally-forgiving mother, and some misbehaving cows. In the moment,…

Directed by J.-P. VALKEAPÄÄ Starring PEKKA STRANG KRISTA KOSONEN ILONA HUHTA Released 20 MARCH 3 ANTICIPATION. Fifty shades: darker. 4 ENJOYMENT. Simultaneously squirm-inducing and sweet. 4 IN RETROSPECT. The feel-good feel-bad movie of the year. Thrilling Finnish feature Dogs Don’t Wear Pants, from director J-P Valkeapää, is a drama about trauma and recovering from great loss, set in the world of BDSM. It also has plentiful body horror, deadpan dark humour and plotting beats reminiscent of a romantic comedy – think Sleepless in Seattle, except instead of a meet-cute atop the Empire State Building, and Tom Hanks’ widower had just wanted someone to strangle him. The film’s visually arresting prologue establishes pain of a non-physical kind. Juha (Pekka Strang) loses his wife through horrible circumstances, as she drowns while entangled in a fishing net he’s left…

Directed by HIROKAZU KOREEDA Starring CATHERINE DENEUVE JULIETTE BINOCHE ETHAN HAWKE Released 20 MARCH 4 ANTICIPATION. Hot off a Palme win, trying his hand with a Western cast – all eyes are on Koreeda. 3 ENJOYMENT. Like Deneuve’s tea, it’s warm until it’s suddenly scalding. 4 IN RETROSPECT. Hardly anything’s been lost in translation. When a bad mother approaches old age and enters the phase of life where one spends more time cataloguing memories than creating new ones, she is faced with a choice. She can reckon with the legacy of negligence she’s left behind, that of infidelity and absentee parenting and recreational cruelty in the guise of tough love. Or she can do what Catherine Deneuve’s declining screen queen Fabienne does in the latest from Hirokazu Koreeda (the director’s first outside of his native Japan),…

Directed by MICHAEL CATON-JONES Starring EVE AUSTIN TALLULAH GREIVE ABIGAIL LAWRIE Released 24 APRIL 3 ANTICIPATION. A beloved, award-winning novel finally makes it to the screen after 20-plus years. 4 ENJOYMENT. Teen horniness is not a crime. 4 IN RETROSPECT. A loving tribute to uncensored working class women – an acutely written and performed triumph. Let’s call Our Ladies one of the new great British teen movies. Its journey to the screen is even older than its riotous protagonists: director and co-writer Michael Caton-Jones first optioned the rights to Alan Warner’s 1998 novel ‘The Sopranos’ over 20 years ago. The film charts 24 hours in the lives of five working class friends, all nearing the end of their Catholic school days in Fort William, a small town in the western Scottish Highlands. There’s Orla (Tallulah Greive),…

Directed by JOHANNES NYHOLM Starring LEIF EDLUND PETER BELLI YLVA GALLON Released 27 MARCH ANTICIPATION. The poster has a cat on it, so interest is instantly piqued. ENJOYMENT. Weird, repetitive and jarring – like a nightmare. IN RETROSPECT. A Twilight Zone of grief. Three figures walk through the woods – giant Sampo (Morad Baloo Khatchadorian), raven-haired Cherry (Brandy Litmanen) and old, suited Mog (Peter Belli). They are accompanied by both a live dog and a dead one (which Sampo carries) – and Mog whistles and sings a song about the death of his rooster, and about the song (“koko-di koko-da”) that it will never sing again. These same three grotesques are then shown painted on the side of an antique spinning music box which eight-year-old Maja (Katarina Jakobson) stares at through a shop window while her…

Directed by HENRY BLAKE Starring CONRAD KHAN, ASHLEY MADEKWE, HARRIS DICKINSON Released 17 APRIL In the opening moments of Henry Blake’s County Lines, a woman out of shot explains the meaning of an ‘acceptable loss’ to 14-year-old protagonist Tyler (Conrad Khan). “You. You’re the acceptable loss.” She insists that he is replaceable to those he works for, and what follows is a slowburn exploration of the dangers this vulnerable teen faces when he is groomed to transport drugs across the UK. The story is told in two parts, and this offers a jarring before and after structure regarding Tyler’s involvement with the members of a drug ring. He becomes an entirely different person as he is influenced by the various brands of masculinity that now surround him; going from doing his little sister’s…

Directed by EMILY HARRIS Starring DEVRIM LINGNAU JESSICA RAINE HANNAH RAE Released 3 APRIL 3 ANTICIPATION. A fresh take on a Gothic classic. 3 ENJOYMENT. Plenty to admire here, especially the performances of young co-leads Hannah Rae and Devrim Lingnau. 2 IN RETROSPECT. Can’t help but feel this tale of bloodlust and sexual desire has been de-fanged. There are few more liberating sights in a costume drama than a character removing a restrictive item of clothing at the end of a long day; even if you’ve never experienced a ‘corset-gasm’ first-hand, whenever it occurs on-screen the sense of relief is palpable. In Emily Harris’ first solo directorial feature, however, an act of sartorial salvation is rendered almost like something out of a body horror: a concussed woman is carefully cut out of a bodice, the garment…

Directed by LADJ LY Starring DAMIEN BONNARD ALEXIS MANENTI DJEBRIL ZONGA Released 24 APRIL 4 ANTICIPATION. Picked over Portait of a Lady on Fire as France’s International Feature Oscar submission. 3 ENJOYMENT. Lots of meaty confrontation, but all feels a tad generic by the final stretch. 3 IN RETROSPECT. An politically-charged urban western. Will keep an eye out for Ly’s follow-up. When social deprivation plummets to a level where young lads think nothing of stealing a lion cub from a travelling circus, then you know things have gotten out of hand. Yet this is exactly what’s happening in the Parisian banlieu of Montfermeil, where schisms along all lines are turning high-rise estates into hives of lawlessness. And when people are unable to live peaceably and harmoniously, and feel that it’s A-Okay to just steal a lion,…

Directed by ERIC ROHMER Starring MARIE RIVIÈRE PASCALE OGIER AMANDA LANGLET 1981-87 Released 20 APRIL Blu-ray The great French filmmaker Eric Rohmer mostly made films which were individual fragments of a wider series. His first grand project is referred to as the ‘Six Moral Tales’, and his second is called the ‘Comedies and Proverbs’. Later he would make the ‘Four Seasons’. This box set collects together the work from that second cycle, starting with 1981’s The Aviator’s Wife, and finishing with 1987’s The Girlfriend’s Boyfriend. Lack of space and the need for brevity force me to highlight two pristine gems in a set full of them: the first is 1984’s Full Moon in Paris, which is powered by an extraordinary, subtly emotive lead turn from Pascale Ogier, who tragically died aged 25 before…

Illustrators Laura Callaghan (cover) is an Irish illustrator living in Belfast. Her work is largely hand painted and depicts women in colourful environments, part fashion illustration, part satire. She creates images that are ostensibly bright and beautiful but that cultivate a sense of unease and humour, drawing parallels with the tone of the cover film Promising Young Woman. The cover image was handpainted using watercolour and indian ink. lauracallaghanillustration.com Alice Carnegie (aka Allolune) is an Edinburgh-based illustrator inspired by women, pop culture and teen nostalgia. She can often be found loitering around her local cinema. Marina Esmeraldo is an artist from Brazil, now based in Barcelona. Her work draws on a tropical upbringing, a Modernist training in Architecture, and wanderlust. Stéphanie Sergeant is a French illustrator/animator living and working in…

Directed by ROSE GLASS Starring MORFYDD CLARK JENNIFER EHLE, LILY KNIGHT Released 1 MAY 4 ANTICIPATION. Good buzz from its festival premiere. 4 ENJOYMENT. A queasily tense descent into the blindest of faith. 4 IN RETROSPECT. Two expertly performed, irreconcilable positions dance on the shore. There is a paradox in Saint Maud, the first feature from writer/director Rose Glass. Although it constantly, closely tracks its central character Maud (Morfydd Clark), and restricts itself to her point of view right up until its very final image, the film is dominated by dialectics. Young Maud’s status as a private live-in nurse affords her plenty of opportunity to converse with her 49-year-old patient Amanda (Jennifer Ehle). As a Christian convert, Maud is in constant dialogue with her past secular self (who even had a different name), and with the…

Ex-film critic turned writer-director Kleber Mendonça Filho has made three features in creative partnership with production designer Juliano Dornelles. Their first, Neighbouring Sounds, from 2012, offered a portrait of a walled housing conurbation, while their second, Aquarius, from 2016, saw a woman standing tall against malicious property developers. Their new film, Bacurau, has been a massive success in Brazil, as it depicts the violent persecution of rural and working class citizens and offers more than a nod to genre maestro John Carpenter. LWLies: Do the government of Brazil see a film like Bacurau as a political threat? Mendonça Filho: It’s so complicated to discuss, because it’s really about a general contempt for artists and not caring for the system that was set up. They don’t understand it so they don’t…

Directed by ANDREW KÖTTING Starring EDEN KÖTTING, IAIN SINCLAIR, PHILIP HOARE Released 4 APRIL For those that don’t know, a whalebone box is “a box made of whale bones”, as director Andrew Kötting helpfully explains in his film, The Whalebone Box. Described in turn as a black box, Pandora’s box, a coffin and a bomb – at one point it’s a “record of what went wrong” – it is a suitably inscrutable object for the filmmaker to obsess over: a mystery box with contents that must forever remain unknown. Setting off with two kindred spirits, writer and psychogeographer Iain Sinclair and photographer Anonymous Bosch, Kötting takes his box on a “800 mile reverse pilgrimage” from London back to the Isle of Harris, the site where the whale it was made from first washed…

Directed by HLYNUR PALMASON Starring INGVAR SIGURDSSON ÍDA MEKKÍN HLYNSDÓTTIR HILMIR SNAR GU.NASON Released 1 MAY 4 ANTICIPATION. Palmason’s second feature has won prizes at just about every film festival it’s played at. 5 ENJOYMENT. Dreamlike and intense, the film inexorably draws you into its grizzly old guy’s exterior and interior landscape. 5 IN RETROSPECT. Rare to experience a film which is just so sorted in every respect – emerging talent alert! People react to bereavement in different ways. In the wilds of Iceland, a gruff middle-aged policeman takes time off work to grieve for his wife, who died when her car went off-road in foggy conditions. Ingimundur, played by esteemed Icelandic actor Ingvar Sigurdsson, is the sort of furrowed-brow, grey-haired, old-school type who doesn’t put his emotions on display. Instead, he throws himself into renovating…

Directed by HAIFAA AL MANSOUR Starring MILA AL ZAHRANI NORA AL AWADH DAE AL HILALI Released 27 MARCH 3 ANTICIPATION. Al Mansour’s history-making debut, Wadjda, is a beaut, but a few mis-steps since then. 4 ENJOYMENT. The framing of one woman against the world could seem overfamiliar, but is played with brilliant confidence. 4 IN RETROSPECT. Maryam’s story is one to empathise with, but still precise enough to entirely belong to her. If you dare to look at any headlines the morning after an awards ceremony, you will most likely encounter a few “firsts”. The 2020 Oscars offered a fine example: Parasite was the first South Korean film to be nominated for anything – and the first non-English language title to win Best Picture. Historic wins of this ilk do matter, but headlines tend to reduce…

Directed by ALICE WINOCOUR Starring EVA GREEN ZÉLIE BOULANT MATT DILLON Released 8 MAY 3 ANTICIPATION. The writer of Mustang, Eva Green in the lead and space as the subject is an intriguing combination. 3 ENJOYMENT. Going to space looks really hard. 4 IN RETROSPECT. Quietly devastating and an example of Green at her best. When Sally Ride was going to become the first American woman to go to space in 1983, NASA engineers hit a wall with a question that baffled them as much as any equation. How many tampons should they send with her for a one-week mission? They number they landed on was 100. Alice Winocour’s third feature, Proxima, continues a conversation about the very real legacy of astrophysicists and engineers and their struggle to accommodate female astronauts. Eva Green plays Sarah, an…

Directed by BEN RIVERS, ANOCHA SUWICHAKORNPONG Starring ARAK AMORNSUPASIRI, NUTTAWAT ATTASAWAT, PRIMRIN PUARAT Released 8 MAY What year is it? In this stimulating, collaborative work by filmmakers Ben Rivers and Anocha Suwichakornpong, it initially seems like the present day, as we follow a serious-minded location scout as she wanders the sun-bleached shores and shrines of what appears as contemporary-era Krabi – a Southern Thai tourist hotspot. Yet that doesn’t explain the regular appearances of a prehistoric, cave-dwelling twosome decked out in tatty animal furs and occasionally terrorising those who hover too close to their rocky abode. Nor would it cover the emotionally raw trip to a shuttered open air cinema whose long-serving janitor bears witness to a strange miracle. If time is a fluid concept, then this film a is sweet, multi-coloured cocktail…

Directed by VACLAV MARHOUL Starring PETR KOTLAR, HARVEY KEITEL, STELLAN SKARSGÅRD Released 27 MARCH This punishing but undoubtedly brilliant monochrome epic opens on a travelling shot of a small boy, running as fast as his legs will carry him while clutching his fluffy, white pet ferret. He is barged from his flanks by another kid and the ferret is snatched off of him. While pinned to the floor, he witnesses his furry friend being covered in some kind of flammable liquid and then burned alive. It squeals in agony before flopping over to accept its fate. For the unnamed boy, played with a battle-hardened poker face by Petr Kotlár, this is only the opening act of a world of intense, diverse and occasionally surreal suffering. But for him, the release of death is…

Directed by WERNER HERZOG Starring MIKI FUJIMAKI, UMETANI HIDEYASU, SHUN ISHIGAKI Released 1 MAY Over the course of his career, Werner Herzog has operated within the boundaries between fact and fiction, drama and documentary, in his own inimitable way. His latest film, Family Romance, LLC, is another prime example of just how effective and unique his style can be. Ishii Yuichi runs the titular company, where a customer can hire a performer to pretend to be their parent, a paparazzo snapping them around town, or even to take the blame for their failings at work. Herzog wrote the script, but based it around Yuichi’s real-life experiences running the company and performing as an “actor of the everyday”, making it one of the most literal examples of a film ‘based on a true story’.…

Directed by KITTY GREEN Starring JULIA GARNER MAKENZIE LEIGH MATTHEW MACFADYEN Released 3 APRIL 4 ANTICIPATION. Casting JonBenet was a gruelling but fascinating watch. 4 ENJOYMENT. A simple premise, masterfully executed. 4 IN RETROSPECT. Required viewing for every person in a job with an in-built power structure. From the jurors attempting to decide a matter of life and death in 12 Angry Men to the Brooklynite tensions reaching fever pitch in Do the Right Thing, many notable films set within a 24-hour period seek to show the audience what a difference a day makes. Deals are done, the die is cast, lives are irrevocably changed, and the fragile, fleeting nature of human mortality comes to the forefront. In Kitty Green’s The Assistant, the same structure is employed, but for the purposes of highlighting the monotony…

Directed by ROBERT ALTMAN Starring JENNIFER JASON LEIGH MIRANDA RICHARDSON HARRY BELAFONTE 1996 Released 2 MARCH Blu-ray We do not treasure the singular talent of actor Jennifer Jason Leigh half as much as we should. Her ‘90s run alone cast most contemporaries into the deep shade. Robert Altman’s insidiously effective, low-slung crime caper Kansas City takes its good sweet time to lay out its stall, though it’s quite clear from the opening frames that Leigh has gone all-in and more for her role as the motor-mouthed moll who can’t stop gabbing through a pair of crooked, rotting teeth. The story takes place in 1934 across a flagrantly corrupt election day, in which transients are bussed in under the gun to vote early and vote often. Harry Belafonte’s sage-like jazz club owner Seldom Seen…

Directed by MASAO ADACHI ATSUSHI YAMATOYA Starring AKI SASAKI MIKI WATARI MAKIKO KIM 1967, 1978 Released 16 MARCH Blu-ray This Blu-ray twofer set contains a pair of mid-century features from Japan: 1971’s Gushing Prayer by Masao Adachi; and 1967’s Inflatable Sex Doll of the Wastelands by Atsushi Yamatoya. Were you to imagine the content of these films based on their titles alone, you’d possibly only be half correct. Yes, they do each contain a surfeit of female nudity, and both depict sexual situations which would be tough to describe as conventional. Yet they are in no way erotic or comedic or kitsch or anything else you might associate with so-called “softcore” exploitation movies from the West. Both films harbour pointed, serious concerns about the world, and feel that the best way to go…