2023 – Page 4 – Scene by Green

Saltburn (2023)

Emerald Fennell | 2hr 7min

Whoever or whatever Oliver Quick may be in Saltburn, he is not human. He wears the skin of a lower-class outsider from a troubled family, but his instincts are sharp like a spider’s – or perhaps he is a moth banging up against a window, trying desperately to infiltrate the wealthy Catton family who he is staying with for the summer. “Lucky for you I’m a vampire,” he purrs to Venetia Catton as he grotesquely licks her period blood off his fingers, and when he suits up for an Oxford ball, a classmate lightly jokes that he’s almost passing for “a real human boy.” Perhaps his eccentric hosts sense some animalistic depravity in their son Felix’s new friend, though for the time being they are happy to keep him around like a trophy proving their own generosity.

Emerald Fennell’s follow-up to Promising Young Woman delivers yet another subversive interrogation of power and privilege, and yet Saltburn proves to be far more obscure in its formal construction than that tightly plotted revenge thriller, layering mysteries upon secrets within the titular country estate. With a strong set of creature metaphors at her disposal, Fennell weaves a monstrously sinister fable around Oliver, stealthily wandering through a maze not unlike that which sits in the Catton family’s enormous garden. To those souls unfortunate enough to reach its centre, a giant minotaur sculpture awaits, frozen in the act of ripping apart a victim as it proudly bears its naked manhood. The visual parallels between this mythical creature and Oliver in his truest form are striking – in the absence of wealth and social influence, sex becomes his greatest weapon, and clothes are shed to reveal the aggressive masculinity lurking beneath.

*The convention and order of the Saltburn estate slips into perverse chaos.*

*Fennell illuminates her scenes with a David Fincher-style lighting setup – dim golden lamps and candles drenching these scenes with a haunting atmosphere.*

Through Fennell’s elegantly dynamic camerawork, we too find ourselves trapped in these characters’ magnificent habitats, following behind them in three long tracking shots which formally mark our introduction to Oliver, our introduction to Saltburn, and the brilliantly twisted final shot of the film. Especially in the latter two, Fennell relishes the classical architecture and production design that could be straight out of Pride and Prejudice, traversing cavernous ballrooms and lavishly decorated corridors that essentially form a maze of their own.

The severely narrowed aspect ratio contributes to this claustrophobia too, making for some particularly disorientating compositions of an upside-down Oliver reflected in ponds and dinner tables, and wide shots that close in Saltburn’s walls around us. Within these opulent interiors, Fennell draws a haunting beauty from the dim, golden lighting of lamps and candles, setting us up for jarring shocks each time she switches to a blood-red wash that encases its residents in mortal peril.

*One of Saltburn’s most striking compositions – perfect lighting, symmetry, framing, and yet totally disorientating.*

*Blood-red lighting encompasses the residents of Saltburn in madness, anger, and grief.*

This danger does not simply emanate from Oliver though, as Fennell also prompts us to question whether the Cattons’ peculiar traditions and behaviour are truly as innocuous as they seem. From this angle, Saltburn appears to be in direct conversation with Jean Renoir’s class satire The Rules of the Game, underscoring the complete absurdity of the family’s black-tie dress code for dinner, and the strange request to remain cleanshaven so as not to incite Lady Elsbeth’s irrational fear of beards.

Rosamund Pike offers brilliant comic relief in this role, right next to Richard E. Grant’s maddeningly gleeful Sir James, though the greatest achievement here belongs to Barry Keoghan. Looking back at his collaborations with Yorgos Lanthimos and Martin McDonagh, it seems as if his career of playing unconventional misfits has built to this unrelenting portrait of obsession, perversion, and manipulation. Whether at Oxford or Saltburn, it is impossible for Oliver to blend into crowds, though he doesn’t exactly try hard either. His choice to wear a pair of stag antlers at his Midsummer Night’s Dream birthday party is subtly symbolic, asserting his primal masculinity in stark opposition to the men and women who dress in fairy costumes. When his outward meekness isn’t shrinking him in the frame, Keoghan confidently dominates Fennell’s compositions, most prominently while seducing his hosts. Venetia may be the one luring him out into the gardens late at night, but as he lines up his facial profile behind hers in a close-up and whispers commands into her ear, the link between his physical and psychological influence visually manifests onscreen with invasive intimacy.

*Saltburn marks a prime achievement for Barry Keoghan, who after many years of playing supporting roles takes the spotlight with disturbing relish.*

If we are to believe his voiceover’s claims that such actions are genuine expressions of love, then we would be severely underestimating the depth of his inner emotional turmoil, and the extent to which it robs him of the control he desires. To make matters even more complicated, the Cattons still view him as a lowly child of the working class, and so he must make certain capitulations for the sake of his hosts’ egos and sensitivities. Felix and Venetia are happy to exploit his insecurity when they demand he strip to join them sunbathing, and later when he is tricked into performing a demeaning karaoke song, his resentment only continues to build.

*With a narrow aspect ratio, shadows, and sharp lighting, Fennell composes a shot that could be from F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu.*

Perhaps then Oliver’s love of Felix is not so much a romantic or sexual attraction, but a desire to inhabit his very being, and to access the privilege that comes with it. In this way, Saltburn’s intricate examination of power plays within a rigid social hierarchy bears many similarities to other contemporary class satires such as Parasite and The Favourite, though Fennell’s eccentric characters have nothing to hide but repulsive, hollow hearts. Some may mask it with lavish displays of charity, and others with a superficial subservience to their superiors, but as Saltburn reveals at the centre of its brilliant maze, this twisted game of exploitation will only be won by whoever is prepared to sink the lowest.

Saltburn is currently playing in cinemas.

Boston Strangler (2023)

Matt Ruskin | 1hr 52min

As journalists Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole chase down leads and uncover new pieces of evidence against the Boston Strangler, the more disturbingly apparent it becomes that this investigation alone will not bring true justice. While the list of suspects grows, so too does the list of men complicit in this repeated pattern of murdered women – though not all of them may even consider themselves guilty.

This total lack of accountability may be the most demoralising discovery of all in Boston Strangler. Multiple felons collude behind the scenes, seeking to capitalise on their crimes and escape conviction, while the police and media gloss over what they believe to be a string of unconnected murders. Incidentally, they are also providing the perfect cover for copycats looking to cover their own bloody tracks – a “convenient way out for everybody else” as Loretta notes. Matt Ruskin’s crime procedural takes several creative liberties in its true crime reconstruction, though it still poses a cutting criticism of those patriarchal institutions seeking to protect one half of society, while the other half lives in perpetual fear.

The Boston Strangler’s modus operandi is terrifyingly simple, disguising himself as a handyman, gaining easy access to the homes of older women, and murdering them in broad daylight. Stylistically speaking though, this doesn’t stop Ruskin from cloaking so much of his scenery in a David Fincher-like darkness, faintly lit by the dim lamps and fluorescent lights of empty newsrooms and dingy apartment buildings. The period-specific production design pairs beautifully with this murky ambience, transforming Ruskin’s vision of 1960s Massachusetts into an urban nightmare crawling with malice, and rooting us in a consistently strong aesthetic while the narrative occasionally falls back on far too familiar beats.

After all, it is not merely the visuals that Ruskin is borrowing from Fincher here, but Boston Strangler also wears its Zodiac influence a little too explicitly. As Keira Knightley’s tenacious reporter probes deeper into the brutal murders scattered around the city, she encounters strikingly similar threats of heavy breathing from an unknown caller, and an unsettling suspect inviting her into a shady backroom. It is rather through Ruskin’s manipulation of Hitchcockian devices that the suspense becomes palpable instead, leading into murder scenes with long takes and focusing the camera on extraneous details that visually detach us from the violence – a slow dolly forward on a blank wall for instance, or a dripping tap growing steadily louder with the sound of guttural chokes and screams.

Even when we aren’t witnessing this serial killer’s perverse handiwork, we feel a tangible paranoia spreading across America’s northeast, though one that is experienced solely by women. The lack of urgency within the police department is no surprise given its masculine demographic, and even Loretta’s efforts to break free of writing lifestyle columns and report on the murders are met with pushback from her male superiors. As such, the mirror that Ruskin holds up between both sides of the law is incredibly damning. The ferociously discreet misogyny which kills women and the institutional sexism which forces them into subservience are in service of each other, even letting one suspect confess to everything with the promise of legal immunity and the added potential for a book deal. It is only through the alliance of journalists Loretta and Jean that we find any hope at all in Boston Strangler. Its villains may be repulsive creatures, but just as slippery is the ineffective justice that keeps escaping accountability, and which simply continues to feed humanity’s most rotten, corrupt vices.

Boston Strangler is currently streaming on Disney+.

The Killer (2023)

David Fincher | 1hr 58min

Michael Fassbender’s dead-eyed assassin goes by no name other than that which is presented in the title of The Killer. He serves no god or country, and refuses to take sides in his clients’ affairs, instead dedicating his entire mind and body to the task at hand with extraordinary patience. “Forbid empathy. Empathy is weakness. Weakness is vulnerability,” his inner voice repeats, like a mantra of short, staccato instructions inducing a state of complete detachment. “Anticipate, don’t improvise. Trust no one. This is what it takes to succeed.”

Why then does The Killer see him tread the fine line between success and failure so frequently? It is a trend that begins to unravel right from the opening scene when, after spending days staking out a Parisian hotel room from an abandoned apartment across the street, he misses his target and hits an innocent woman instead.

The opening scene of The Killer is long and drawn-out, carefully building the image of a cold-blooded killer who does not make mistakes, before picking at a loose thread in his tightly woven procedure.

The error is as shocking to us as it is the Killer himself. He is a man who has refined his craft through self-control and routine, keeping his inner voice from wandering by listening to The Smiths, and tracking his heart rate through a smartwatch. He may believe himself to be immune to human error, and yet it is exactly this which rears its head all throughout The Killer. Much like Michael Corleone claiming in The Godfather that his work is not personal but just business, there is a tension between this hitman’s voiceover and his actions. After all, as much as he would like to believe otherwise, the quest for vengeance that he sets out on shortly after this deadly slip-up is driven by nothing but his own furious desire for justice.

With such a vast emotional distance established between audience and character in The Killer, it is no wonder why David Fincher was drawn to its methodically structured screenplay. Murderous psychopaths have long been at the centre of his meticulous narratives ever since Seven, and even when his focus has drifted to less lethal subject matter in films like The Social Network, there still resides a vague hollowness in his characters. Still, The Killer delivers an icy interrogation of this mindset so distinct from any of those previous films that it is surprising Fincher hasn’t explored the psychological territory of a professional assassin sooner. Jean-Pierre Melville’s neo-noir crime films have long been an influence on Fincher’s work, and so it was only a matter of time before he remodelled the rogue hitman story of Le Samouraï into his own painstaking character study of cold-blooded perfectionism and stifled vulnerability.

*The Killer is a feather in the cap for Michael Fassbender after a quiet few years, holding an intensive focus and impassive face that only occasionally breaks to reveal a shameful vulnerability.*

Like Melville, Fincher is also a dedicated technician of film lighting and colour, though much preferring his desaturated golden palettes and pronounced shadows over the French auteur’s cool blue washes. The Killer is formally divided into six chapters, each set to a different city made visually distinct by their architecture and weather, and yet it is that consistency in Fincher’s gloomy, yellow aesthetic which formally unites these locations within a treacherous underworld. Whether he is stalking a taxi driver along the tropical coasts of the Dominican Republic or a fellow assassin through the snow-blanketed streets of Chicago, the Killer’s silent operations are shrouded in shadow.

Fincher’s trademark gold lighting illuminates the city streets of Paris, Chicago, New York, and the list goes on. It makes for a good number of excellent establishing shots, uniting each location within a treacherous underworld of assassins.

It is the highly controlled soundstages where Fincher is at his strongest though. The sources of his ambient lighting setups are frequently part of the scenery, with reading lamps, fluorescent battens, portable floodlights, and other fixtures decorating everything from high-end restaurants to bare apartments. It is thanks to these visible light sources that Fincher holds such a command over his darkness as well, letting us lean forward to pick out the incredible detail of his compositions without letting it entirely disappear.

Light sources frequently become part of Fincher’s mise-en-scène, casting a moody ambience across dim restaurants and hotel rooms. If cinematographer Gordon Willis is the ‘Prince of Darkness’, then Fincher is the Duke – simply one of the best lighting technicians in cinema history.

It is a level of aesthetic precision that is not unusual for Fincher, but which here makes for a perfect formal match to the Killer’s slick, patient procedures, fastidiously traced through long stretches of purely visual storytelling accompanied only by that taciturn voiceover. “If you are unable to endure boredom, this work is not for you,” he informs us, and indeed the large majority of his work does not simply involve killing, but rather travelling, tailing, infiltrating, and waiting around to spring into action. Though he claims to have no affiliations, it is in these mundane moments that his idiosyncratic habits come to light – taking the bread off his breakfast muffins, for instance, or his routine stretching.

Fincher’s rogue hitman narrative is patient and methodical. This is not John Wick, constantly moving from one fight to the next – the Killer spends time exercising, waiting, stalking, and infiltrating, approaching every action with absolute precision.

After years of working in franchises and briefly taking a hiatus from acting altogether, Fassbender’s return to auteur collaborations is very welcome here, applying an intensive focus to every action and thereby compelling us to do the same in our observations. Conversely though, the flashes of anger and panic that cross his impassive face whenever he is faced with unexpected diversions also develop a growing sense of unease, building to a violent climax when he is ambushed by a brutish hitman with multiple advantages over him.

Fassbender’s unblinking Killer may have a quick mind and agile body on his side, but he is not a machine, flawlessly executing plans with pinpoint accuracy. He is prone to errors, riddled with weaknesses, and perhaps even capable of the empathy he so frequently derides. Whether or not he can accept this, he cannot simply will his imagined supremacy into existence by repeating the same empty affirmations. This wannabe psychopath does not belong among the few who are truly void of emotion, but among the many who willingly fall victim to it, vulnerable to an innate humanity that limits perfectionism, yet equally expands our self-understanding.

*Fassbender is consistently isolated in Fincher’s compositions, mostly as a lone wolf, though here framed in a portrait of melancholy solitude.*

The Killer is currently streaming on Netflix.

Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

Martin Scorsese | 3hr 26min

The Osage Nation had already suffered one great upheaval in the 19^th century when the United States government forced them to relocate from Kansas to Oklahoma, cutting them off from their historical and cultural roots. Given the discovery of abundant oil in their new territory almost immediately after the funerial burial of a ceremonial pipe though, it appears as if the spiritual forces of nature have come to deliver them from their tribulations, sending manna from heaven that guarantees them a prosperous future. From their great loss springs new life, but while “the chosen people of chance” dance in slow-motion beneath the gushing well of newfound riches, the colonial powers that be are not so ready to let this opportunity slip through their fingers.

*Nature delivers the Osage people from their persecution, raining down manna from heaven. The slow-motion dance is joyous, revelling in newfound riches that bring a new kind of danger.*

Just as Martin Scorsese seems to have had his final say on the gangster genre with The Irishman, a new spate of violent assassinations and underground conspiracies emerge in 1920s Oklahoma, though the victims in Killers of the Flower Moon are not rival mobs or compromised associates. The primary orchestrator of this plot is William King Hale, a wealthy rancher who purports to be a good friend to the Osage people, speaks their language, and even offers a reward to whomever comes forward with information regarding their senseless murders. He has the untouchable evil of Noah Cross from Chinatown, and yet Robert de Niro applies a genteel Southern charm to this chilling façade of warmth, consequently giving his best performance in almost thirty years.

Each murder is a brutal interruption of the narrative’s easy pacing – cold, dispassionate, often played out in wide shots. Victims are lulled into a false sense of security before being gunned down, following a pattern set in Scorsese’s previous gangster films.

From the perspective of the FBI agents coming to investigate these murders, this narrative could have very easily been a murder mystery, and indeed the early drafts of Scorsese and Eric Roth’s script were close to following this route. As it is, Killers of the Flower Moon does not play this game for very long, explicitly revealing which men have been killing the Osage people, and under whose orders.

At the centre of Hale’s plot as well is a cross-cultural marriage intended to grant him a large portion of the local wealth, and his nephew Ernest Burkhart is perfectly positioned in this matter. There is no doubt his budding romance with Osage woman Mollie Kyle is at least partly genuine, but there are few characters here as stupidly craven and weak-willed as him. He is a pawn in his uncle’s long game, blowing up his neighbour’s home and poisoning Mollie through her insulin shots, and yet somehow still finding the audacity to feel guilt over his despicable actions as he obediently carries them out.

Lily Gladstone might walk away with the best performance of the film, even while going up against acting titans Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert de Niro. She is softly spoken, resilient, and intellectual – but also trusting to a fault.

This is the first time since This Boy’s Life in 1993 that Leonardo DiCaprio has starred opposite de Niro, and though there is a palpable screen chemistry between the two defining actors of their generations, Lily Gladstone stands toe-to-toe with them as the unfalteringly resilient Mollie. Having made a small name for herself in Kelly Reichardt’s indie dramas over the past few years, she now brings her softly spoken yet self-assured presence to a larger canvas, letting those moments where grief and fury break through her usually composed demeanour land with absolute devastation. Even as she pursues justice for her people, there is little that can sway her from her husband’s side, convincing herself that he may be the only innocent white American in the entire county. After all, how could anyone keep such a dangerous lie from their own family for so many years?

*De Niro gives his best performance since the 90s as the chilling William King Hale, simultaneously befriending and murdering the people of the Osage nation.*

He’s not Michael Chapman or Michael Ballhaus, but cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto is on a solid run here collaborating with Scorsese, following up The Irishman with another impressive visual work of sprawling significance.

Just as the enormous running time of The Irishman sinks in the sad weight of a former hitman’s hollow life, the fact that the crimes depicted in Killers of the Flower Moon continued for so long without any legal ramifications is made all the more despairing by its sprawling scope. With a pace that thoroughly teases out each side character and subplot, Scorsese fully realises the enormous depth of this divided community, and further brings its setting to life through his authentic production design and sweeping camerawork.

*Scorsese’s long shots are a marvel in Killers of the Flower Moon, especially using the oil fields to brilliant effect as icons of industry and capitalism.*

*The high angle establishing shots of these train stations and rural settlements feel very influenced by Sergio Leone, carrying great historical weight and detail.*

There is a touch of Sergio Leone in these dynamic long shots, craning up above train stations, rural settlements, and oil fields to reveal the marks of white colonisers seeking to capitalise on the Osage people’s wealth, but Scorsese does not relinquish his own visual style so easily either. In one long take, he tracks his camera through a busy house hosting a party of Native Americans, and later when a ranch burns to the ground he envelops us in Ernest’s guilt-ridden fever dream, distorting silhouettes of men trying to fight the fire through its ethereal, orange haze. Hale and his men have unleashed hell on Earth, and there is little salvation to be found in this biblical blaze, embodying a fast-spreading, bitter derangement that sees a self-loathing Ernest drop a small dose of Mollie’s poison into his own whiskey. Conversely, Scorsese also draws on the animalistic iconography of Native American spiritualism, twice over haunting those targeted by Hale’s men with owls – an omen of death in many tribes.

One of the great scenes of Killers of the Flower Moon sinks us into a hellish fever dream as the land lights on fire, melding images of destruction, guilt, and sickness through Thelma Schoonmaker’s editing.

In moments like these, Killers of the Flower Moon shifts away from the impression of factualism and reveals the inherent subjectivity that comes with dramatising history. Composer Robbie Robertson’s fusion of bluesy guitar riffs, humming vocals, and traditional pipes accentuates this point in its anachronistic delirium, and sadly marks his final film score before his passing earlier this year. Its formal consistency is unfortunately not a feature shared by the silent newsreel interludes that almost completely drop off after the first half hour, or the fourth-wall shattering epilogue that lacks any kind of setup. In moments like these, Scorsese’s film reveals itself to be a slightly more uneven work than The Irishman, angling at some critical point about reconstructing the past through storytelling, but never quite unifying it with the broader narrative.

As far as historical epics go though, Killers of the Flower Moon does not waste its length, and Scorsese’s reflections on the racial tensions of 1920s Oklahoma are never oversimplified. White man’s fetishisation of Indigenous people’s ethnic purity and skin colour is often written into the subtext of their creepy exchanges, and the Native American symbol of abundance represented in the titular ‘Flower Moon’ is effectively tarnished by the timing of Hale’s genocide.

*The cutaways to silent newsreels and old photos would have been a great formal motif had they been carried through more consistently. As it is, they drop off in consistency after the first half hour.*

*The flower moon is a symbol of growth and prosperity in Native American culture, and one that is totally corrupted by white men.*

This is a two-faced villainy bred not from ignorance, but from an intimate knowledge of one’s economic rivals, and the capitalistic belief that only the ruthless deserve to prosper. Not even family ties will stand in the way of Hale’s accumulating wealth, and the justice eventually delivered by America’s legal system is only a half-hearted indictment of the perpetrators accountable when their web of lies begins to unravel. For once, the existential despair that Scorsese leaves us with does not hang solely on his criminal characters and their catastrophic life choices. In the end, Killers of the Flower Moon is just as much a wistful lament for the exploitation of America’s Indigenous people, and the trust many of them placed in allies with warm smiles and greedy hearts.

Killers of the Flower Moon is currently playing in theatres, and will soon be streaming on Apple TV Plus.

El Conde (2023)

Pablo Larraín | 1hr 50min

The grotesque metaphor that El Conde poses is simple enough in its Gothic iconography, comparing Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s legacy to that of a vampire parasitically living off society’s most vulnerable. The social context surrounding Pablo Larraín’s satirical target certainly hits closer to home for the director than the other cultural figures he previously examined in Jackie and Spencer, and yet there is a universality to this historical revisionism which sees Pinochet take his oppressive totalitarianism to the world stage.

Horrified by the subversive violence he witnessed in his youth fighting against the French Revolution, this fictional version of the famous tyrant subsequently spent centuries combatting further uprisings across the world, before beginning his despotic reign in late twentieth century Chile. Larraín’s sardonic depiction of Pinochet is not so much a faithful rendering of the former president as he is an outlandish icon of dictatorship, feverishly feeding on citizens of the working class who won’t be missed, while his disloyal inner circle desperately hope that their close acquaintance might grant them their most selfish desires.

*The historical revisionism swings hard from the start, reframing Pinochet as the enemy of many revolutions over several centuries before he became the famous dictator.*

*Larraín’s ominous expressionism is a perfect visual fit for this vampiric allegory, cutting out ominous silhouettes from Pinochet’s billowing cape.*

*Decrepit mise-en-scène inside Pinochet’s rural farmhouse, wearing away with his age and relevance.*

After many years of estrangement, the five Pinochet children who have denounced their father’s evils arrive at his hidden estate in the Andes to claim their inheritance, hypocritically disregarding how the fortune was unethically amassed. The nun who has come to exorcise the devil from his body also falls hard for his seductive promises of power, inspiring jealousy in his wife Lucía who wants nothing more than to be bitten and become similarly immortal. As for the retired dictator himself, there is very little tethering him to his miserable half-life, leaving him to consequently give up drinking blood and let himself die. If only it were that simple – the curse of vampirism has doomed an aged Pinochet to eternal banality, never quite regaining the vitality of his youthful rule, and equally never finding the cold release of death.

*Larraín announces the deadpan satire early with the bright pink opening credits set against gorgeous monochrome cinematography.*

*El Conde has the severe framing and landscapes of an early Ingmar Bergman film, emphasising the complete barrenness of the Chilean countryside.*

Right from the opening credits, Larraín’s bright pink font sardonically nods at the campness underlying the darkness of Pinochet’s decrepit existence, though between here and the final scene he does not waver from his bold, monochrome aesthetic. The harsh silhouettes cut out from Pinochet’s caped figure as he stands alone in Gothic interiors bear striking resemblance to the Iranian vampire film A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, but the severe landscapes of foggy coastlines and mountains call back even more distinctly to Ingmar Bergman’s early work in The Seventh Seal. With Pinochet standing in for the physical manifestation of Death, Chile’s cities and countryside are similarly haunted by unholy abominations and mysterious deaths, revealing a rot that has infected the soul of humanity – not explicitly the result of an absent God, but rather the lingering trauma of modern fascism.

*An excellent early frame of the nuns in their church, defined in opposition to Pinochet’s black silhouette with their stark white habits.*

As Larraín would have it, God in fact plays a very active role in this dark fairy tale, distorted through the corrupt vessel of the Roman Catholic Church. Sister Carmen emerges like a spectre from a choir of white-clad nuns in a vast, stony cathedral, prophesied to “destroy dreams and bring misery” with her “white, innocent flesh.” Disguised as an accountant, she enters Pinochet’s estate and immediately charms the vampire with her fluent French, before sitting down with each family member and conducting a thorough audit of his extraordinary wealth. Larraín lands us right in the middle of these interrogations too, intimately centre framing both Carmen and the subjects of her probing as they spill secrets of Pinochet’s criminal exploits, figuratively embodied in parallel scenes of his vicious, bloody hunt.

*Larraín’s editing proves to be a sharp tool in this Gothic metaphor, visually comparing tales of Pinochet’s historical exploits against his bloody hunt for fresh victims.*

The intercutting here is harsh in its visual juxtaposition, associating tales of Pinochet’s unrestrained political power with images of him ravenously licking the blood of an elderly woman off his fingers, and disembowelling a labourer working a late-night shift. His legacy has not been officially memorialised through busts in Chile’s presidential palace, leaving him to pathetically fill his own empty spot among its sculpted leaders, and yet it continues to creep into the homes and workplaces of ordinary citizens who still feel its insidious reverberations.

*Political satire savagely cutting down Pinochet’s legacy in a single image, feebly positioning him between the busts of those Chilean leaders remembered more fondly.*

If there was any hope of good triumphing over evil in El Conde, then it lies in Carmen and her holy quest to rid the world of Pinochet once and for all. As she grows closer to her target though, another political allegory begins to emerge, chillingly illustrating a conspiratorial alliance of the church and state. As she takes to the overcast skies and learns to fly for the first time after being turned, Larraín delivers what may be the singularly most beautiful scene of the film, floating his camera along as she awkwardly tumbles and falls over Pinochet’s farm like Jesicca Chastain in The Tree of Life. Just as her clumsy flailing strikes a very different image to his smooth gliding over cities and islands, her billowing white robe also contrasts boldly against his black cape stretched out behind him, framing them as two halves of a single power – light and dark, youth and old age, church and state.

*Carmen soars and tumbles through the air above Pinochet’s farm – a beautifully surreal demonstration of the church and state’s supernatural alliance.*

Meanwhile, Pinochet takes to the sky in these gorgeous overhead shots, his cape stretched out behind him as he surveils the land he once ruled as president, and continues to wield considerable power over.

Unfortunately for Carmen though, this romance will only survive for as long as it serves her new master. Pinochet’s gruesomely comical obsession with Marie Antoinette serves up the perfect inspiration for his muse’s latest look, ironically imposing on her an oppressive control that bears significant resemblance to the French Queen’s deprived agency in her own lifetime. The arrival of a new power on the estate also brings a sharp end to her story beneath the blade of a guillotine, finally revealing the identity of our mysterious narrator whose clipped British accent and English speech has curiously mismatched the rest of the cast’s Spanish and French.

*Pinochet worships Marie Antoinette’s legacy, keeping her head as a souvenir and dressing up his muse in her likeness – an amusing touch to this historical satire.*

Larraín’s hilariously flamboyant twist will not be spoiled here, but the global cabal of blood-sucking vampires it paints out with dark humour can at least be mentioned without ruining any major surprises, expanding the scope of El Conde’s satirical revisionism. While the descendants of fascism are quietly profiting off its hoarded plunder and its self-interested lovers are realising they are only safe for as long as they remain useful, the only other figure that can truly understand a tyrant like Pinochet is a fellow tyrant. “This is what the count achieved,” our notorious narrator acutely observes. “Beyond the killing, his life’s work was to turn us into heroes of greed.”

These immortal manifestations of authoritarianism have spent their entire lives putting revolutionaries across the world in their place – not always succeeding, but never dying out either. History traps us in a cycle of never learning from our own mistakes, and so while the man known as Augusto Pinochet may have withered away, Larraín pessimistically hints at a younger form of totalitarianism restoring its historical ideals. El Conde’s formal switch from black-and-white to colour in the final scene may offer its Gothic aesthetic a similar rejuvenation, though the dark, angry hearts of these human parasites continue to beat in the chests of future generations, waiting for the day humanity grows complacent enough to let a new Pinochet kill and pillage their way to unlimited power.

El Conde’s switch to colour in the final minutes makes for a powerful formal device, rejuvenating Larraín’s dilapidated aesthetic as a modern form of totalitarianism is reborn for a future generation.

El Conde is currently streaming on Netflix.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More (2023)

Wes Anderson | 4 episodes (17min to 41 min)

Not even two months out from the release of Asteroid City, Wes Anderson has continued to break down that fourth wall between storytellers and audiences with his deadpan theatrics, though this time in the spirit of literary adaptation. Having previously translated Roald Dahl to screen in 2009’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, he is no stranger to the author’s modern fables of monsters and outcasts, both of which bear especially close connections to his own experiences living through wartime and post-war Britain in these four shorts. The brief, handwritten notes at the end of each instalment offer some context to their writing, whether inspired by the eccentric local townsfolk of Amersham where he penned The Rat Catcher, or a newspaper account of a real bullying incident that stayed with Dahl for thirty years before using it in The Swan. Even within the settings themselves, the relevance to his own military service is clear as well, with both Poison and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar using Britain’s imperial rule of India as a backdrop to stories of greed and racial prejudice.

As far as familiarity goes in Dahl’s work, these tales are not quite as widely beloved as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or The BFG, yet Anderson is purposeful in his curation, painting out a larger portrait of alienation across the entire collection. It is there in the rodentlike characterisation of the titular Rat Catcher who recoils from the disgust of others, Peter’s psychological and physical torment at the hands of two bullies in The Swan, and perhaps most cuttingly the vitriolic racial slurs spat at Dr Ganderbai that give a double meaning to the title Poison.

*Anderson’s creative angles, clean symmetry, and rigorous blocking carry through all four shorts, while his aspect ratios vary in each.*

When it comes to The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar though, the longest of all these short films, Dahl and Anderson angle their story towards a hubristic self-isolation resulting from one wealthy bachelor’s obsessive pursuit of greatness. Having spent years as a recluse in his London apartment trying to learn the ancient Indian trick of seeing without one’s eyes, Henry finds himself totally unfulfilled by the fraudulent success it grants him in casinos. His loneliness is entirely of his own making, emerging from an arrogance that is ultimately washed away by the ancient form of spiritual meditation he has been practicing, and guides him towards a lifetime of redemption.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is the longest among these short films, and also the greatest highlight, as Benedict Cumberbatch leads a character study looking into one man’s greedy pursuit of fraudulent success.

Of the four shorts, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is the only one that ends on such an optimistic note, while Anderson takes some liberties to end each of the others with unresolved bitterness. After Dr. Ganderbai exposes the snake apparently lying on one terrified man’s chest in Poison to be in his head, he does not brush off his humiliated patient’s racism with the happy-go-lucky attitude of his literary counterpart, but rather leaves him with nothing but cold silence. Similarly, Peter’s fate after being forced to jump from a tree in The Swan is a touch melancholier here than in Dahl’s version, with Anderson choosing to close on the poetic image of Peter’s adult self crumpled on the ground, unrecovered from his childhood trauma. To Anderson, worldly evils such as those suffered by our protagonists cannot simply be healed over with a cheerful shrug or a band aid. They persist in the memories of their wounded victims, and are imparted to the world through the eloquent expressions of great artists.

*A melancholy image of broken innocence in The Swan’s final shot, revealing the lingering effects of childhood trauma.*

It makes sense then why Anderson chooses to use a physical representation of Dahl as a narrator in each of these stories. More than any of his fictional characters, Anderson sees pieces of himself in the writer, both being storytellers who offer a veneer of whimsical innocence that may entice children, only to reveal quiet tragedies beneath the colourful surface. Anderson’s screenplay is dense with narration lifted mostly verbatim from the source material, passing from Dahl sitting comfortably in his home on the outermost layer to those characters within the stories themselves. From there, actors effortlessly switch between direct addresses to the camera and in-scene dialogue with barely a pause, moving narratives along at an extraordinarily propulsive pace that may be unforgiving to those viewers who let their attention wander for more than a few seconds.

*Anderson is playful with his cinematic artifice, showing the strings behind his tricks like a modern day Georges Méliès with this camouflaged box giving the illusion of levitation.*

For many directors, this endlessly babbling stream of descriptive soliloquys would be a hindrance to the visual medium of cinema, and though Anderson is slightly more limited here in his staging than usual, his craftsman hands deftly mould Dahl’s words into the equivalent of a pop-up storybook unfolding on giant stages. Specific props and characters are occasionally absent, encouraging a childlike imagination as actors mime and interact with empty space, while other illusions such as Henry Sugar’s levitation is achieved with little more than a camouflaged box. With his rear projection, pastel dioramas, stop-motion animation, and mobile sets visibly moved by backstage crew, Anderson lays the artifice on even thicker than usual, arranging every shot to a level of symmetrical perfection that keeps us at a Brechtian distance from any impression of reality.

*The studio soundstage around the edges of the rear projection are evident, pulling back the curtains on this cinematic storybook.*

*The walls are literally lifted from this bungalow diorama in Poison as we enter the giant dollhouse.*

*A brief yet charming return to stop-motion animation for Anderson with the Rat Catcher’s rat.*

*The backstage crew is everywhere throughout these short films, entering through random doors and windows in the sets to move around props like a stage play.*

Anderson’s aesthetic trademarks are distinctly recognisable from film to film, yet the theatrical designs and formal elements of these shorts bind them even closer as a single cinematic work, rarely even straying outside its single troupe of actors who rotate between roles. Ralph Fiennes, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Friend, Ben Kingsley, Dev Patel, and Richard Ayoade each play an assortment of outlandish characters, while among them Fiennes is the only one to appear in all four instalments, taking on the additional role of Roald Dahl himself. His gentle demeanour there is hilariously offset in The Rat Catcher when he comes to solve a small village’s infestation with claw-like nails, beady eyes, and a pair of long front teeth, suggesting his ethos to ‘think like a rat’ has spread to his grisly appearance and behaviour, and thereby showing off Fiennes’ impressive acting range. Perhaps just as impressive though is Friend’s solo command of The Swan, adopting the nasally voices of other characters in an enrapturing monologue like a parent might while reading to their child at bedtime, and Cumberbatch’s turn as Henry Sugar himself, easily the most fully developed character of the lot.

*Ralph Fiennes is the only one in this troupe of actors to appear in all four shorts, offering warm, gentle narration as Roald Dahl himself sitting in the comfort of his lounge chair.*

Fiennes’ second most prominent role is as the titular Rat Catcher – with stringy grey hair, long front teeth, claw-like nails, and beady black eyes, he has essentially transformed into a rat himself.

*Rupert Friend is also admirable, leading the entirety of The Swan with a single monologue that never loses its momentum.*

In an era of streaming that has seen directors like Barry Jenkins and Nicolas Winding Refn dip into auteur television, Anderson’s own fascinating formal experiment pushes the medium beyond the usual episodic series, while delivering a natural extension of his filmography up to now. Fictional magazines, plays, novels, and memoirs have inspired his inventive structures before, and now his adaptation of Roald Dahl’s short stories into a loosely connected anthology continues that trend of exploring more traditional media through versatile cinematic forms. If there is any hindrance to his talent here, then it is the sheer difficulty of developing any character or story within the limited scope of 17 minutes, and yet at the same time there is far more excitement in any one of these isolated shorts than most films being made. The spirit of Dahl’s literature is alive, taking creative form in Anderson’s poignantly whimsical fables of scheming psychics, merciless bullies, zealous exterminators, and petrified patients.

Wes Anderson’s collection of Roald Dahl shorts is currently streaming on Netflix.

The Creator (2023)

Gareth Edwards | 2hr 13min

One hundred years after America sent their troops to a war in Vietnam that they would suffer greatly for, another conflict unfolds in the futuristic Republic of New Asia, where artificially intelligent beings have taken refuge from the genocidal fury of the western world. Driven by humanity’s most basic fear of extinction and replacement, the United States has taken up arms against their synthetic inventions. Not only have they developed a giant superweapon called USS Nomad that sits up high in the sky, scans for simulants, and destroys them on sight, but they have also unleashed the full force of their highly advanced military upon the forests, mountains, and villages of New Asia where the survivors are being protected by locals.

Gareth Edwards is clearly not holding back his visual and narrative allusions to the Vietnam War, even referencing the specific iconography of films like Apocalypse Now and Platoon, and yet there is a freshness to The Creator which still finds new meaning in the historical conflict through contemporary questions of human identity. America’s dehumanisation of its enemies manifests in this allegory with brutal violence, as soldiers psychologically torture innocent civilians for information, flatten towns with giant tanks, and desecrate the bodies of dead simulants. With foes this inhuman, it is all too easy for Joshua to rationalise fighting for his country as an undercover agent – after all, can a non-human being even be dehumanised to begin with?

Still, it is a very thin line between those artificial simulants and their human New Asian allies, both being disregarded and slaughtered by Americans with barbaric indifference. Lending an even greater weight to this race of artificial humanoids is the faith that has become central to their hopes of survival, noted in the opening text that translates the Nepalese word “Nirmata” as “god-like creator”, and going on to frame this mysterious deity as an architect of AI technology and civilisation.

Therein lies the grand theological concerns of The Creator. Much like Jake Sully’s conversion in Avatar, Joshua begins to see the value these beings place on life beyond mere survival, and the purpose they inherently hold by nature of their own creation. Both organic and synthetic races are inextricably bound – if their lives are worthless, then so too are ours.

As such, this narrative which starts out much like a Blade Runner-type story of a man hunting down artificial humanoids begins to take a direction far more in line with Children of Men, right down to the Messianic icon at its centre. Having learnt of a new weapon developed by Nirmata, Joshua sets out to destroy the device before it can obliterate the USS Nomad, only to discover its devastatingly sympathetic form – a young child simulant called Alpha-O, or more affectionately nicknamed Alphie. It is certainly no coincidence that she activates her power to control technology by holding her hands in a prayer-like position, as if calling on the power of her deity to perform miracles. She is the prophesied saviour of the world, merging the best of both humanity and artificial intelligence, and incidentally turning Joshua into a Joseph-like father figure tasked with ensuring the fulfilment of her destiny.

It stands to reason then that in place of Mother Mary, Joshua’s late wife Maya is the guiding maternal presence, becoming a significant figure in this story despite being largely absent. The promise from Josh’s superiors that she is still alive is all the motivation he needs to join their mission, but it also eventually pushes him to go rogue and whisk Alphie away, leading them from one action set piece to the next in hope of recovering his lost love.

In this stimulating combination of philosophical concerns and largescale science-fiction filmmaking, the names of two more giant directors easily spring to mind. Edwards’ accomplished production design, visual effects, and crisp cinematography clearly follow in the footsteps of Denis Villeneuve, and his consideration of relations between distinct lifeforms and political factions particularly echo Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, and Dune. No doubt this visual prowess can be largely attributed though to Edwards’ use of Dune cinematographer Greig Fraser, capturing a vision of Earth’s future that is rich with cultural detail as helicopter shots circle temples atop Himalayan mountains, and gaze in awe at America’s colossal superweapon sitting up high in the atmosphere.

The other key influence here is virtually inescapable in this era of blockbuster filmmaking, yet remains especially relevant with Edwards’ sharp parallel editing and Hans Zimmer’s majestic blend of orchestral and electronics instruments. The Creator may not touch the magnificent heights of most Christopher Nolan films with its occasional meandering, and yet Edwards’ choice of artistic inspiration is welcome nonetheless, posing a more cerebral alternative to Hollywood’s production line of mindless entertainment without compromising on cinematic spectacle.

As fresh and modern as Edwards is with his epic storytelling, this is a narrative rooted deeply in human culture and history, as Joshua’s military commander even points out parallels to the Homo sapiens’ archaic conflict with Neanderthals which saw the more advanced species come out on top. Despite the fact that these simulants are programmed to desire nothing more than a global, cross-species harmony, humans are nonetheless driven by their own paranoid survival instinct. If they are to be killed off in some catastrophe, it will not be from any threat posed by their inventions, but from their own insecurity and fear of what they themselves have done.

The generational conflict between creators and their creations that Edwards writes into the subtext here makes the surrogate father-daughter relationship at the film’s centre all the sweeter. Through the love that Joshua and Alphie slowly develop for each other on their quest to save simulants from extinction, the paternal figure can relinquish his grasp on an advancing world, and the child is given the tools to ensure a prosperous future on Earth. It may not even matter whether this grand purpose is passed down from a divine deity or a mortal parent. In the eyes of those children eternally bound in loving gratitude to their creators, both are one and the same.

The Creator is currently playing in theatres.

A Haunting in Venice (2023)

Kenneth Branagh | 1hr 43min

The stylish campness of moustachioed detective Hercule Poirot is not exactly lost in the Gothic dread of A Haunting in Venice, though it is at least more subdued in comparison to his previous outings. Approximately ten years have passed since Death on the Nile, and here Kenneth Branagh picks up on Poirot’s reclusive retirement in late 1940s Italy. One can only stand to witness so many crimes in their life before finding themselves totally disillusioned with humanity, and the horrors of World War II have no doubt taken their toll on his idealistic resolve as well. As a result, Poirot may be the most cynical that he has ever been, and yet as he is drawn into this mystery of mediums, seances, and vengeful ghosts, the foundations of his hardened logic are confronted with visions of the impossible.

What better location to set this loose adaptation of Agatha Christie’s novel Hallowe’en Party than Venice too – a city which by day presents itself as a grand historical wonder built around classical stone monuments and canals, and which by night reminds us that the ghosts of its legends are still very much alive. It certainly helps that Branagh chooses to shoot on location rather than falling back on the green screens of Death on the Nile, which previously produced a somewhat artificial look. Magnificently authentic Venetian backdrops thus make for a rich visual presence throughout the first act, before the Belgian detective is lured into the claustrophobic, centuries-old palazzo of opera singer Rowena Drake with the promise of a séance that will defy belief.

Rowena’s deceased daughter Alicia is the spirit that this small party intends to commune with, having thrown herself into the canal one year prior, presumably out of heartbreak. Also present is American crime novelist Ariadne Oliver, Poirot’s old friend who invites him to the séance with the challenge of disproving medium Joyce Reynold’s supernatural abilities. Tina Fey and Michelle Yeoh are enthralling in these roles, though Branagh’s cast is not quite as loaded as it has been in previous films. Few of these characters carry the enigmatic magnetism of Emma Mackey’s spurned lover in Death on the Nile or Michelle Pfeiffer’s resentful family matriarch in Murder on the Orient Express, making Poirot’s interrogations particularly sluggish in the film’s middle act.

Still, Branagh’s chilling direction pulls through even at the narrative’s weakest points, and tantalisingly heightens its most shocking developments. Masked figures sail down canals illuminated by nothing but golden lanterns, ominously warning of a mystical danger that only reveals itself at night, while the Gothic parlours and spiral staircases of Rowena’s palazzo are warped in long shots framed through wide-angle lenses and Dutch tilts. The effect is unsettling, evoking Robert Wise’s 1963 horror The Haunting in its lavishly creepy stylings that escalate into close-up tracking shots attached to Poirot’s anxious face, and camera movements that twist our perspective upside-down. Adding to this the ghostly legend of children who were forcibly quarantined in the basement during the Black Plague back when the building was a hospital, and Branagh effectively blends his murder mystery narrative with supernatural horror, complicating our search for truth with further layers of deception and uncertainty.

Needless to say, Alicia’s suspicious death is not the only one that Poirot sets out to investigate in A Haunting in Venice – her murderer is in attendance at this very séance, Joyce proclaims as she channels her spirit, and it quickly becomes apparent that they will kill again to destroy evidence of their guilt. An unexpected attempt on Poirot’s life significantly raises the narrative stakes, and an impossible mystery seemingly leaves us with no logical explanation when another victim’s life is claimed in a locked room, heavily suggesting that those children’s spirits are more than just medieval myth.

That A Haunting in Venice departs quite significantly from its original novel and often tends more towards the Gothic literature of Edgar Allen Poe is no great source of frustration in this screenplay. Over the course of three films, Branagh has sought to construct a broader picture of the flamboyantly perfectionistic detective across decades of his life, from his days fighting in World War I, through the Great Depression, and now picking up the remnants of his passionate idealism in the aftermath of World War II. The series so far has no doubt made its missteps, and yet here Branagh proves his ability to keep expanding Christie’s classic murder mystery format in thrilling directions, questioning and reaffirming those fundamental narrative foundations that seek to fully comprehend the treacherous yet ultimately rational world they have constructed.

A Haunting in Venice is currently playing in theatres.

Past Lives (2023)

Celine Song | 1hr 46min

Twenty-four years after a preadolescent Nora immigrated to Toronto and left her childhood sweetheart Hae Sung behind in Korea, and twelve years after briefly reuniting with him through social media, the two finally meet again face to face in New York City. As they wander its streets and promenades, their conversation turns to the Korean concept of in-yeon – the mysterious, metaphysical thread that binds lovers together across multiple lives, drawing them closer in each incarnation until they finally fulfil their mutual destinies. Perhaps these characters we see before us were once monarchs, birds, or merely just strangers passing on a street, and yet even as they playfully consider these possibilities it becomes apparent that we are already witnessing in-yeon of a different kind.

This romantic understanding of reincarnation is delicately weaved into the triadic structure of Past Lives, effectively framing these characters as three different versions of themselves. As innocent children growing up in Seoul, to ambitious young adults divided by an ocean, and finally as accomplished professionals seeking closure, Nora and Hae Sung travel along winding paths that only intersect once every twelve years. Nora’s own personal ambitions effectively become markers along this journey too, characterised at each age by her desire to win either a Nobel Prize, a Pulitzer Prize, or a Tony Award – though by her 30s, it is clear that she does not put so much value in these lofty accolades.

Similarly, is Hae Sun not the same kid that Nora crushed on back as a 12-year-old back in Korea, nor the flat image on a laptop screen she would casually hang out with in her 20s. They may be emotionally drawn towards each other at each age, and yet whether through circumstances beyond their control or personal hang-ups, their meetings are always cut short before their relationship can blossom into full romance. The very first time we observe this too, Celine Song composes a melancholy illustration of diverging futures as the two children bid a quiet farewell, before continuing their independent journeys home from school – Nora ascending a flight of stairs on the right, while Hae Sung continuing along the level street on the left.

Fate wins out every time, guiding them into the arms of others who are closer to home, and yet there is still an indissoluble connection which perseveres against comfort and convenience. It is not quite strong enough to leave their life partners or goals behind, but still these old friends can’t help but wonder what they might have been to each other had they stood firmer against the tides of destiny.

Then again, perhaps destiny is more in sync with this unfulfilled romance than it appears. After all, is it merely chance which spurs Nora to reach out to Hae Sun through Facebook over a decade since they last saw each other, only to discover that he has been trying to do the same? Is this a tiny machination in the broader cosmos, entangling these souls across multiple lifetimes where their relationships take on thousands of forms?

It is clear to see the influence of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s philosophical meditations emerge in such profound questions, contemplating the invisible connections between total strangers, and representing enormously abstract ideas through the minutia of everyday life. Song echoes a similar tenderness in her delicate moving camera as well, but as Past Lives reaches its final act she sets out to craft an aesthetic far more in line with Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy or Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, serenely observing her characters wander against backdrops of New York’s modern architecture and warm city lights.

Subtly crucial to the melancholic serenity of Nora and Hae Sun’s conversations too are those organic silences that emerge between them, revealing a mutual comfort in each other’s presence rather than awkward uncertainty. Through Greta Lee and Teo Yoo’s small glances and understanding smiles, we see all the poignant complexities of their semi-romantic love, while life continues to move around them in spinning carousels and rocking boats.

Still, none of this negates the relationship Nora has built over many years with Arthur, her Canadian husband. He is keenly aware of what he might have represented in the simplified fairy tale version of this story, playfully considering how some alternate narrator might frame him as the evil villain getting in the way of his wife’s destiny. Hae Sun does not represent a better alternative – just a different one, who, through no fault of Arthur’s, is able to understand parts of Nora’s life that her husband never will.

It is this strange dynamic which rises to the surface in the film’s pivotal bar scene, shutting Arthur out of a conversation spoken in Korean between Nora and Hae Sun. So central is this meeting of all three characters in Past Lives that Song uses it twice, alternating our perspectives each time.

From within the conversation, we discover Nora and Hae Sun at their most honest, reminiscing a history that belongs solely to them and considering the alternate paths they might have taken along the way. When this scene first plays out in the prologue though, it takes on even greater significance, palpably manifesting Nora and Hae Sun’s in-yeun before we even learn of the concept. Song sets the frame in a gorgeous, warmly lit wide shot, slowly zooming in on their muted conversation as the voices of an unseen couple across the bar playfully theorise their identities and relationships. The visual cues they pick up on are specific yet open-ended, leaving us similarly guessing who they might before we even meet them, and it is in that sweet spot of ambiguity that Past Lives flourishes in its romantic optimism. Within the 24 years they have known each other, Nora and Hae Sun may be helplessly limited to their respective paths, and yet across the expansive history and future of all living things, the possibilities of their undefined love are infinite.

Past Lives is currently playing in theatres.

BlackBerry (2023)

Mike Johnson | 1hr 59min

While much of Hollywood has recently taken to telling the feel-good stories of those entrepreneurs who innovated broadly successful products such as Air Jordans, Tetris, and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, BlackBerry’s unlikely pairing of tech bro Mike Lazaridis and cutthroat businessman Jim Balsillie proves to be a satirically wry subversion of that formulaic rags-to-riches tale. In theory, these two should have been a dynamic duo with enough brains between them to take over the world – and indeed they do for a time. The downfall of a brand which once made up 45% of the cell phone market though seems virtually predestined with the benefit of hindsight. As far as most people are concerned, BlackBerry seemingly disappeared without explanation, and so with a natural spontaneity behind the camera and a cynical wit at hand, Mike Johnson follows in the creative footsteps of Adam McKay to fill in the gaps of what we know about one of the most catastrophic business failures of the 21^st century.

In its crudest form, the PocketLink device which Mike Lazaridis initially pitches to Jim with his friend Douglas Fregin isn’t terribly impressive, though its novelty is admirable – for one, the invention capitalises on a free wireless signal that spans North America, and which hasn’t yet been tapped into. It is little more than good timing which prompts a recently unemployed Balsillie to take them up on the offer, immediately establishing himself as co-CEO. For a time, his savvy business instincts work wonders, though the role his intimidating, hostile persona plays in this can’t be discounted. Corners must be cut, and quality must be sacrificed for progress. For such a dour man, his nuggets of wisdom are hilariously condescending, even targeting a subordinate as they commit the minor transgression of reaching for a bottle of water.

“Thirst is a display of a weakness.”

Glenn Howerton’s comic instincts that he has spent years crafting on sitcoms pays off tremendously in this role, effectively transplanting the raging narcissism of Dennis from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia into a tragically humourless businessman with an equal lack of self-awareness. The number of times he smiles in BlackBerry could be counted on one hand, but even when he does there is a cold arrogance in his eyes. Expressions of unbound fury come far more naturally to Balsillie, serving him well enough when he faces down competitors, though also incidentally revealing the rottenness which America’s capitalist industries thrive on.

Still, there is an odd respect that forms between Balsillie and Lazaridis. While the business shark proposes inserting BlackBerries into elite circles and marketing the brand as a status symbol, the tech genius wins over investors with his innovation, making for a perfectly symbiotic partnership. The tension that inevitably arises is even more tantalising to watch though, and it is through Johnson’s documentary shooting style that we begin to feel like voyeurs watching a colossal trainwreck in the making – albeit one desperately trying to save face in the public eye. Handheld cameras and zoom lenses probe into private spaces from a distance, studying the vulnerabilities of these entrepreneurs, all while Johnson keeps accelerating the momentum of their ruin in montages cutting across archival news stories and talk shows.

It isn’t just Lazaridis’ struggle to match the innovation of Apple’s iPhone touchscreen, but the very qualities which once made Balsillie such a compelling businessman are the same which brings his empire down around him. In this way, BlackBerry also becomes a cautionary tale of what comes of such nefarious distractions, obsessions, and shady practices in a capitalist industry, eventually degrading the very quality of the product until it becomes a cheap copy of itself. Through Johnson’s cynical bookends, the irritating buzz of poorly manufactured devices brings Lazaridis full circle back to where he started, only with the problem now multiplied around him a millionfold. The long-lasting era of smartphones may have been dreamed up by these forward-thinking men, and yet as BlackBerry casts its final condemnation upon the ruthlessly corrupt free market, it is also clear that its future was never going to flourish in their ill-equipped hands.

BlackBerry is currently playing in theatres.