Tennis may be a relationship according to the grand metaphor of Challengers, though by exploring the complicated entanglement of love, lust, and loathing between three rivals, Luca Guadagnino uncovers an even more sensual desire for intimate connection that can only be found in the midst of heated competition.
It is necessary for any photojournalist to maintain a level of remote objectivity in the face of visceral trauma, and yet as Alex Garland sets media crew on a gruelling odyssey across a dystopian, divided America in Civil War, it seems that the camera lens is but a fragile filter keeping them from total psychological collapse.
Federico Fellini may hold deep affection for the clowns of commedia dell’arte, but just as integral to La Strada’s tale of survival and wonder is the hardship that haunts a post-war Europe, extinguishing the laughter which only barely lingers in the childlike joy of one tragically naïve circus performer.
Whether Terry Gilliam’s mischievous storyteller in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a hero, a liar, or both, he is undoubtedly a man who can reach the hearts of those who listen, constructing magnificently surreal worlds of aliens and gods that place him right alongside history’s greatest mythical figures.
The young, juvenile men of I Vitelloni’s coastal town are frozen in an eternal youth of idle recreation, lazily hoping for the day that the world might finally give their lives greater purpose, and playfully pursuing empty pleasures that Federico Fellini strings into nostalgic vignettes of celebration and struggle.
It is a rare thing to witness a first-time director meld such handsomely stylised action with mystical symbolism, yet Monkey Man proves Dev Patel to be just as skilled behind the camera as he is in front of it, crafting a Hindu allegory that envisions one underground fighter’s righteous delivery of divine justice upon India’s corrupt political landscape.
As a string of bodies stacks up in the sordid rustic town of Love Lies Bleeding, Rose Glass sinks us into a twisted rural noir of drug abuse, bodybuilding, and gun smuggling, following the uncontrollable careening of queer lovers Lou and Jackie into a seedy underworld of treachery and murder.
Wim Wenders’s smooth weaving of one toilet cleaner’s daily routine into the narrative structure of Perfect Days is not only a testament to his own formal attentiveness, but also warmly invites audiences into a collective meditation, finding contentment within the unassuming patterns and details of a modest, dutiful life.
The marriage between flighty romantic Wanda and the overly practical Ivan was never going to be an easy one, though at least the wild romp across Rome that emerges from their odd mismatch brings both newlyweds down to earth, as Federico Fellini offers divine redemption in The White Sheik to those who seek it out in the right places.
As married couple Anna and Mark stand on the precipice of divorce in Possession, a simmering mixture of revulsion, self-loathing, and cruelty boils over into public displays of insanity, exposing the depraved souls at the heart of Andrzej Żuławski’s terrifying allegory for divorce.
