The opening minutes of Evil Dead Rise may land us right in the middle of another ‘cabin in the woods’ horror story, complete with naïve college friends and a gruesome lakeside struggle, but director Lee Cronin veers wildly away from this classic setting once his prologue has wrapped. Instead, this reinvigoration of Sam Raimi’s franchise unexpectedly takes us to a Los Angeles apartment building, where families and neighbours unknowingly reside over an old, forgotten chamber. Only when an earthquake shakes its foundations is the entrance uncovered, inviting siblings Danny and Bridget to investigate the strange vinyl records and skinbound tome that contain frightening records of demonic possession. From there, the hellish Deadites which tormented Ash Williams through three movies and a television series are unleashed, mutilating the intimate bonds of a young, single-parent family.
So strong is Cronin’s standalone narrative in Evil Dead Rise that the bookends vaguely linking it back to the series’ roots are entirely redundant, holding little weight or relevance to the rest of the film. There are no Bruce Campbell appearances pandering to fan nostalgia, save for a voice cameo on one of the phonograph records, nor any attempts to recapture Raimi’s brand of comedy-horror slapstick. Cronin instead brings a refreshing creativity to the intellectual property, stripping back the camp humour and laying into the terror of seeing one’s mother transform into a hideous creature, unbound by maternal instincts of love and protection.
Therein lies the power of Cronin’s allegory in Evil Dead Rise, slowly twisting the image of a loving family into that of dysfunctional, abusive household. Ellie is the main drawcard here as the first to be turned, possessed by the grinning, deep-voiced Deadite who understands exactly what combination of gaslighting, love bombing, and guilt tripping gets under the children’s skins. She is the dark shadow of motherhood in demonic form, relishing her freedom from the “parasites” who drain her energy, while seeking to inflict a physical and psychological pain on them that will raise them in her malevolent likeness. Once that line is crossed, this Deadite effectively creates a family of her own, evolving into a Lovecraftian monster that manifests Cronin’s subtext as grotesque, disfigured body horror.
Outside of the possessed Ellie though, another mother figure begins to emerge as her direct inverse. Beth is her slightly more alternative sister whose job as a band roadie has kept her distant from family life, and yet who is now forced to reckon with her own maternal instincts upon discovering her unplanned pregnancy. With Danny, Bridget, and Kassie’s loving mother gone and their absent father firmly out of the picture, Beth recognises the void that has suddenly opened in their lives, and the part she must play in filling that as tensions rise. Evil Dead Rises is not subtle with its symbolism, but by the time it is representing Beth’s escape from a blood-filled elevator as an abortion and directly referencing The Shining, the expectation of restraint has long-gone. Even in Cronin’s capable hands, the Evil Dead series works best as an exercise in visual sensationalism, provoking a visceral disgust towards the breakdown of close relationships.
As a director of piercing cinematic style, it is tough to deny Cronin’s talents here too. Besides the ghastly makeup, gory practical effects, and point-of-view tracking shots which Raimi had already set a standard for, Cronin brings his own repertoire of techniques to the table, drawing inspiration from Roman Polanski’s Apartment trilogy by capitalising on the claustrophobic urban setting. In the dim, blue wash of a flickering emergency lights, the camera slowly dollies down a corridor of bloody bodies, and peephole shots break the fourth wall as Ellie’s pale face stares at us through fish-eye lenses.
Perhaps most inspired of all though is the array of split diopter shots where Brian de Palma’s influence can be felt, tightly framing crucial details such as Kassie’s doll or a set of keys on one side of the frame, while building suspense against the actors staged in canted angles behind. Cronin employs each with discerning purpose throughout Evil Dead Rise, turning homely, domestic spaces into battlefields of violent abuse and paranoid mistrust. Only when the mother’s place is restored can innocence finally be saved from the Deadites’ chaos, as Cronin shrewdly pivots the horror of Raimi’s extravagant creation into a hideous perversion of the family unit, threatening the foundations of a stable, nurturing society.
Evil Dead Rise is currently streaming on Netflix and Binge, is available to rent on Apple TV, YouTube, and Amazon Video, and the physical media available to purchase on Amazon.
The point of no-return for novelist Monk Ellison has long passed by the time he winds up on a literary judging panel trying to expose the stupidity of his own anonymous parody book. The idea for ‘Fuck’ struck one night after a string of frustrating experiences with white publishers looking for a more racial perspective in his writing, as well as those Black authors who cater to their expectations, and so the sudden influx of serious critical praise towards his novel is equal parts revealing and frustrating.
Complicating matters even further is the character he has invented for his pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh, an offensively crude ex-convict on the run from the police who has since become widely celebrated in the public eye. Meanwhile, Monk and his intellectual, non-racial novels continue to fly under the radar – and so when he finds himself on that panel listening to his fellow judges exalt ‘Fuck’ as a raw, honest piece of African American literature, Cord Jefferson does not pass up the chance to deconstruct the uncomfortable absurdity of the entire situation.
With this social criticism set as its base argument, American Fiction’s sharp-edged screenplay continues to wield an impressive self-awareness of its own premise, satirising the liberal elite and their attempts to assuage their white guilt by gleefully consuming what Monk calls “Black trauma porn.” When Monk finally gets a chance to sit down with the only other African American judge on this literary panel, Sintara Golden, our expectations have been thoroughly set him up to tear apart her wildly successful and indulgently racial book ‘We’s Lives in Da Ghetto,’ and yet what follows unexpectedly turns a mirror back on our own smug cynicism.
The first subversion of the scene comes when Sintara agrees with Monk that ‘Fuck’ is inauthentically pandering – “The kind of book that critics call important and necessary but not well-written.” His relief to finally hear a voice of reason leads to confusion when he asks how she can then persist in her career of frivolously humouring white audiences, to which her manner suddenly hardens. Much of her writing was drawn directly from interview transcripts and comes from hours of research, she tells him. Besides, he hasn’t even read her book, and she’s not to blame if readers happen to form stereotypes from genuine artistic expression. What justification does he have to criticise the hard work of others and accuse them of phoniness, simply because he has never shared their experiences?
The biting punchline to the entire affair comes shortly after when the rest of the panellists reconvene to finally decide the winner of the literary prize, and it is no surprise that Monk and Sintara’s opinions are passed over in favour of the white majority who adore ‘Fuck.’ Of course, in a moment of self-congratulatory praise, one of the white judges can’t help but miss the irony of the entire farce either.
“It’s not just that it’s so affecting. I just think it’s essential to listen to Black voices right now.”
The balancing act of comedy and drama that Jefferson pulls off all through American Fiction is expertly executed, though the contribution of Jeffrey Wright’s performance to this symmetry should not be overlooked. As valid as Monk’s point is about the state of racial sensitivity in America’s creative arts industry, his own intellectual arrogance frequently seeps through, distancing even his new girlfriend Coraline when she admits to liking ‘Fuck’ without realising he wrote it.
This second narrative thread that revolves around Monk’s romantic and family life draws that line down the middle of the film even further, but most importantly Jefferson also cleverly uses it as a self-aware response to its other, more satirical half. As Monk navigates complications around his sister’s sudden passing, his brother’s wild lifestyle, and his mother’s degenerative dementia, Jefferson reveals dimensions to his life that only ever tangentially interact with his race.
Not that the readers who fawn over ‘Fuck’ would ever appreciate such personal, non-race related stories, should he ever choose to weave them into his fiction. Monk is a difficult man who is familiar with many different types of grief and often falls to his own hubris, and yet for the sake of American consumers these complex characteristics must be flattened into a single identity apparently shared by all people of his colour. American Fiction’s metafictional epilogue only serves to underscore the artificial manipulation of these voices by executives, filtering itself through different genre lenses until it too submits with comical self-awareness to a marketable tragedy, not unlike the inverted, faux-happy ending of Robert Altman’s The Player. Even as Jefferson levels critiques at the publishers, critics, and audiences who twist his artistic expression to their liking, he realises that their naïvely simplistic takes are inescapable, ultimately submitting American Fiction itself to the very subject of its cleverly inspired interrogations before anyone else can get there first.
“Power over Spice is power over all,” chants an unseen Sardauker priest in the opening prologue of Dune: Part Two, though what exactly that signifies varies drastically depending on who wields it. For the native Fremen, Spice is a key component of everyday products, while its value as the rarest commodity in the universe guarantees wealth and status to whichever Great House rules Arrakis. As for Paul Atreides, its implications are far more mystical. It is through Spice that he is granted the prescience to see himself leading a Holy War as a Messiah destined to lead the Fremen towards liberation, as well as the means through which he may control an even greater resource – the zealous faith of millions.
As tremendous as Denis Villeneuve’s epic achievement was in the first instalment of Dune, it is clear with the context of Part Two just how much of that was simply setting up Paul’s subverted monomyth, where we witness his evolution into one of cinema’s great antiheroes. Lawrence of Arabia is the clearest comparison to draw given its challenging of a ‘white saviour’ who leads foreign civilisations through unforgiving deserts and into battle, though The Lord of the Rings trilogy seems more fitting. When entering production, both Peter Jackson and Villeneuve were respectively met with the obstacle of adapting ‘unfilmable’ material, but with sharpened instincts for strong visual storytelling and a recognition that such expansive narratives cannot be confined to a single movie, both also defied the scepticism of critics.
Extraordinary world building in Villeneuve’s grand establishing shots, capturing masses arranged in formations across otherworldly scenery.
To draw the similarities closer, the foundations of these grand narratives are rooted even deeper than Frank Herbert or J.R.R. Tolkien’s writing. These are stories of theological significance, interrogating notions of spirituality through symbols of prophecies, resurrections, and salvation, especially with Dune framing Paul as a saviour descended from the skies of Arrakis to cleanse the world – or the universe – of evil.
Timothee Chalamet’s return in this role only continues to prove why he is one of the most promising actors of his generation as well, mirroring Anakin Skywalker’s descent into darkness, though with a far firmer grip on his character than Hayden Christensen. Beautifully fragmented dreams of the war and starvation he will wreak haunt him in ethereal slow-motion, cautioning against his journeying south, and yet the pull of fate eventually proves to be too strong. By the time he is standing upon platforms and delivering rousing speeches to followers and enemies, his voice has shifted down to a deeper, gravelly register not unlike the Baron’s, and he exudes a megalomania that leads us to mourn the humbler Paul we met in Part One.
Both Dune films are magnificent achievements for Timothee Chalamet, but it is especially in this second part that he flexes his villainous screen presence and range, becoming one of cinema’s great antiheroes.Fragments of dreams haunt Paul with unsettling prescience, envisioning a Holy War that will lead to starvation and suffering across the universe,
Villeneuve’s build to this apotheosis is carefully paced in Part Two, confronting Paul with a series of challenges he must complete to meet his destiny. The iconic sandworm ride arrives about an hour into the film as his first major milestone, and Villeneuve doesn’t waste its potential as a defining moment of his directing career, anxiously building anticipation as currents of sand ripple through the desert like waves before it is kicked up into a furious, dusty tempest. The lack of detail in Herbert’s book around how one rides these sandworms gives Villeneuve the freedom to creatively imagine the act with hooks and ropes, bringing a tactility to the scene that is magnified by the camera’s immersion in the thick of the action, while only occasionally cutting back to the Fremen who distantly watch in reverent awe. The guerilla warfare Paul wages with them against invading Harkonnen forces similarly gives shape to their customs and practices, as even with limited resources, their stealthy manipulation of the natural terrain allows them to easily overpower their armoured enemies.
Villeneuve imagines Paul’s sandworm ride with ropes and hooks, immersing us in the thick of the sandstorm it kicks up and building to a magnificent climax.
Freed from Part One’s pressure of setting up this epic narrative, it is clear in instances like these that Villeneuve feels more comfortable experimenting with a greater sense of visual wonder and terror. Silhouettes set against blinding white landscapes and close-ups of Spice glistening upon the sand are carried over here from the first film, while the burnt orange magic hour lighting calls back to the radiation polluted Los Angeles of Blade Runer 2049, yet Dune: Part Two especially excels when it begins exploring more far-flung lands. The fundamentalists who live in the south of Arrakis are acutely distinguished from their northern counterparts, not only by their barren plains of dark rock, but Villeneuve also captures their culture of devout worship in a dazzling overhead shot that loses their Paul in a sea of pale headdresses.
The burnt orange light of a rising and setting sun is diffused through the dusty air of Arrakis.The south of Arrakis is distinguished from the north by its dark, barren plains, and a fundamentalist culture of zealots ready to exalt Paul as their saviour.Villeneuve composes an astonishing birds-eye view of Paul wandering into a crowd of worshippers, lost among the pale scarves adorning their heads.
Even more astonishing though is our extended stay on Giedi Prime, home of House Harkonnen, whose desaturated exteriors are as splendidly severe as their brutalist interior architecture. Where Arrakis’ skies are distinguished by their double-eclipsed, crescent sun, here the land is cast under a black sun, absorbing any colour that falls beneath its rays. Cinematographer Greig Fraser’s decision to shoot these scenes with a black-and-white infrared camera accomplishes an eerie monochrome aesthetic, and stylistically sets the austere tone for the psychopathic, reptilian Feyd-Rautha, youngest nephew of the Baron. Within the gladiator arena filled with bloodthirsty spectators, he viciously slaughters a trio of survivors from House Atreides for his birthday celebration, and from there is effectively set up by the Bene Gesserit sisterhood as a foil for Paul in contest over the sovereignty of Arrakis.
Arrakis’ crescent sun double eclipsed by two moons is visually inspired by the twin suns of Tattooine in Star Wars – a full circle moment considering the influence that the novel Dune had on George Lucas.A breathtaking sequence on Giedi Prime beneath their Black Sun, shot with black-and-white infrared cameras that drain the exterior scenery of colour and life.
After playing Elvis Presley in Baz Luhrmann’s biopic, Austin Butler couldn’t have chosen a more different character to follow that up with than Feyd-Rautha, stripping away his natural charisma and replacing it with pure derangement. He stands among the strongest of the supporting cast, right next to Rebecca Ferguson whose dark journey as Lady Jessica in Part Two mirrors Paul’s Messianic ascension, and Javier Bardem whose comic beats as Stilgar miraculously do not hamper the weight of Villeneuve’s drama. Zendaya meanwhile leaves slightly less of an impression as Chani, though it is Christopher Walken who delivers the weakest performance of the lot, lacking the presence needed to play the Emperor.
Rebecca Ferguson is not in as much of Dune: Part Two as the first film, and yet her performance continues to evolve in menacing directions, spurring Paul on towards his destiny.Austin Butler is a new addition to the cast as Feyd-Rautha – pale, hairless, and utterly terrifying as a foil to Paul.
Still, each of these parts play an integral role in Villeneuve’s strategic manoeuvring of his pieces towards a roaring climax, supplemented by a score from Hans Zimmer that intrepidly builds on the war cries and blaring electronic orchestrations from Part One. As the Emperor’s enormous ship drifts over Arrakis, Villeneuve’s low angle anxiously gazes up at its metallic underside distorting reflections of the mountains below like an ominous warning of colonial subjugation, and leads into an explosive battle which has us questioning Dune’s hazy divide between good and evil. So brilliant is Villeneuve’s direction here though that the smaller-scale duel which follows can’t help but feel like a step down in stakes, and perhaps would have been better positioned earlier as part of the rising tension.
Spectacular action between the Fremen and the Emperor’s forces, as Villeneuve manoeuvres his pieces with tactical shrewdness towards a predestined confrontation.Paul’s duel against Feyd-Rautha does not have the same weight as the battle which preceded it, but it is still worth appreciating these still frames of their silhouettes set against a rising sun.
If the Dune series is to end here with a gutting fulfilment of Paul’s hero’s journey, then it would at least be a complete story unto itself, though Villeneuve’s teasing of Dune Messiah certainly remains a tantalising prospect. His ability to build on existing science-fiction material was already evident in Blade Runner 2049, and now his work committing Herbert’s unfathomably vast imagination to film additionally demonstrates his own, pushing the limits of big-budget spectacle to extraordinary lengths. When it comes to fully realising its elemental iconography and grand narrative on a cinema screen, Dune’s insurmountable parable of fanatical hubris deserves nothing less.
In a cheap Helsinki supermarket, shelf stacker Ansa is let go for stealing expired food to supplement her meagre pay. Not too far away in the same city, depressed labourer Holappa is fired for drinking on the job, and booted from the shipping container dormitory that he shares with his blue-collar coworkers. There is no melodrama or heightened emotion surrounding these narrative beats in Fallen Leaves. They are facts of life, as fixed and unchangeable as those radio reports tracking Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which constantly cast their relatively low-stakes problems against a backdrop of largescale warfare.
Still, Aki Kaurismäki remains sympathetic to those whose struggles are not notable enough to be broadcast internationally. The sickness that suffocates Ukraine similarly seeps over the Russian border into Finland, gripping its people in a constant state of unease with endless stories of death and destruction. The formal rigour of this news report motif is undeniable, using sheer repetition to grind us down into the same weary resignation that these characters have long inhabited, while occasionally breaking the dourness with beats of Kaurismäki’s trademark deadpan. When Ansa turns the radio on to set a romantic mood during her first proper date with Holappa, the grim Ukraine report that she tunes into instead makes for a darkly funny punchline, paying off on a long setup of news announcements begging to find some light in the mundane gloom.
Kaurismäki is a formalist above all else, and that is rarely so evident as it is in his use of the repeated radio reports on the Russo-Ukrainian War, constantly minimising the day-to-day problems experienced by Ansa and Holappa.
This is the glimmer of hope that Kaurismäki keeps alive throughout Fallen Leaves, despite the many good reasons these lovers are given to disregard it. At first, it is shyness that maintains a distance between Ansa and Holappa at the karaoke bar where their friends strike up conversation, leaving them to simply make eye contact across the room. Their second encounter at a tram stop where Holappa has passed out is only tangential, only seeing him wake up a few seconds after Ansa has boarded, and from there fate continues to make an enemy of their potential romance.
A string of unlucky coincidences and missed connections keep Ansa and Holappa apart for a long time, and continue to haunt them even once they finally meet.
When Ansa and Holappa finally do make it to a first date, an ill-timed gust of wind blows her phone number out of his hand and delays their reconnection, though Kaurismäki is not one to let them off so lightly without any blame either. Holappa’s alcoholism can take full credit for their eventual breakup, yet this also in turn spurs him to conquer his addiction. Even as bad luck and personal flaws continue to rear their head, perseverance keeps love alive, forging unlikely bonds in a world where random misfortune is the only escape from soul-crushing tedium.
Visually, this optimism frequently manifests as vibrant interior décor decorated with bold primary colours, like a Rainer Werner Fassbinder melodrama minus the expressive performances. Kaurismäki lets his framing speak for his characters where they are otherwise incapable, in one instance shooting Holappa with a yellow shirt and Ansa with a red blouse on either side of a dinner table, and then uniting their respective colours through an arrangement of flowers in the middle. Conversely, the distance between them is emphasised when they sit on either side of a red couch in awkward silence, imprinted against the blue wall of Ansa’s apartment.
Kaurismäki colours and blocking are minimalist but powerful, conveying rich character dynamics in the absence of expressive dialogue.
Quite significantly, the image of modern-day Finland that Kaurismäki constructs around these lovers is also one that is strained by a lingering Communist influence from the nation’s most powerful neighbour, imbuing Fallen Leaves’ setting with a timeless, retro quality. Though set in 2024, Ansa and Holappa are entwined in a mesh of eras – radios haven’t quite been replaced with televisions yet, mobile phones are notably primitive, and the movie posters that decorate theatres and bars advertise the 1960s works of Godard, Visconti, and Bresson.
This world of downtown Helsinki is trapped in a mix of past eras, splashing backdrops of classic movie posters up on walls as backdrops.
When our protagonists do finally enter a cinema, the screening of The Dead Don’t Die is notably out-of-place in Fallen Leaves as one of the few modern movie references, and yet it also falls in line with Kaurismäki’s admiration for the deadpan comedy of Jim Jarmusch. Not only is The Dead Don’t Die an odd choice as a lesser film in Jarmusch’s career, but the absurd comparison drawn by two other cinemagoers to Diary of a Country Priest and Bande à Part underscores the scene’s offbeat incongruency even further, with Ansa’s straight-faced review that she’s “never laughed so much” completing the hilariously ironic sentiment.
None of this dissonance is without purpose in Kaurismäki’s rigidly minimalist world though, locating Ansa and Holappa in a culture that cannot quite figure out its own identity. It is no wonder that every interaction in Fallen Leaves is so burdened with awkward uncertainty, moving conversations forward at a cumbersome pace. When pressed as to why he drinks, Holappa explains it is because he is depressed, and when asked why he is depressed, he links it back to his drinking. Circular reasoning leads to loops of self-degradation in these characters’ lonely lives, and so when Ansa realises that Holappa isn’t ready to break out of the miasma with her, she seeks comfort in the innocence of a stray, abandoned dog.
Fassbinder-like visuals with the vivid colours and framing, though Kaurismäki’s deadpan comedy couldn’t be further from Fassbinder’s melodrama.
These lovers may be set back by their own flaws, but the greater cosmic joke being played on them can’t be ignored, testing their willingness to fight for a sincere, patient love. That Ansa and Holappa both remain totally unaware of each other’s names right to the romantic, Chaplinesque end of Fallen Leaves speaks eloquently to their incredible will and intuition, rejecting their lonely destinies seemingly written out for them and fighting for their right to happiness. When the potential for authentic, selfless love is discovered in a world as unpredictably offbeat as Kaurismäki’s, the power to nourish it lies solely with those at its centre, stubbornly overcoming whatever fated obstacles may seek to challenge their most basic human need.
It is not enough for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie to pay homage to the outcasts of society merely by adapting the comic books series’ basic narrative conventions. It takes an anarchic rejuvenation of the medium itself for Mutant Mayhem to embrace the Turtles’ upbeat spirit of rebellion, veering wildly away from the trend of hyperrealist 3D animation that has seen Disney’s visual creativity dwindle in recent years. Sony’s Spider-Verse series can be largely credited for leading the way here, inventively blending computer and traditional animation to create dynamic illustrations that could be ripped straight out of graphic novels, and yet at the same time Mutant Mayhem may also be the first to follow in its footsteps without falling under its shadow.
It is the grungy imperfections rather than any aesthetic sophistication which gives Jeff Rowe’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles adaptation such a tactile quality, emulating the sort of colourful scrawls that could be found in a teenager’s sketchbook. Rough doodles are scribbled all through the streets and sewers of New York City, roughly forming a not-quite-perfectly round moon and chugging out squiggles from the exhaust pipes of shabby cars, while murky hues and toxic neons illuminate the urban scenery with a radioactive ambience. The visual compositions themselves are far beyond worthy of a school project too – there are frames in Mutant Mayhem worthy of a pop art exhibition, drenching the city with noir-like shadows even as our heroic quartet light them up with their buoyant humour.
Jeff Rowe owes a debt to David Fincher in his ambient visual creation of New York City, but the jagged doodles and scribbles drawn all through his mise-en-scène also make for an entirely fresh animation style.The palette of radioactive neon colours formally align with Rowe’s mutant characters, taking a note out of the Spider-Verse animation playbook.
With Rowe applying a jerky frame rate as well, action scenes are imbued with a scratchy kineticism that only emphasises the eccentric mannerisms of humans and mutants alike, all of whom are designed as idiosyncratic caricatures. For brothers Donatello, Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael though, this unseemliness is the source of both great pride and insecurity, thus forming the foundation of a coming-of-age tale which underlies Mutant Mayhem’s superhero antics.
Quite crucially, this version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles casts relatively unknown teenagers as its four leads for the first time in the franchise’s history, even while the rest of the cast is filled with big names such as Ice Cube, Jackie Chan, and Paul Rudd. Rather than recording their lines separately, Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Nicolas Cantu, and Brady Noon were able to build camaraderie in the studio together, as their voice performance overlap and improvise to reveal an authentically juvenile innocence.
The action is playfully jerky with the low frame rate, and the voice acting is impressive among the teenager voice artists who improvised during recordings together in a single studio.
As a result, the Turtles’ exclusion from the human world is made all the more heartbreaking. A simple desire to be part of an accepting crowd is seemingly at the core of their journeys, and yet when they meet a gang of similarly mutated creatures led by supervillain Superfly and are enthusiastically welcomed into their plans for world domination, they must inevitably reassess their priorities. Even if they are to save humanity from enslavement, they will still likely be treated with disdain and horror, but this doesn’t make their efforts any less righteous.
There are illustrations here that could be found in a teenager’s sketchbook, roughly composing graphic images from freehand scrawls and grungy imperections.
No doubt their new human friend April has something to do with this moral enlightenment among the Turtles, becoming a bridge between society and its outsiders who she finds surprisingly common ground with. As Mutant Mayhem approaches its magnificent kaiju-inspired showdown, Rowe weaves her journey in with several other loose narrative threads, perhaps only neglecting the subplot concerning evil scientist Cynthia Utrom who is more than likely being kept for a potential sequel. This formal weakness is minor though, especially when it is drowned out by such astounding creativity and rich character work. Any version of Mutant Mayhem that might have conformed to the 3D animation standards of the past thirty or so years would simply not carry the same sense of thrilling defiance as this, as from its heart of revolt spills a world of good-natured humour and turbulence, vividly drawn with all the chaotic passion of adolescence.
The very concept of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pays homage to Japanese media in many ways, but the kaiju-inspired finale makes for an especially strong narrative climax.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is currently available to rent or buy on Apple TV, YouTube, and Amazon Video, and physical media copies are available on Amazon.
There is nothing remotely suspicious about the lifestyles of real estate power couple Will and Summer. Nor is there any visible reason why anyone would want to take Summer’s life, leaving her body in a home that they had been showing to potential customers. The two certainly have their enemies, including a few former landowners whose properties they had forcibly bought, but then what wealthy professionals haven’t antagonised a few people on their way up the ladder of success?
Under Grant Singer’s methodical direction, the following investigation carefully unravels a simple murder into a conspiracy that sprawls across the Maine property market, through its illegal drug trade, and into the heart of the police force. Truth is slippery in this moody procedural, as suspects and detectives alike chillingly shed their skins to reveal their true natures, giving metaphoric significance to the title Reptile.
Besides Will’s discovery of Summer’s brutalised corpse in the opening minutes, Singer chooses to filter much of his narrative through the perspective of Detective Tom Nichols, played with haunted cynicism by Benicio del Toro. It isn’t uncommon in his precinct for police officers to casually joke about abusing their power, and even he barely blinks when such remarks are made. Only when he is awarded the Medal of Valor and a large sum of money for inadvertently killing a seemingly guilty suspect that the strings of corruption start to become visible, tempting him to look upward and determine who is in control.
Everywhere we look in Reptile, humanity’s malevolent disregard of life is effectively institutionalised through both private and public enterprises, pointing to a significant narrative influence from David Fincher’s like-minded crime films. The comparison is only reinforced by the echoes of his moody visual style in Singer’s dim yellow lighting, dark silhouettes, and meticulous framing through corridors and doorways, binding grimy downtown bars and upmarket houses together in a shady atmosphere of pervasive mistrust. The camera pans and dollies through these spaces with cautious anticipation too, subtly mounting the tension of Tom’s investigation, and patiently waiting for some cathartic release that we are often denied.
Even by the end of Reptile, many of the puzzle pieces we are handed don’t slot so neatly into the broader picture. Instead, Singer urges a certain level of detective work from the viewer to determine mysteries such as the strand of blonde hair found at the crime scene, which apparently comes from a wig, and the guilt of Summer’s ex-husband Sam whose semen was found in her body. The ambiguity that surrounds the case makes it all too easy to suspect the scorned, lower-class people who Will and Summer have manipulated, and yet it is difficult to ignore the chilling aloofness of those whose souls we assume to be as spotless as their reputations. Like some cold-blooded creature of deceit, anyone who can afford a front of respectability in Reptile also has the ability to emotionally detach from their malicious actions, giving us very good reason to question the motives of anyone privileged enough to have plenty to lose.
There is always something authentically human lost in performative imitations of reality, and no matter how much actress Elizabeth Berry tries to capture it in her twisted attempts at method acting, that missing element continues to elude her. The subject of her research in May December is former schoolteacher Gracie, who was caught twenty-three years ago sleeping with her student Joe and was consequently sentenced to prison. The fact that they have since gotten married and raised three children together does little to quell the nauseating discomfort of her manipulation, but if Elizabeth is to deliver an accurate portrayal of Gracie for her upcoming movie, then such judgements must be put aside.
Not that the creative results are necessarily worth the pain inflicted. In Todd Haynes’ eyes, both the art and the humanity it imitates are drained of their dignity, tragicomically warping the suffering of Gracie’s abused husband into superficial imagery. Even at Elizabeth’s subtlest, her shadowing of Gracie’s everyday movements is entirely intrusive, offering insights that she later records as voice memos describing her subject’s visual features and odd mannerisms. When she runs a Q&A at a local high school drama class, she explains her acting process that compels her to study humanity’s darkness and spontaneously give into its organic rhythms, though it isn’t until we see this in action that we truly appreciate the emptiness of her endeavour.
Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, and Charles Melton all give psychologically rich performances, each concealing malice or trauma behind attractive, idyllic appearances,
It is especially in the pet shop storeroom where Gracie was first caught with Joe that Elizabeth finds herself overcome with that passion. As she leans back against the wall, she begins to pleasure herself, while Haynes silhouettes her in a dim blue light and slowly zooms his inquisitive camera in on her shallow re-enactment. For the sake of her own full-bodied immersion, some degradation of Gracie and Joe’s lived experience is required, crossing the line of good taste so that it may be offered up for mass consumption in cinemas and living rooms.
A slow, uncomfortable zoom in on Elizabeth as she reenacts the notorious storeroom seduction, absorbing herself in an extremely private affair.
Later, this blurring of identities extends to an illicit affair between Elizabeth and Joe, though one which she claims no personal investment in. His heartbreak is made all the more tragic by his gradual recognition of the innocence he lost to Gracie, and his desperate attempt to find a real connection with a woman his own age. When he asks Elizabeth what their intimacy actually means to her, her response is chillingly condescending, with Natalie Portman’s deadpan line delivery reinforcing the same blasé attitude that Gracie used to justify her paedophilic molestation twenty-three years ago.
“This is just what grownups do.”
As Portman begins to adopt Julianne Moore’s unassuming lisp and self-absorbed naivety, a parallel contrast emerges between their characters’ outward mannerisms and internal amorality, marking a prime achievement for both actresses. While 1950s Hollywood melodramas are typically Haynes’ main source of inspiration, the probing of unstable psyches here bears the distinct mark of Ingmar Bergman, and follows in the Persona lineage of films that obscure boundaries between strikingly similar women.
Haynes lays mirrors throughout his mise-en-scène, here using one in a shop change room to surround Elizabeth with Gracie on either side.
The mirrors that Haynes formally lays throughout his mise-en-scène develop this idea of doubles further, catching their reflections in evocative compositions that suggest a hint of illusory deception, and at times even psychological domination. Behind the neatly patterned wallpaper and lush piano score, dark undertones creep forward to underscore the malevolent artifice of the entire power dynamic, carefully constructed to frame Gracie as an innocent victim of the judicial system. Even though she asserts that it was Joe who first seduced her, we can’t help but notice the glint of self-recognition in her eyes when she goes out hunting, encounters a fox, and shares a silent moment of understanding with her fellow predator.
Gracie goes hunting, but pauses as she makes eye contact with a fox similarly searching for prey, not unlike her relationship with Elizabeth.
The frequent cutaways to Joe’s caterpillars are employed with even more acute purpose in May December, tracing them through their chrysalis stage and right to their emergence as monarch butterflies, though this time it is the young husband’s evolution which is bound to Hayne’s primal metaphor. As Joe witnesses his teenage children coming of age and relishing the freedom of youth, he mournfully begins to recognise how much of his own was stolen from him, and the immense betrayal he suffered at a trusted adult’s hands. The trauma hidden behind years of denial begins to break free, and his gradual escape from Gracie’s grip brings the same bittersweet liberation that he offers his butterflies.
Haynes’ butterfly cutaways work as an effective motif next to Joe’s journey, as he too begins to undergo a liberating transformation.
Of course though, the entertainment industry would never show such interest in a character of actual substance. Joe’s side of the story is simply not as scandalous as Gracie’s, and he is thus doomed to remain a supporting role in Elizabeth’s cheap, second-hand recount of their illicit affair, the facts of which she can’t quite manage to nail down. The information that Gracie’s embittered son from her first marriage provides about how she was sexually abused by her old brothers becomes the bedrock of Elizabeth’s research, providing a rational psychological explanation for his mother’s actions, but her complete denial of these events muddies the waters even further. Perhaps he is fabricating a story simply to earn himself a movie credit, or maybe it is Gracie who is lying to maintain the illusion of a perfect life – though ironically this lack of a tragic backstory makes her appear even less sympathetic, and her actions unjustifiably cruel.
May December belongs in the Persona lineage of films, blurring identities between two women with sinister undertones.
Either way, Elizabeth finds herself immensely frustrated over the lack of answers keeping her from getting to the heart of Gracie’s character, if there is a heart there at all. With no comprehensible motivation for this actress to cling to, all she is left to play with are hollow mannerisms and an all-too-suggestive snake to stroke as she finally reconstructs the pet store seduction in front of a camera. “It’s getting more real,” she insists after the director calls cut on the third take, though clearly her attempt to reconcile easily digestible entertainment with a complicated reality is futile. After all, the amiable masks that Elizabeth and Gracie wear to conceal their parasitic habits are no replacement for a genuine, empathetic understanding of humanity, or even art for that matter. Within May December’s strange duality of life and fiction, all that matters is the artificial image of feminine sensitivity projected by its two women, winning the unearned sympathy of neighbours and audiences alike through performances of astoundingly shallow proportions.
Elizabeth’s research of Gracie comes to feeble fruition, as she delivers a performance that nails the voice and mannerisms but is stripped of interiority.
The great evil that takes centre stage in The Zone of Interest is not often seen alone in historical records. Being married to Auschwitz’s longest-serving commandant, Hedwig’s name is virtually always attached to her husband’s, Rudolph Höss. Perhaps rightly so too. After all, wasn’t the great horror of the Holocaust perpetrated by the highest Nazi authorities, more than the families who never once stepped foot inside a concentration camp? It is not as if Hedwig Höss had any power of her own to halt the momentum of Hitler’s Master Plan, and so where is the harm in enjoying her position of privilege attained through her husband’s line of work?
Still, there is a chillingly blasé attitude here that is evident early in the film when she dons a fur coat from a pile of prisoners’ belongings, tries on the lipstick she finds in the pocket, and vainly admires herself in the mirror. If we are to judge evil based on one’s own moral conscience rather than the tangible impact of their actions, then the self-centred, apathetic woman that Jonathan Glazer depicts in The Zone of Interest may harbour an even darker soul than those who perpetrate the horror themselves. It quite evidently takes a special sort of inhuman cruelty to live in such close proximity to largescale genocide, profit off its spoils, and continue each day as if thousands of people weren’t being routinely murdered just beyond the garden wall.
Hedwig Höss does not kill or torture a single person in The Zone of Interest, and yet she may be one of the most despicable villains in recent cinema history, callously indulging in the privilege that is founded on the mass extermination of Jews in Auschwitz.
By the time Rudolph is offered a new job and Hedwig is given an opportunity to move her family elsewhere, it is impossible to excuse her anymore. It isn’t that she is ignorant to the atrocities, nor that she is reluctantly trapped in uncomfortable circumstances. The self-dubbed “Queen of Auschwitz” lovesher home and garden with a vile passion, and will do anything to hold onto this luxurious lifestyle without a shred of care for its appalling foundations.
Purely in terms of genre, The Zone of Interest’s historical fiction couldn’t be further from the science-fiction premise of Glazer’s previous film Under the Skin, and yet the two make for fascinating companion pieces in the realm of sinister, minimalist cinema. If Under the Skin finds the vulnerable humanity in a monster, then The Zone of Interest exposes the monstrosity that resides in a seemingly mundane human, all while Glazer keep us at a chilling distance from both.
Wide angle lens sit back in long shots with chilling distance, while the buildings of Auschwitz rise up over the walls in the background as constant reminders of the suffering that lies on the other side.
Long, static shots especially dominate the aesthetic of the latter, dispassionately setting the camera back at high angles that occasionally lifts into distorted birds-eye views, but more often letting us observe scenes of domestic life bound by that vast, grey wall persistently standing in the background. It serves its purpose well as a physical boundary for the concentration camp, and yet from the other side it fails to completely conceal the terrible truth betrayed by the guard towers, barbed wire, smokestacks, and trains peeking over the top. In sheer contrast, the flowers and vegetables that Hedwig proudly nurtures in her backyard are ironically thriving only a few metres from Auschwitz’s gas chambers, forming a lush, twisted image of Eden that she calls her “garden paradise.”
Distorted overhead shots and symmetrical compositions, casting an observant eye upon formal proceedings.The fact that Hedwig takes so much pride in her “paradise garden” makes her character even more disturbing, as Glazer sets scenes of life and nourishment against backdrops of death.
It is often in scenes set around this visual disparity where the most compelling character work is accomplished, denying Glazer’s characters the sympathy of close-ups, and forcibly associating them with Auschwitz through wide shots. Rudolph may try to block it out when he lights a cigarette and turns his back to the fiery smoke pouring from the gas chamber chimneys behind him, but the camera stoically captures it all, denying him anywhere to hide in the frame. Even when Glazer’s compositions aren’t so visually arresting, the formal rigour of this icy detachment is powerful, evoking the severe, psychological cinema of Stanley Kubrick and Michael Haneke. When it comes to the interiors of the Höss household though, the flat colours, crisp depth of field, and use of background doorways as frames makes Roy Andersson an even stronger comparison, seeing Glazer deploy a similarly dry, dark humour with discerning judgement to underscore the setting’s sheer incongruency.
Domestic bliss is often disturbed by the sounds echoing from over the wall, and clearly some can shut them out more easily than others.
The few times the camera is taken off its tripod, it travels in steady parallel motions, but otherwise it is through the rhythmic repetition of familiar shots that we track the banal routines of the Höss family. On this level, Glazer’s poetic visual beats and editing cadences reveal Yasujirō Ozu to be another unexpected influence, even if The Zone of Interest never quite touches the heights of the Japanese director’s masterpieces. The few times he diverges from his rigid formal structure with misplaced negative exposure shots and a single fade to red also weakens the similarities somewhat, and yet these flaws are little more than minor distractions from an otherwise relentless portrait of historic fascism, loaded with magnificently subtle worldbuilding.
Kubrick, Haneke, Andersson, and Ozu are all names the comes to mind when it comes to Glazer’s visual and formal severity. This is not an easy watch, yet the cinematic accomplishment is considerable.
Because as a disquieting immersion into the outskirts of Auschwitz, The Zone of Interest is just as concerned with the stifled remnants of horror lingering in the haunting sound design as it is with its visual details. Distant gunshots interrupt Hedwig’s quiet life, but she gives them as little attention as does the shouting guards, crying babies, and tortured screams that fill the air. Mica Levi’s sparse score intermittently lets out deep, guttural groans that could very well come from some demonic engine, and it too blends eerily well in with the mechanical grinding of machinery that can be heard whenever a new train of prisoners arrives, or when the gas chambers are set to work. The only time that Glazer amplifies this horrendous soundscape is also the only instance that his camera cuts to a close-up, letting us deduce from the audio alone that we have crossed the threshold into Auschwitz, and are currently standing in the middle of the concentration camp.
The single close-up in The Zone of Interest takes us inside Auschwitz but blocks out the scenery, leaving the suddenly loud, immediate sound design to be the only indicator of our new location.
For the most part though, this sound design is quietly hypnotic, lulling us into the same state of helpless submission that each character must face and which exposes the true nature of their soul. Nowhere is this reckoning illustrated so vividly as when Hedwig’s mother visits the villa and tries to sleep, only to be confronted with blazes of fire from the gas chambers lighting up her bedroom. All she can do to shut it out is draw the curtains, but not even that can silence the hellish blasts that continue to keep her up. In the middle of this sequence, Glazer meanwhile cuts to Hedwig, who couldn’t be sleeping more soundly.
Hedwig’s mother is awoken at night, deeply disturbed by the haunting noises coming from over the garden wall, while her daughter sleeps soundly.
The profound, emotional unrest that moves her mother to leave without warning the following day is not one the Queen of Auschwitz would ever understand. In fact, Hedwig alone may be the only significant character in The Zone of Interest to never even display the tiniest shred of guilt buried deep in her mind. At least her husband Rudolph is forced to gaze upon Nazi Germany’s vile operations every day when he goes to work, thus grasping on some instinctual level the inhuman barbarity that he is perpetrating – not that this absolves him. His hypocrisy is extremely evident when he evacuates his children from a river upon discovering human remains floating by, attempting to shield them from the consequences of his own actions, though his psychological compartmentalisation is never clearer than in the very final minutes of Glazer’s film.
Rudolph Höss makes for a fascinating comparison against his wife, Hedwig. Glazer never absolves him, but still uncovers a repressed feeling of guilt in his stomach that fights to get out.
Rudolph initially receives the news that his name is to be given to a key operation in Auschwitz’s success with excitement, most of all because of what it means for their family’s security and comfort. Still, as he departs his office and begins his journey down several flights of stairs, some visceral disgust erupts from within. He pauses, heaves, and dry retches, before descending another storey – only to uncontrollably give into that primal urge again.
At first, the following flashforward to images of present-day Auschwitz appears formally unjustified, like some clumsy attempt to strip the film’s message of its poetry. Cleaners sweep empty gas chambers and sanitise the furnaces, while the camera observes the mountains of shoes preserved behind windows as historical artefacts. A touch of Alain Resnais’ documentary Night and Fog can be felt here too as Glazer’s camera solemnly beholds the lifeless remains of this great historical tragedy, but then just as we are expecting the film to end, it cuts back to Rudolph.
A formal break from the 1940s setting that takes us to the modern day – a glimpse at what will become of Rudolph Höss’ shameful legacy.
Call it a premonition, or simply a sudden, unexplainable feeling that his name will forever be attached to one of humanity’s greatest injustices, but whatever shame Rudolph feels in this moment doesn’t halt his descent into darkness. This is how fascism survives, Glazer gravely laments. Not through the destruction wrought by torture, murder, and genocide, but through the passive denial of reality by those who reap its rewards and swallow their nauseating self-hatred as they go. As for those like Hedwig Höss who betray no such remorse for their exploitative privilege, and who are even given the benefit of Glazer’s judicious camera to peel back the layers around their empty soul – perhaps they stand alone at the top as the greatest evil of all.
A deeply disquieting ending as Rudolph Höss descends the stairs into darkness, pausing only to retch and glimpse a haunting future.
The Zone of Interest is currently playing in theatres.
Oppenheimer sits at the intersection of technical accomplishment, critical prestige, and mainstream popularity more than any other 2023 film, and as such largely defines the year in cinema. While some of its competitors are close in quality, you wouldn’t think it given the enormous buzz that has followed Christopher Nolan’s film throughout awards season. If it does win Best Picture, then it will no doubt be one of those years that is fondly remembered as one of the few times the Academy got it right.
As for the troubling case of Wes Anderson being shut out of the Oscars again – it is clear that many are starting to take one of the great directors of this generation for granted. Some would label his consistent style between each film as predictable or twee, but the remarkably high calibre of his work can’t be denied. This is the first of many times in this article Asteroid City will make an appearance in the snubbed category.
Oppenheimer (Produced by Emma Thomas, Charles Roven, and Christopher Nolan)
Christopher Nolan has been a dominant force in film culture since Memento in 2000, but he has only been nominated for Best Director once before (quite rightly for Dunkirk). This isn’t only the perfect chance for the Academy to finally give him the recognition he deserves on a prestigious historical biopic. He earns every bit of this award with an awe-inspiring command over his parallel editing, quantum cutaways, close-ups, and of course the suspenseful build-up and execution of the Trinity Test.
It is incredibly easy to swap out Justine Triet for Wes Anderson among these nominees. Anatomy of a Fall has a very good screenplay, but Triet’s direction is wobbly and erratic, suffering greatly next to the visual splendour and formal layering of Asteroid City. There are so few directors working at as consistently a high level as Anderson, and it has now been almost ten years since his last nomination in this category for The Grand Budapest Hotel in 2024.
What’s Been Snubbed: Michael Fassbender for The Killer
Cillian Murphy gives the greatest male performance of the decade so far in Oppenheimer, and reveal an incredibly compelling psychological breakdown through Nolan’s beautifully framed close-ups. Aside from him, the Academy dropped the ball a little this year, going for ‘good’ rather than ‘great’ performances. It would have been great to see Michael Fassbender be nominated for his stoic, dead-eyed work in The Killer, or to go up the weirder end of the scale, Barry Keoghan for Saltburn or Joaquin Phoenix in Beau is Afraid.
Will Likely Win: Lily Gladstone for Killers of the Flower Moon
Should Win: Emma Stone for Poor Things
What’s Been Snubbed: Sandra Hüller for The Zone of Interest
It is an incredibly tight race between Lily Gladstone and Emma Stone this year, and both are very deserving actresses. Gladstone is where I would ultimately put my money, simply because she is an exciting rising star to get behind, and Stone won quite recently for La La Land. Annette Bening gives a fine performance in Nyad, but it is pretty easy to take her out of the race here and give a second nomination to Sandra Hüller in The Zone of Interest, which is an even greater achievement for her than Anatomy of a Fall.
It is a stacked category this year, and coincidentally many of the nominees are playing unassuming villains who hide behind false facades of warmth and innocence. Gosling is one of the best things about Barbie, while Ruffalo and de Niro stand out even further in greater films, but it is Downey Jr.’s seething anger and Machiavellian plotting that beats out the competition. To follow that theme further, Skarsgård does more than enough as the most chilling villain of the John Wick franchise to earn a place alongside these other very fine nominees.
Will Likely Win: Da’Vine Joy Randolph for The Holdovers
Should Win: Emily Blunt for Oppenheimer
What’s Been Snubbed: Scarlett Johansson for Asteroid City
Da’Vine Joy Randolph has the momentum for The Holdovers, even if Emily Blunt is far more impressive as the enduringly cynical Kitty Oppenheimer. That said, Scarlett Johansson gives a greater performance than any of these nominees in Asteroid City, nailing Anderson’s deadpan humour and quiet sorrow. She may be one of the biggest roles in the film, but it is still an ensemble piece at heart, thus justifying her place in this category.
May December’s screenplay probes greater psychological depths of a troubled marriage than Anatomy of a Fall, and offers an array of richer characters whose identities blend and diverge. Still, neither amount to Ari Aster’s darkly comic odyssey in Beau is Afraid, constructing a surreal character study that gets to the very core of an anxious, guilt-ridden mind.
Anatomy of a Fall (Written by Justine Triet and Arthur Harari)
Nolan has long suffered criticisms of writing too much exposition, and yet the dense dialogue of Oppenheimer works to this screenplay’s advantage, moving at a brisk pace that weaves between multiple timelines and imbues even minor characters with fascinating nuances. Killers of the Flower Moon also offers tremendous insight into another historical tragedy with enormous scope and attention to detail, so it is disappointing to see it miss out here, especially when Barbie’s screenplay is so clumsily constructed and The Zone of Interest’s is so minimalistic.
Killers of the Flower Moon (Written by Eric Roth and Martin Scorsese)
What’s Been Snubbed:Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
It feels very strange to choose a Marvel film over a Hayao Miyazaki animation (and especially one as strong as The Boy and the Heron), but Across the Spider-Verse does something truly special creating a hyperkinetic collage of comic book, watercolour, and pop punk styles among so many others. Following in the stylistic steps of Spider-Verse as well is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, blending digital and traditional animation to deliver a grungy visual feast, and yet somehow its innovations were overlooked at the Oscars this year.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson)
Ludwig Göransson’s pounding electronic score plays a crucial part in maintaining the kineticism of Oppenheimer, barely pausing long enough to allow us any breathing space in our rush towards total annihilation. It is a shoe-in for Best Original Score this year, even if Poor Things’ bizarre configuration of untuned strings, breathy pipes, and jarring mallets perfectly complements the visual abstraction of Poor Things. Bobby Krlic’s score for Beau is Afraid is almost as brilliantly eccentric, and could easily replace John Williams’ 48th nomination in this category.
Will Likely Win: ‘What Was I Made For?’ from Barbie
Should Win: ‘I’m Just Ken’ from Barbie
What’s Been Snubbed: ‘Dear Alien’ from Asteroid City
It is Barbie’s to win this year. While ‘What Was I Made For?’ has a clear path to winning with its victories at the Grammy Awards, ‘I’m Just Ken’ would make for a fun upset. This has always been a weird category at the Oscars, so I’m continuing my tirade on Asteroid City’s snubs and complaining that ‘Dear Alien’ isn’t in there.
‘I’m Just Ken’ from Barbie (Music and lyrics by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt)
It isn’t just the masterful sound design around the Trinity Test that would earn Oppenheimer its win here. Sound designer Richard King also imagined and created the sound of vibrating quantum particles, and placed us right inside Robert J. Oppenheimer’s dazed mind by isolating specific audio tracks in his environment. You have to feel sorry for The Zone of Interest being nominated in the same year, given the pure aural horror of Auschwitz that is crafted there. John Wick: Chapter 4 is a little too genre for Oscars consideration, but it could have easily slotted into this category as well with its action soundscapes.
If it isn’t Oppenheimer winning in a technical category this year, then you can usually expect to see Poor Things there instead. Each stop along Yorgos Lanthimos’ dreamlike adventure is defined by its own distinct colour palettes and architecture, and is only really rivalled this year by Asteroid City – which again misses out on a category it should have been a strong contender in.
Asteroid City (Production Design by Adam Stockhausen)
This is the only category that I’m expecting Oppenheimer to win without necessarily deserving it. Hoyte van Hoytema’s IMAX photography is no doubt impressive, but the visual experimentation with lenses, zooms, and colour in Poor Things is too brilliant to ignore, and may land it as the most beautifully shot film of the past few years. El Conde isn’t even close to beating its competition, but I do appreciate the recognition here for Edward Lachman’s stark, monochrome cinematography in one of the best films of the year, especially given its lack of nominations elsewhere.
Finally, any year that Wes Anderson makes a film but doesn’t see him nominated in this category is a gaping oversight. The fictional play of Asteroid City escapes into a saturated world of faded pastels that is entirely distinct from the black-and-white cinematography of the television segments, even while his crisp depth of field, symmetrical framing, and rigorous blocking are carried across both.
Willem Dafoe’s prosthetics as Dr Godwin Baxter are the main draw here, but it is the attention to detail around Bella Baxter’s makeup and how it reflects her journey through childhood and adolescence that gives Poor Things the edge over its competitors. The snub for The Iron Claw isn’t devastating, though given the innovations around creating fake sweat that isn’t too slippery for wrestling scenes, one would expect some recognition to be due there.
The Iron Claw (Hair and Makeup by Natalie Shea Rose and Elle Favorule)
Poor Things wins out for the incredibly bizarre fashion of its alternate, surreal world vaguely based in 19th century designs, and much like the makeup, how it uses this to illustrate Bella Baxter’s growth from poofy, infantile outfits to more mature attire. Something similar is achieved in the recreation of iconic outfits in Priscilla as well, though the costumes there are clearly more connected to 60s celebrity culture.
If Oppenheimer somehow only wins one award at the Oscars, then it is this. Jennifer Lame has seemingly taken over from Lee Smith as Nolan’s regular editor, following up her astounding work on Tenet to craft what is essentially a 3-hour montage of increasing urgency, not unlike Oliver Stone’s political thriller JFK. Huge levels of stamina are required to keep this momentum up for such long stretches of time, as she bounces multiple timelines off each other in her propulsive parallel editing, and intermittently cuts away to those tiny surges of pure quantum energy representing Oppenheimer’s inner thoughts. John Wick: Chapter 4’s film editing is focused more on thrilling action set pieces than conveying vast amounts of information, but it is still one of the best edited films of 2023, and should have earned a place on this shortlist.
Somehow Poor Things, John Wick: Chapter 4, and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse were overlooked in this category, which is made all the weaker for it. Among those, the incredible digital backdrops of Poor Things that should have earned it a nomination, but in the meantime it is The Creator that stands a notch above the competition for the vivid worldbuilding of AI humans and futuristic structures.
The Creator (Visual effects by Jay Cooper, Ian Comley, Andrew Roberts and Neil Corbould)
When corporate analyst Luke first discovers his co-worker and secret fiancée Emily has been promoted, his show of support can’t mask the disappointment in his eyes. Rumours whispered around the office suggested that he would be the one to take the place of the previously fired portfolio manager, and the hierarchy at the Manhattan hedge fund they work at is not an easy ladder to climb. It isn’t just the cutthroat executives and their exceptionally high expectations that feed the competition, but the white-collar workers beneath them are constantly undercutting each other’s successes as well. At least Luke and Emily share an emotional security that views individual successes as victories for both – but only really if Luke can use his future wife’s new position as a guaranteed leg-up for himself.
Power is both the end goal and the means to achieve it in Fair Play, enticing each character to the higher echelons of One Crest Capital, though this scheming is not merely contained to fraught office politics. It is deeply intertwined with Luke’s masculinity in his sexual relationship with Emily, keeping him from getting hard when his feelings of emasculation rise to the surface, and reinvigorating him when he takes forceful control. On one level he knows that she would never compromise her integrity, but he still can’t help letting nasty rumours about her sleeping with executives feed his insecurities. For Luke, this erotic thriller thus becomes a quest to assert his dominance in both the office and his personal life, while Emily gradually realises what compromises must be made to keep her position.
First-time director Chloe Domont winds up her spring-loaded narrative with careful control in Fair Play, mounting its tensions to a point that can no longer bear the weight of Luke and Emily’s mutual disdain. The passionate sex scenes drawn through so much of its first act gradually grow more strained with their increasing discomfort, and it certainly doesn’t help that they must subjugate their private romance every day to the sterile scenery of glass cubicles, pressed suits, and fluorescent lights.
Whatever seeds of intimacy are planted between colleagues here simply cannot survive the sexless brutality of corporate America and the competition it thrives on. As a result, primal desperation is the only instinct left in them, seeing Luke flail between expensive self-help gurus and publicly begging the CEO on his knees for a promotion. Conversely, Emily grounds her political manoeuvring in a keen self-awareness, navigating the gender dynamics of the workplace by involving herself in its misogynistic culture and thereby marking herself as an exception to its prejudices.
Anxiety only continues to climb beneath this main narrative as well in the constant phone calls from family members finding out about Emily and Luke’s secret proposal, and their frustrating insistence on an engagement party. Should news of their relationship make it back to the office, then the discovery would implicate them both in an extreme conflict of interest, and raise questions around whether she is leveraging her position for Luke’s benefit – which of course she is. The collision of personal and professional lives is inevitable, and when it finally does unfold, Domont delights in staging a savage, public display of contempt and humiliation. The struggle up the corporate ladder has a long list of casualties in Fair Play, and when gender roles are thrown into the roiling mix, intimate relationships and fragile egos are the first to be sacrificed.
