Category: 2020s

Rebecca Hall | 1hr 38min

It isn’t always easy to fully conceptualise what we are seeing in Passing. It is a very deliberate choice from debut director Rebecca Hall to shoot much of the film with an incredibly shallow depth of field, letting everything but the target of her camera’s attention meld into a blur, but then she also takes this a step further in frequently letting her shots drift in and out of focus. The effect is obscuring, taking a dreamy hold over this interrogation of racial assimilation in 1920s New York where two old childhood friends who have taken separate paths find themselves back in each other’s lives. At the core of their relationship are thorny questions of identity, about as blurred as Eduard Grau’s hazy black-and-white cinematography or as fluid as Dev Hynes’ exquisitely jazzy piano score, where both Irene and Clare are uncomfortably pushed to consider the complicated realities that they would much rather avert their eyes from.

The choices these women take in how to present themselves are intrinsically wrapped up with matters of pride and insecurity, as even the decision to not “pass” as white is still inherently active. Irene is granted freedom of expression in choosing to live her life as a Black woman, but this is at least initially a far less tangible liberty than the wealth and class privilege Clare finds in choosing to suppress her African-American roots. Still, both are making sacrifices in following these paths, as we learn that Clare has married a white racist with no knowledge of her true heritage. If he were to discover the truth, the consequences might just be unbearable, and the fear of that hangs heavy over her lie.

In representing Irene and Clare as formal counterpoints, Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga put in a pair of superbly mirrored performances, moving around each other like reflections of alternative lives either character could have had. Hall takes the time to capture the subtle glances and movements of both actresses, especially in Thompson’s shaking hands that reveal Irene’s underlying anxiety as a mother of young Black boys. Unlike her husband, Brian, she is reluctant to educate them on the prejudices of the world, and it is also with this sort of denial that she is able to handle her oppression. Clare’s decision to pass as white acts as a similar sort of denial to afford herself certain privileges, though every now and again Negga’s frivolous demeanour reveals small cracks in its façade, suggesting a far more sensitive understanding of the situation than anyone might expect.

In Hall’s delicate framing of these women within an unusually boxy aspect ratio and monochrome palette, there is a stylistic evocation of Polish director Paweł Pawlikowski, whose films Ida and Cold War wrestle with similarly complex relationships subjugated by historical tragedies and divisions. When Irene or Clare are centred in the composition, they will often be surrounded by masses of negative space blurred out by the camera’s focus, or otherwise pushed to the bottom of the shot where this graceful minimalism imposes on their visual presence.

Perhaps the most sharply captured shots in this film are those recurring parallel tracking shots that follow Irene out the front of her brownstone apartment building, always travelling in the same direction as she returns home. In this formal repetition Hall grounds her character to a specific location, though such clear-cut definitions are not so easy to determine elsewhere as she deliberately destabilises our perception of relationships and events. Irene’s insecurity about a potential affair unfolding between Clare and Brian might seem to imprint itself on a mirror capturing the two standing unusually close to each other, though as she gains a better view it is revealed to be little more than a trick of the light.

Such uncertainties continue to plague this narrative right up until the devastating finale that leaves three separate possibilities in our minds as to how exactly we reached this point, each one carrying implications for different characters as to the extreme lengths they would go when faced with the exposure of one’s true identity. As Irene states matter-of-factly at one point, “We’re all of us passing for something or other,” and it is in these attempts to reconcile who we are and how we wish to be seen that Hall tragically recognises a challenge which may not contain a singular, objectively beneficial solution.

Passing is currently available to stream on Netflix.

Josh Greenbaum | 1hr 47min

At their weakest, those comedy movies from Saturday Night Live alumni will string together sketches showing off little more than the improvisational talents of its actors, certainly entertaining but achieving little more. The pastel-coloured romp that is Barb and Star Go to Vista del Mar is automatically a step above most of those simply for not falling into the same trap of flatly shot, disjointed vignettes, but there is also promise from young 22-year-old director Josh Greenbaum that transforms it into a nonsensical visual treat. No doubt there are plot points here which don’t quite cohere with everything else, but with a Marx Brothers-style commitment to absurdly creative dialogue and gags, the collaboration between Greenbaum, Kristen Wiig, and Anne Mumolo pushes the film’s narrative logic in hilariously unexpected directions.

Barb and Star themselves are refreshingly original characters, amusingly naïve yet endlessly talkative. These two middle-aged Midwestern divorcees have never considered a world beyond their small-town retail job and suburban “talking club”, where conversation ranges from such trivial topics as the comfort of wicker furniture to character socks. Both Wiig and Mumolo play them as a pair of identically minded best friends with decades of rapport, effortlessly bouncing off each other’s comedic offers with light-hearted poise. In their introductions, as they move from one menial conversation to the next, we cut between close-ups of their short, coiffed hair, their plain heels, and their simple jewellery, each gently bobbing in time to Shania Twain, and in this playful piece of editing Greenbaum ties these frivolous characters to their meekest, most pedestrian qualities.

One could point to the flaws in the writing for the villainous Sharon Fisherman, also played by Wiig in a Dr Evil-type double role, as well as some of the scripted jokes which fall flat, but there is no denying the pure comic ambition in Greenbaum’s inventive staging of visual gags, frequently calling back to classic screwball conventions. They are present in those quieter comic beats, in which Barb drifts by on a pool float in the foreground to secretly meet up with the handsomely villainous Edgar while leaving an unassuming Star in the background, as well as in formal repetitions which see both Barb and Star go on virtually identical dates independent of each other, but Greenbaum’s vision especially shines in two musical numbers. The first of these excitingly jolts us into the blue-and-pink utopia of Vista del Mar, delivering an over-enthusiastic welcome much like that which introduces us to the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz. The second is a soulful power ballad that submits even further to the self-conscious kitsch design of the film, complete with dramatic long dissolves and a hysterically overwrought performance from Jamie Dornan.

There is little here that adheres to a singular universal logic, especially as the narrative takes great pleasure in manipulating the laws of probability and physics so that everything aligns with Barb and Star’s ludicrously sunny dispositions. Whenever something vaguely troublesome or problematic is brought up, it is amusingly swept under the rug as a throwaway joke, and it is in this manner that we can accept the co-dependency of both women, which would certainly be addressed with more weight in a more serious film. As it is, Barb and Star Go to Vista del Mar is happy to tease us with its dark and bizarre tangents before defiantly snatching them away, aggressively sticking by its relentlessly bright temperament right to the end.

Barb and Star Go to Vista del Mar is available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Google Play.

Ryusuke Hamaguchi | 2hr 59min

In this story of terrible grief and long journeys of healing, Ryusuke Hamaguchi realises the need to take his time, for both himself and his characters. Perhaps there is a tighter, leaner version of Drive My Car out there than the three-hour version he presents us with, but that would simply not do justice to the complex figures at its heart, or their gentle processes of discovery – discovering oneself, discovering the true nature of those who have left us, and discovering others who share the same pain. In teasing out the mannerisms, insecurities, and quiet longings of his characters over such a lengthy period, an impression slowly forms of time being an unlimited resource to these men and women who have seen loved ones pass on, leaving them in a tranquil limbo of endless self-reflection.

Given its foundation within a Haruki Murakami short story of the same name, the compelling, elusive characters that make up the cast of Drive My Car are almost a given, though Hamaguchi’s collaboration with Takamasa Oe on this screenplay isn’t simply coasting by on its rich source material. This is a text just as much in tune with its dramaturgical influences as it is with its literary, centring widowed actor Yüsuke Kafuku as an artist with a sensitive love of the theatre, ranging from the absurdism of Samuel Beckett to the realism of Anton Chekhov.

For much of his married life, this artistic devotion has also rested precariously on his wife’s passion for scriptwriting. In an extended forty-minute prologue preceding the opening credits, Hamaguchi teases out their loving but difficult relationship, opening up many questions that we don’t find answers to until the final act of the film. During sex, she will often instinctively find the spark of inspiration to narrate a story, which he will then memorise and relay back to her the next day. For her, sex and stories are not only connected, but are necessary to healing the wounds left behind by their young daughter’s death many years ago. Loss has plagued Yüsuke’s life, and now without Oto by his side, it is not so easy anymore to find that wonder in the act of creation.

It is when we leap to two years later that the meaning of the film’s title finally emerges, as Yüsuke is hired to direct the play Uncle Vanya in Hiroshima on the condition that he is chauffeured in his own car by young driver Watari. It is within this vehicle that Hamaguchi crafts some of the most touching scenes of the film, elegantly underlining the trust that forms between the two. Though initially reluctant to hand his keys over, Yüsuke’s submission gradually becomes a silent acknowledgement of his own powerlessness, while Watari indirectly takes charge. Now whenever Yüsuke rehearses his lines against the tape recorded by Oto before her death, he must first ask Watari to play it, implicitly involving her in the process. She doesn’t ask questions to begin with, and he similarly keeps a distance between them in sitting in the back. But over time as their emotional barriers break down, he moves to the front seat and she begins to probe deeper. Conversely, he starts to learn more about her as well, and their relationship turns into one of equals, both eager to share and listen.

The formal construction of this screenplay must be praised, as it is within these car trips and the many theatre plays we glimpse throughout the film that Hamaguchi moves us into a meditative state, considering the profound sorrow of these characters. Perhaps the greatest flaw to be found here is in Hamaguchi’s resistance to offering an equally arresting aesthetic to their emotional journeys, opting instead for a regrettably plain style of shooting which fails to mesmerise us in the same way. Certainly those few splashes of visual style are worth appreciating when they appear, the very first shot of the film being one such moment where Oto’s naked silhouette imprints against a soft sunrise as she begins to tell a story. Another sequence worth noting is a moment of bonding between Yüsuke and Watari after a particularly therapeutic car conversation, both their hands rising up out the sunroof, holding cigarettes in the night breeze. But with such sparseness in this indelible imagery, Hamaguchi offers little cinematically to his particularly lengthy film.

Ultimately, Drive My Car is a far greater achievement in writing than it is in direction, so it is quite impressive that Hamaguchi is still able to hold our attention for so long without demonstrating a particularly active interest behind the camera. As we discover the vulnerability that lies in mysterious characters who we might have initially deemed unknowable, the film once again returns to a theatre play that speaks for their troubles in its final minutes.

In the multi-lingual production of Uncle Vanya that Yüsuke is directing and now performing in, one cast member communicates in Korean sign language, and as she delivers her closing monologue, she stands behind him, signing for both of them. “We live through the long days and the long nights. We patiently endure the trials that fate sends our way,” she tells us. Just as becoming a passenger in his own car has taught him the power in letting others take the wheel on his journey to recovery, so too does he now go forward with renewed humility, recognising how the emotional expressions and stories of others may cut to something deep within himself.

Drive My Car is current playing in theatres.

Kenneth Branagh | 1hr 38min

There is a fluidity to the vignettes of Kenneth Branagh’s memoir in Belfast, reflecting on a tumultuous period of Irish history that set the scene for his own coming-of-age. After opening with a colourful montage of the modern city’s industrial sites, he gently nudges us into a black-and-white memory piece of childhood games, bible-thumping preachers, and political riots, gliding gracefully down the streets in superbly blocked long takes. Nine-year-old Buddy is the stand-in for Branagh here, who moves from one lackadaisical tableaux to the next, punctuating his story with bursts of violence from the 1969 Northern Ireland riots. 

It is a loose narrative that Branagh constructs here, prioritising character above all else in building out a close family of working-class Protestants reluctant to involve themselves with the escalating protests. Besides Buddy’s older brother, Will, the rest are given no other names then Ma, Pa, Granny, and Pop, their complex identities filtered through the bright eyes of a child. The long, static takes that Branagh employs to capture shots of the family layered across compositions evokes Alfonso Cuaron’s own touching memory piece, Roma, soaking its tight-knit communities within an air of nostalgia, though tinged with a bitter sadness. Through doorways and windows, Branagh shoots Buddy’s family in secluded frames, dealing with issues the boy can barely comprehend. More than anything though, it is the warmth and care they all hold towards each other that emerges in tender scenes of dancing, watching movies, and nights out at the theatre, through this lively ensemble affectionately invites us into their spirited dynamic.

Every now and again Branagh will also let through bursts of colour, transcending Buddy’s black-and-white memories with vivid renderings of his imagination. When watching a play of A Christmas Carol with his family, the golden lights of the stage pierce the monochrome darkness within the audience, bouncing off Granny’s glasses like sparks of wonder. Later, Buddy sits in front of his family’s television and gazes at the awe-inspiring Technicolor of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, swept away by its visual majesty. 

But also included among Belfast’s many cultural and artistic references are two classic Hollywood westerns, both appearing in their original black-and-white. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and High Noon are the texts used here, captivating Buddy’s mind in a more thoughtful, considered manner than those other colourful pieces of entertainment. Just as questions of duty and honour test our heroes in both those westerns, so too does Pa face similar trials in Buddy’s world, frequently coming up against local demagogue Billy Clanton, one of the riot leaders. “The Ballad of High Noon” makes more than one appearance here, poignantly underscoring Pa’s reckoning of his own loyalties and identity like so many classical heroes before him.

Moving parallel to Pa’s arc is Buddy’s own pre-pubescent development, defined by his desire to find some sort of recognition and belonging among his own peers. After attempting to steal chocolates from a lolly shop and refusing to dob in his accomplices, he finds acceptance in a secret group, though much like his father this ultimately leads to a nuanced re-assessment of his own values. Tough choices are made between conforming to group ideals versus holding fast to one’s integrity, though it is in such adverse circumstances where character is forged, and eventually Buddy is set on a path to becoming the noble man he sees in his father. The personal self-reflections of Branagh’s own childhood that float through Belfast endows this story with a certain level of authenticity, but it is also the emotional nuance that he finds through his elegant camerawork and staging that fully consumes us in young Buddy’s journey, giving endless thanks to those who planted seeds of growth within such inhospitable environments.

Belfast is currently playing in theatres.

Joel Coen | 1hr 45min

In the very first shot of The Tragedy of Macbeth, three ravens soar through a thick, suffocating fog, their dark imprints set against an ethereal shade of grey that we will soon come to know very well. We might initially believe we are looking up at an overcast sky towards a sun just slightly concealed from our view, but then all of a sudden, the clouds part. As we realise that we are looking down from far above the earth, we are hit with a dizzying spell of vertigo. Below, the shrunken figures of two men trudge through a misty wasteland, diminished beneath the black omens of death that circle above, and which will continue to haunt the rest of this film.

As Joel Coen’s first solo film without his brother, Ethan, The Tragedy of Macbeth is also no doubt his most austere. The wit and black comedy often found in even their most serious works like No Country For Old Men is entirely absent, though in its existential questions of destiny, chaos, and violence, Shakespeare’s script also proves itself to be a perfect fit for Coen’s philosophical obsessions. After all, if their primary genre of interest can be described as “crime gone wrong”, then how much more classical can you get than Macbeth? Perhaps then we can single out the severe greyscale cinematography and stark production design as an unusual look for a Coen movie, and indeed this is no doubt his most visually accomplished film to date, but stripped-back simplicity isn’t entirely an entirely new choice for him either.

With all Coen’s usual artistic trademarks kept in mind, it is unavoidable pointing out how much this breathtakingly bleak take on the Shakespearean tragedy probes entirely new spheres of influence besides the usual film noirs, westerns, and screwball comedies that have made their mark on his oeuvre. Most notably, those grim psychological dramas of Ingmar Bergman appear in Coen’s rigorously precise blocking of his actors, and the Gothic minimalism of Carl Theodor Dreyer announces itself all through the unembellished mise-en-scène.

To draw this line of influence even further back than those mid-century European directors, the magnificently imposing sets that tower around Lord and Lady Macbeth on their rise to power would not look out of place in the expressionistic films of Fritz Lang, especially in the perfectly sculpted architecture of square-cut corners and rounded arches. The sound stages may be evident, but deliberately so, as Coen crafts a geometrically insular world of treachery and insanity ruled by its physical boundaries, further mirrored in the narrowed aspect ratio.

There is still little relief to be found in the film’s exteriors of overwhelmingly bleak courtyards and desolate fields, withering like those barren men and women at their centre who are now staring down the ends of their own lives. Behind them, backgrounds fade into a ghostly emptiness and walls of impenetrable fog obscure Macbeth’s vision of what lays ahead. The extreme high and low angles with which Coen captures his actors against canvases of negative space continue to lift this eloquent script beyond the realm of theatre and into something strikingly cinematic, where Macbeth’s madness is heightened to an all-consuming yet entirely hollow delusion of immortality. Time seems to fade between each scene with the graceful flurries of mist transitioning from one to the next, and where that does not suffice, gorgeous long dissolves serve a similar purpose in wispily combining multiple images which exceed either in their individual beauty. 

As for Coen’s treatment of the narrative itself, The Tragedy of Macbeth does not shy away from the violent, desperate humanity of these characters, particularly in the depiction of the vaguely titled Third Murderer. Where the original script leaves this ambiguous figure as a minor role, Coen imbues them with the identity of one of Macbeth’s allies, Ross, grounding the evil of the story in a recognisable humanity. Coen’s newly defined character motivations are also evident in the casting of Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand, who are certainly among two of the older actors to take on the roles of Lord and Lady Macbeth. Both wield a skilful control over this weighty and loquacious material, though it is especially in the simmering, angry ambition of their characters that they transform these antiheroes from upwardly mobile youths into an ageing, childless couple making a last-ditch attempt to create a legacy. 

Underscoring their corruption even further is Coen’s visual depiction of Macbeth’s very first murder in a frighteningly tense and wordless sequence, manifesting what was only left implicit in the original without inventing entirely new dialogue. In emphasising the act of killing, Coen draws out additional layers of subtext to Macbeth’s merciless cruelty, capturing the horrifying recognition on both his and King Duncan’s face of what is about to take place. Just as the casting of Ross as the Third Murderer gives a human identity to evil, so too does the explicit depiction of this assassination accomplish the same objective, revealing the true, hideous face of Macbeth as an elderly man taking the life of others so that he may secure the immortality that he believes he was promised.

As for the source of this belief, it comes from nothing more than a twisted image of supernaturalism which both disturbs and intrigues our senses. Kathryn Hunter may very well deliver the most hauntingly memorable performance in The Tragedy of Macbeth as the prophetic Weird Sisters, divorcing the characters from whatever preconceived images of witches we might possess, and crafting an entirely new interpretation of a single, croaking contortionist, speaking with three voices through one mouth. When she stands up straight, a black cloak encompasses her entire body, associating her with those flying shadows of death that continue to make their presence known all through the film, and when she does finally split into three separate bodies, they remain very much identical parts of one whole.

In the constant manipulation of these witches’ physical forms, they effectively transcend all traces of humanity we might attach to them, and thus inspire mortal men and women towards similar unearthly ambitions. As Lord and Lady Macbeth find themselves caught up in the witches’ prophecies, manifesting their destinies in whatever malicious way they see fit, there remains a constant, heavy pounding in Coen’s sound design. It might sound like footsteps, or the steady advance of some unknown fate, but in the way it is often attached to light visual rhythms such as blood dripping from King Duncan’s hand or the tapping of a tree branch outside a window, it also offers a hefty weight to Macbeth’s vile actions.

This is but part of a collection of ominous visual and aural motifs that Coen so skilfully weaves into Shakespeare’s script though, each of which work in tandem to underscore that stark difference between the volatile viciousness of humanity and the unforgiving march of destiny. Through its magnificent performances, delicately wispy editing, and Bruno Delbonnel’s ghostly cinematography, virtually every minute of The Tragedy of Macbeth feels as if it is on the brink of mortality, ready to tip over into a terrifyingly dark and mystical realm. It is a wildly ambitious swing for Coen, and yet rarely has he ever been so in tune with his own fatalistic fascinations, attacking them with an artistic precision that he has spent decades honing.

The Tragedy of Macbeth is currently streaming on Apple TV+.

Michael Showalter | 2hr 6min

Tammy Faye Bakker’s appearance is not one you can easily forget. It is burned into the minds of those who watched Christian television in the 1970s and 80s, and for those of us only learning about her now with The Eyes of Tammy Faye, her permanently lined lips and enormous mountain of hair immediately announce to audiences how she wants to be seen. Beneath the layers of make-up and prosthetics here, Jessica Chastain is virtually unrecognisable. Whether it is her greatest performance or not may be up for debate, but it may well be her most transformational, as she fully inhabits every detail of this extravagant televangelist right down to the squeaky voice and wide, honest smile.

At first it might seem like Michael Showalter is taking a non-linear approach to breaking down the life of Tammy Faye, opening with a montage of newsreels that cover the scandalous downfall of her and her husband, Jim Bakker, before cutting to a scene from years later as she prepares for a television appearance. Here, Showalter hangs in close on her bright blue eyes, heavy with mascara, and as he zooms out we listen to her expressing her great pride in them.

After jumping back in time to her childhood, The Eyes of Tammy Faye unfolds in a more conventional, chronological order, but even as she suffers through mockery and insults on her appearance, we are still often reminded of the self-confidence she expressed at the start. After all, her hair and make-up is her statement of identity, expressing herself as a passionate, fanciful person at odds with the religious culture of austere minimalism she lives in.

Then there is the other side of the ‘eyes’ motif, in which Showalter interrogates the limitations of her own perspective inside this culture that she has dedicated her life to.

“You follow blindly. In the end, all you are is blind.”

When Tammy Faye finds herself neck deep in her ministry work, surrounded by misogynists with no interest in her own welfare, these are the haunting words that her mother delivers with great sadness. And indeed, exploitation and fraud runs rampant within the organisation, keeping her distracted with a steady diet of pills and overly cheery demeanours.

One could accuse Tammy of bearing a similarly superficial presentation, though there is a difference between Chastain’s performance and the others. Andrew Garfield often distinguishes between the version of Jim that appears on television versus the secretive one behind the scenes who she distantly watches engage in quiet conversations, but the childhood entertainer schtick that Chastain takes to playing Tammy Faye never seems to fade, even when she is alone. As saccharine and naïve as she may be, she carries an authenticity that so many of her associates lack. When she interviews a gay Christian minister with AIDS on her show against the wishes of her superiors, it is not done as an act of defiance, but rather out of empathy. She is “in the business of healing”, she claims, not of telling people that they are going to hell, and especially not of politics.

For the most part, this film is a showcase of one remarkable performance, though every now and again Showalter’s stylistic flourishes of freeze frames and glitzy yellow time stamps effectively magnify the flashy charisma its main character to a cinematic level. At a certain point it feels as if this narrative has run its course, and perhaps a more succinct screenplay may have helped tighten up this overlong, tensionless ending, but the loud, brash finale that completely consumes us within Tammy Faye’s mind might just make it all worth it. For all the traditional biopic conventions that shape its structure and writing, The Eyes of Tammy Faye embraces the wholesome perspective that its title implies, empathising greatly with this unorthodox televangelist who unassumingly followed a moral standard she naively believed her fellow Christians could also live up to.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye is currently playing in theatres.

Guillermo del Toro | 2hr 20min

There are no supernatural monsters or contemporary fairy tales to be found in Nightmare Alley, though this isn’t exactly a significant change of pace for Guillermo del Toro given the layers of human corruption that underly his grimy, expressionist production design. But where Pan’s Labyrinth and The Shape of Water celebrated the fantasies we hold onto at our lowest points, here del Toro indicts them as nothing more than sly manipulations, upholding those power structures which distract us from harsh realities. He has often used historical wars as backdrops to his stories, and here it is World War II that lurks behind the disillusioned American culture on display, transforming it in the ideal environment for an opportunistic con artist like Stanton Carlisle to make a name for himself.

Bradley Cooper’s effortless charm has rarely found a better fit than it does here in the role of this film noir antihero. Stan spits out lies with ease, shifting his accent from a natural Southern drawl to a theatrical, clipped elocution when he is up onstage, but he is also evidently patient in learning his craft. His introduction is surprisingly silent for such a verbose character, as we first meet him burying a dead body in a rural house and burning it down without a word, before taking a job as a carny and quietly observing the work of more experienced performers. The transition between these worlds is sudden, as on his bus ride the lighting suddenly shifts from a warm, yellow glow into a murky green, leading us down a dark path into a strange new setting.

The captivatingly eerie atmosphere that del Toro builds through his delightfully expressionistic mise-en-scène is a wonder to behold, and although it manifests all throughout, from the dim copper lighting of a psychologist’s office to a ghostly, snowy cemetery at night, it is the carnival that proves to be his greatest set of them all. True to the film’s noir influence, rain and lightning pour across this landscape of funhouses, carousels, Ferris wheels, and wooden stages, each one adorned with dim lightbulbs that hazily illuminate the grime and grease. In those moments where Nightmare Alley’s narrative slows down, it is his luxurious cinematography that whisks us away instead, letting us bask in the stunningly moody imagery of the piece.

Perhaps just as dominant yet not quite as immediately apparent is del Toro’s constantly moving camera, traversing these environments with equal parts caution and intrigue. There is always a restlessness to these tracking shots, from longer takes that manoeuvre through the carnival to simple conversations where a push in on a character’s face invites us into their world. Paired with this is a dogmatic dedication to low angles, forcing us to gaze up through wide-angle lenses at these oppressive sets and the shady figures which inhabit them, striking us with a sense of awe and majesty. Even in the establishing shots, del Toro’s horizon is consistently situated right near the bottom of the frame, accentuating the foreboding grey clouds hanging over the carnival.

It is in this unearthly setting where Stan picks up on the rules of mentalism with ease, enthusiastically embracing the “dos” and rejecting the “don’ts”. The first of these codes is a warning against turning performances into spook shows, where one pretends to be in contact with deceased relatives of audience members. The second cautions against falling into the trap of “shut eye”, in which a mentalist begins to believe their own deceptions, blinding themselves to the dangers of exposure. When Stan falls in love with fellow performer Molly and decides to head out into the real world with their own double act, he is all too happy to break the first of these laws, convincing himself that he is offering a valuable service. People are desperate to be told who they are, he reasons, thereby also submitting to a “shut eye” of a different kind, convincing himself that he cannot fail.

Stan’s character development abides quite closely by the traditional film noir protagonist arc, whereby a fatal flaw brings about a downfall written into their destiny from the start, but there is also a wonderful formal consistency in the motif of alcoholism representing a loss of dignity. As far as Stan is concerned, those addicts who are entirely dependent on booze are the lowest form of humanity, and the recurring flashbacks to the first scene progressively reveal little pieces of his past that offer reason to this burning resentment.

Later when he joins up with the carnival, Stan discovers what exactly happens to those people with nowhere left to go, many of them being enlisted as “geeks” who bite the heads off chickens and are kept compliant with a steady supply of moonshine. This is the closest to a classic del Toro “monster” that Nightmare Alley gets, though in mirroring this scene between both ends of this narrative, it achieves a poetic circularity, drawing these bestial qualities back to a very human brand of cruelty. Cooper’s remarkable transformation finally hits with its full astounding weight in the final scenes, leaving us haunted by the prospect that a single man has the potential to carry such extreme multitudes in his being, though perhaps it shouldn’t be so surprising. That viciousness has always been inside him. The only difference now is the carnival act through which he publicly expresses it.

Nightmare Alley is currently playing in cinemas.

Sean Baker | 2hr 8min

Red Rocket unfolds over a few weeks set in the summer of 2016, though we don’t need time stamps to tell us this. It is clear enough from the MAGA billboards populating this industrial Texan town, and the television excerpts playing out moments from those Republican and Democratic National Conventions where Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton secured their parties’ presidential nominations. Politics is never discussed by any of its characters, though there is a parallel tension in Mikey Saber’s invasion of this working class region. This is his hometown, but he has since shed his Southern accent and sensibilities ever since moving to Los Angeles to find fame as a porn star, and now as he returns with nothing else to fall back on, he sticks out as an unabashed oddity. This is a man on a steady path of self-destruction, though much like the rest of America in 2016, he just doesn’t know it yet.

Sean Baker’s first step outside the realm of neorealist cinema that Tangerine and The Florida Project rigidly abided by is not that huge a leap given the improvisational style of the dialogue and performances, as well as his documentary-style of handheld camerawork. Shot on 16mm with the sort of film grain that gives a rough texture to every shot and that perfectly melds with the natural lighting, Red Rocket is infused with an authenticity that finds the melancholy beauty in the rows of transmission towers, industrial buildings, abandoned storefronts, and empty concrete lots spread all throughout Texas City. To Mikey though, it is a rundown wasteland towards which he holds a quiet disdain, using his boisterous Californian charm to manipulate ex-lovers, neighbours, and strangers into doing his bidding, all with one goal in mind – to get out of this hellhole and back to Los Angeles.

As shameless as this Trumpian con artist often is, the rowdy performance which Simon Rex delivers draws us in with horrified fascination. Mikey’s shtick is transparent to anyone who isn’t a bright-eyed idealist, but just like so many of these characters, we can’t help but hang around and indulge him a little just to see what happens. He carries his history of adult film awards like credentials that will earn immediate respect, and not long after arriving back in Texas he convinces himself that he has found his way back into the good graces of the Hollywood porn industry through a 17-year-old donut shop worker.

Strawberry’s relative naivety makes her a prime target for his grooming. Naivety should not be taken to mean stupidity though, as she proves herself to be more perceptive than Mikey could have ever guessed, even if there is a lack of maturity in her understanding of the world beyond Texas City. The pastel cottage which she lives in stands out in this industrial landscape almost as much as Mikey himself, though even more surprising is her hidden musical talent that adds another layer of tragedy to her exploitation.

The tune she performs on her electric piano is “Bye Bye Bye” by The Backstreet Boys, but this isn’t the only time the piece of music makes an appearance in Red Rocket. This is the one song that makes up the film’s soundtrack, manifesting in different variations that run an undercurrent of humour in its contrast to this stark environment. As such, it also becomes a perfect anthem for Mikey’s show business antics, right up until it spitefully turns on him in the last few minutes of the film.

The hypocrisy of this man who holds anything of substance with such little regard is astounding, as while he is happy to lie and bend truths to his own will, he will also happily chastise those he catches out doing the same, asserting his own moral disgust. Though Baker remains committed to the social realism of the piece, his satire is painted out with great detail and humour in these moments, right down to Mikey’s patriotically star-spangled joints.

Red Rocket may initially feel like a jump back in time to an era when western civilisation didn’t know what was about to hit it, but just as we do not see the outcome of the 2016 election hinted at in the film, we are also led to contemplate where Mikey goes after reaching an all-time low. If the past six years are anything to go off though, we can trust that even after suffering the worst kind of humiliation, he we still continue to find new people to exploit, and news depths to plunge.

Red Rocket is currently playing in theatres.