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Living (2022)
Living’s cultural transplant of Akira Kurosawa’s deeply contemplative Ikiru may struggle with originality at times, but in shifting this mid-century tale of one dying man’s enlightenment from Japan to London, Olivier Hermanus still summons a revitalised freshness, imbuing it with a whole new context of soul-sucking social customs and spiritual inspiration.
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Au Hasard Balthazar (1966)
There is grace in the contemplation spurred on by the Bible’s parables, and through Au Hasard Balthazar’s elliptical, iconographic narrative, Robert Bresson conjures a similarly pensive meditation on suffering, adopting the perspective of a donkey being passed between multiple owners and its passive observations of humanity.
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Pearl (2022)
Ti West’s horror prequel Pearl is just as much a warped product of the classical Hollywood dream machine as the aspiring actress, murderess, and housewife at its centre, relishing the superficial splendour of lush Technicolor stylings that only barely conceals an uglier, malevolent truth.
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The House (2022)
Across three Kafkaesque fables set in the past, present, and apocalyptic future of a single residence, The House unfurls an allegory of whimsical existentialism, unnervingly studying humanity’s descent into material consumption, and delicately infusing its absurdism with the childlike innocence of stop-motion animation.
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Wings (1927)
With his staggering aerial sequences and daring set pieces, William A. Wellman turns magnificent feats of engineering into vehicles for exhilarating storytelling in Wings, taking a birds-eye perspective of wartime conflicts and innovation that heightens both as displays of monumental human ambition.
