One of the many delightful things about Quentin Dupieux’s films is that they do not waste our time. They are a marvel of economy while at the same time seriously introducing a wealth of bemusing ideas in their tightly written, superbly absurd plots. And so it is with INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE (INCROYABLE MAI VRAI), a… Read More »
CRIMES OF THE FUTURE
Click here for the flashback interview with David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen for EASTERN PROMISES. With CRIMES OF THE FUTURE, David Cronenberg once again presents us with a dystopian future, or is it an alternate present, that is alien and yet, somehow, instantly familiar. It’s not just the machines that mimic the skeletal structures of… Read More »
SUNDOWN
Potent and deliberately enigmatic, Michel Franco’ SUNDOWN doesn’t so much tell a story as put a mirror up to its audience. With a central character that never explains, only exists with his own imperturbable agenda, it is for us to project our own ideas onto him as we sort out the mysteries of his actions… Read More »
TITANE
What to make of TITANE. a sprawling study of female rage meeting toxic masculinity? Certainly filmmaker Julia Ducournau presents it in all visceral glory, eschewing the depiction of few bodily functions as she explores gender identity and the overwhelming need for affection in a world where making the wrong choice about either can be fatal.… Read More »
MANDIBLES (Mandibules)
In MANDIBLES, Quentin Dupieux takes us on a road trip with two lovable innocents and an outsized housefly. Why there is an outsized housefly in the trunk of a dilapidated Mercedes just waiting to be discovered/rescued/exploited by this pair of misfits is never explained, nor does it need to be. This latest excursion by Dupieux… Read More »
UNDINE
At no point in Christian Petzold’s UNDINE do we encounter anything as pedestrian as a character discussing the nature of the supernatural creature at the heart of this exquisitely enigmatic, emotionally intense film. Rather, we are left to ponder just what the nature of our title character is on a more human level. Whether or… Read More »
ABOUT ENDLESSNESS (Om det oändliga)
In one of the series of vignettes that make up Roy Andersson’s ABOUT ENDLESSNESS, we find a city café where the patrons sit in carefully constructed isolation among one another, in the foreground, a dentist who we know from the previous vignette, is in a bad mood and plagued with problems. Snow falls. Christmas carols… Read More »
KEEP AN EYE OUT (Au Poste)
The French title of Quentin Dupieux’s latest film, KEEP AN EYE OUT, relies on a clever bit of wordplay in its two words, AU POSTE. One of the meanings of poste is police station, where the action takes place. Another is post, as in taking up one’s post. There are more, the translation of which… Read More »
BACK TO BURGUNDY
BACK TO BURGUNDY’s original French title is less about returning home and more about the ties that bind one to that home. I leave the reasons for why movie titles are willfully mistranslated, but bring it up because THE TIES THAT BIND feels like a more accurate description of why a prodigal son finds it… Read More »
CYRANO, MY LOVE
CYRANO MY LOVE is an ebullient comedy of errors that recounts the fraught confluence of art, commerce, and egos that gave birth to Cyrano de Bergerac, the most successful play in French theater history. As witty and wise as that character himself, it is a love letter to the creative process that spares none of… Read More »
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