Alejandro Iñárritu’s sprawling abstraction of one Mexican filmmaker’s existential musings may be absurdly funny at points, but in Bardo’s surreal, stream-of-consciousness dive into his lucid dreams, it is also a deeply spiritual work, building a mountain of rich visual metaphors to deliver one of the most formally complex and cinematically ambitious films of the past few years.
Yankee Doodle Dandy’s jingoistic politics are unsophisticated, but its nostalgic sentiment is strong, beating back whatever accusations of outdated mawkishness might be thrown its way with James Cagney’s energetic take on Broadway star George M. Cohan, whose dynamic presence and patriotic showtunes are rendered by Michael Curtiz onscreen as a propulsive musical biopic.
Though the title I Killed My Mother explicitly refers to Hubert’s lie that his titular parent is dead, it also becomes apparent that this is something she painfully experiences every single day, revealing a remarkably mature voice in 19-year-old director Xavier Dolan who radiates these complex character dynamics out into a neatly composed visual style and rhythmic formal structure.
Just like the infectious disease slowly killing Hud’s family ranch, this selfish child of the Old West callously destroys the proud legacy that his ancestors spent lifetimes nurturing, as Paul Newman takes the abrasive, hyper-masculine archetype of the individualistic hero to its logical conclusion against Martin Ritt’s bleak landscapes of a dying Texan town.
Armed with a penchant for riveting visual storytelling, the Coen Brothers deliver a neo-noir vision of Texas in Blood Simple made up of grimy, low-lit bars and fatefully botched murders, navigating this moral wasteland with profuse dramatic irony and an omniscient perspective that seeks to understand its place in a godless universe.
Haunted by cannibalistic urges ever since she was young, Maren sets out on a nomadic journey of self-discovery across America with fellow ‘eater’ Lee in Bones and All, and through Luca Guadagnino’s morbidly nuanced characterisations, he tenderly transforms this horror-tinged premise into a coming-of-age tale, a sweet romance, and a sensitive, queer allegory.
She Said wisely does not dip into the familiar aftermath of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual abuse allegations, but rather centres on the painstaking investigations that toppled over dominoes towards the earth-shattering exposé, building an ensemble of affecting performances atop a sensitive screenplay that carries us through stretches of otherwise uninspired visual direction.
All through Out of Sight, the individual paths of suave bank robber Jack Foley and federal marshal Karen Sisco wind around each other like a tantalising dance, passionately underscored by Steven Soderbergh’s hyper-stylised editing and non-linear structure that build a sprawling, fatalistic world, and which drive the two ends of the law together in a romantic embrace.
Through The Menu’s gradual descent to gastronomical madness, Mark Mylod crafts a biting horror satire of up-class foodie culture full of all its recognisably niche archetypes, plunging one group of wealthy restaurant goers into the twisted mind of a resentful chef determined to inflict upon them the disturbing consequences of their arrogant, commercialised pretension.
Ingmar Bergman screenplays are rarely so blunt as the melodrama he delivers in It Always Rains on Our Love, and yet the touch of magical realism he injects into this fable of endless hardships is charming nonetheless, formally rounding out a heartfelt call for compassion towards society’s young outcasts.
