The nature of celebrity culture is a fickle thing for Professor Paul Matthews, as wild and unpredictable as those strangers’ dreams across the world that star him as the main character. There is no rational reason for why they started, and there is no explanation why his role in them suddenly evolves from passive bystander to monstrous villain. Perhaps it is a reflection of his own insecurity, feeding a disastrous loop of self-loathing that amplifies the more he worries about the way others are perceiving him, though director Kristoffer Borgli is evidently more interested in Dream Scenario’s metaphysical allegory than its hard logic. Paul’s sudden rising star comes with its own trappings that most regular people would be ill-equipped to handle, and especially one as meek and obsessively self-conscious as this “inadequate loser.”
The combination of Nicolas Cage’s eccentric neurosis and a lightly absurdist screenplay that exposes an anxiety-ridden dork no doubt has the essence of Charlie Kaufman’s insanity baked into its conception, with notable touches of both Adaptation and Being John Malkovich thrown in the mix. Borgli delights in the feverish surrealism of his characters’ dreams, initially drawn from the sheer incongruity of seeing Cage’s nonchalant reactions to extreme disasters and emergencies, before escalating into psychotic horror scenarios that have him violently killing people Freddy Krueger-style – and this movie reference does not go amiss either. Whether he is casually watching one of his students be chased by a tall, bloody man through a field of tuxedoed men, or maniacally marching down a dark corridor to his daughter’s bedroom with a frightening grin, Dream Scenario is at its strongest exploring the irrational language of the human subconscious.
Although Paul is at the centre of this whole phenomenon, the fact that he is not experiencing these dreams himself ironically places him on the outside looking in. The hushed whispers between his students in the early days quietly single him out as a freak, and when the media eventually turns him into an idol, he can only approach his newfound fame with awkward, confused laughs. An amusing turn from Michael Cera as the head of an agency for unconventional celebrities simply called ‘Thoughts?’ further strains the tension between Paul’s integrity and readiness to sell out all his ideals too, as well as his own loyalty to his wife when the opportunity arises.
The true danger of Dream Scenario arrives though in the target that is effectively placed on Paul’s back, teased early on when a disturbed stranger breaks into his home with death threats, and arriving in full force when these dreams suddenly turn into nightmares that plunge his reputation into total infamy. Of course, this shift is not totally in his control, but is that not the nature of widespread public opinion?
As a frustrated Paul lashes out, records insincere apology videos, and continues to be harassed by strangers totally convinced of their own judgement, it gradually becomes clear that Borgli isn’t quite sure how to stick the landing besides letting it fizzle out with his character’s dwindling 15 minutes of fame. Dream Scenario is not especially profound in its interrogation of cancel culture, though it does display flashes of creative inspiration in Paul’s characterisation, comically framing multiple lines of the company name ‘Thoughts?’ behind his overthinking head, and weaving in his evolutionary biology background through a fitting zebra motif. The animal’s natural ability to camouflage within crowds closely aligns with Paul’s desire to sink back into obscurity, effectively using inconspicuousness as a survival mechanism to preserve a safe, boring life. If he is going to stand out to anyone as a “remarkable nobody,” then it isn’t going to be for strangers, young women, or fellow celebrities. The only people whose approval he needs are those who already know him better than everyone else, and who only ever dream about him being the best version of Paul that he can be.
Unlike Mary Shelley and her fellow Gothic writers, Yorgos Lanthimos is not greatly bothered by man’s displacement of God through scientific progress. The artificial creation of life in Poor Things no doubt induces feelings of profound discomfort and horror, though the ethical dilemmas raised here are more fanciful in their eccentric incongruencies and psychological implications. Where Frankenstein hid great existential horror within the prospect of creating artificial life, Poor Things hides a majestic appreciation for humanity within an even more disturbing biological experiment – the transplant of an unborn baby’s brain into the body of her tragically deceased mother. When confronted with accusations of transgressing the laws of nature, mad scientist Dr Godwin Baxter returns a simple question that lightens his moral darkness to a medium grey.
“Would you rather the world had not have Bella?”
It is true that he has sentenced this infant to grow up inside the body of an adult, but so too has he effectively saved her life. In much the same way a child reveres their parent or a believer worships their deity, Bella appropriately gives her own endearing nickname to the professor – God. Along with his duck-dog hybrids and barking rooster, she joins his fantastic menagerie of similarly Frankensteined creatures that he leads as a lumpy misfit of the highest order. Lanthimos doesn’t hide the Garden of Eden allegory that encases Bella in a sanctuary of grotesque innocence, though the overtness of the metaphor is no concern. After all, it is merely the starting point for Bella’s coming-of-age odyssey across Europe and Africa, where Lanthimos aims his offbeat, satirical wit at the modern complexities of sex and gender.
Lanthimos’ allusions to Frankenstein are right there on the surface, but it is the reinvention of Mary Shelley’s work in a surreal, disturbing allegory which keeps Poor Things from becoming derivative.Bella is a mix of Eve and the Prodigal Son – born into God’s grotesque Garden of Eden, she falls to temptation and leaves on a magnificent journey, only to be welcomed back with open arms.
With The Favourite being a watershed moment for Lanthimos’ development as a cinematic artist, Poor Things continues that stylistic trajectory of surreal brilliance which elevates his most recent work above his first few films. His auteur trademarks are instantly recognisable, distorting detailed sets through wide-angle lenses to dramatically stretch its elaborate features, and fish-eye lenses that seem like voyeuristic peepholes. Long dissolves are also Lanthimos’ editing device of choice to convey his characters’ slippery grasp on reality, just as our own perspective is challenged in visual gags that force us to look twice at images as simple as a horse pulling a carriage. No doubt his continued collaboration with writer Tony McNamara pays off marvellously as well, delivering an absurd, biting wit that punctuates stiff formalities with anachronistic profanities and heightened slapstick.
Lanthimos brings back the fish-eye lens from The Favourite. It’s formally well-done in the way it is carried through, and adds a great deal to this visually distorted world.
And yet even with all these similarities in mind, the epic adventure that carries Bella across oceans in Poor Things is far more sprawling than the tightly contained worlds of Lanthimos’ other films. For the first time in his career, soundstages are used in place of real locations, allowing for a level of visual control and curation that his previous budgets could not afford. Traces of Terry Gilliam’s eccentric surrealism can be found everywhere, adopting avant-garde camera angles that warp insanely constructed set pieces beyond any hint of realism, from God’s giant Gothic manor to the castle-like cruise ship of turrets and towers. Tracking shots and zooms navigate these scenes with a steady fluidity, as rigorously measured as the production design itself, though they only barely mask the hidden chaos of Bella’s existence.
A superb use of miniatures in these long shots, set beneath a sky that always seems to be in motion with wispy clouds and rich, impressionistic patterns.Lanthimos formally sets Bella’s confinement to God’s manor apart from her journey through stunning black-and-white photography, only letting colour take over when she rebels and sets out to discovery the world.
At its most dreamlike, Poor Things interprets Bella’s voyage through wispy, greyscale images of her riding grotesque fish and crossing bridges in slow-motion, and uses these abstractions as chapter breaks between each new location. Within her actual adventure, purple swirls and angry blue clouds stretch across vast, starry skies that could have been painted by Vincent van Gogh, and cast impressionistic textures over miniatures of steampunk cities. In Lisbon, trams are suspended by wires between 19th-century buildings, and hot air balloons shaped like UFOs float above the urban skyline. Elsewhere, Alexandria is depicted as a sandstone hellscape of extreme poverty steeped in fiery golden hues, and the monochromatic streets of Paris offer respite with its sheets of soft, powdery snow. The idiosyncratic palettes of these settings are also made all the more vibrant by Lanthimos’ choice to starkly shoot most of the film’s first act in black-and-white, formally sectioning off Bella’s confinement to God’s manor from her extraordinary, colourful journey of discovery.
Lisbon is an anachronistic, steampunk city of high-wire trams and hot air balloons – absolute magnificence in production design.Bella’s brief stopover in Alexandria is soaked in blazing gold palette – absolute uniformity to an aesthetic.Meanwhile, Paris is a jungle of beautiful architectural oddities blanketed in snow.
With such an imaginative production design landing Poor Things among the most handsome films of the past few years, and a screenplay as boldly funny as McNamara’s, it takes an extravagantly talented ensemble to match this heightened world. Ramy Youssef and Jerrod Carmichael are the only ones who apply a little too much restraint here, while Willem Dafoe and Mark Ruffalo strike a perfect balance between chewing the scenery and precise comic timing.
To go this long without mentioning Emma Stone though is a crime. Her achievement as Bella stands among her very best, playing out an extraordinary but gradual evolution from incoherent infancy to liberated young adulthood. “What a very pretty retard,” her future husband proclaims early on as he watches her toddler-self jump and spin in uncoordinated motions, and it is this incongruency between her mind and body which forms the rich foundation of Lanthimos’ comedy and drama. Given her womanly appearance, Bella is not shielded from society’s archaic gender politics, and yet like most children she is a being of pure impulse who pursues whatever momentary sensory pleasures come her way. In this unique instance, it is only natural that her sexual discovery of “furious jumping” quickly becomes a carnal yet innocent obsession, and one that men like rakish cad Duncan Wedderburn selfishly seek to exploit.
Emma Stone’s performance stands tall among her best, showcasing her comedic range with slapstick and verbal timing in a way she has never touched before.
The physical comedy and rapport that Stone and Ruffalo share as adventuring partners here is gleefully charming, especially during one dance scene calling back to The Favourite that lets them unleash ridiculous moves to a bizarre honking instrument. It is when Bella begins to rub up against Duncan’s misogynistic entitlement that her place in the world slowly comes into focus, even as she remains ignorant to her origins. Distressed by the pain she sees in her travels, she tries to donate a large portion of Duncan’s wealth to the needy, only to naively let it fall into the hands of untrustworthy sailors. When she eagerly takes up employment as prostitute against his wishes, she grows further disillusioned with the discovery that some men find pleasure in her pain, and that her employer would prefer her to remain submissive.
After Emma Stone, Lanthimos gathers a strong supporting cast led by a rakish Mark Ruffalo, who has never been funnier than he is here.
Deepening the question of Bella’s bodily autonomy though is the very nature of her being – this is not her body, but her mother’s. Her belly bears the scar of her own birth by C-section, strangers recognise her as a different person in public, and late discoveries about her mother’s suicide complicate the relationship they never had. Having strayed from God’s domain and partnered with a gutless chauvinist, she is forced to become her own maternal guide in a misogynistic world, navigating its arbitrary social conventions through little more than trial and error. She learns of indulgence and restraint, generosity and self-care, taking each in moderation as her mind slowly catches up to her physical appearance. Jerskin Fendrix reveals his aggressively abstract score to be a perfect mirror of this journey as well, initially offering a window into her infantile mind with untuned strings, breathy pipes, and jarring mallets, and then gradually layering in more complex textures as these sounds mature alongside her.
Vacuous pretensions of respectable society be damned, Bella is a woman looking to carve out her own peculiar path through the world, rebelling against God’s creation even as she expresses a deep, abiding love for him. It matters little that Lanthimos’ final act sticks an unsteady landing, heading off on a sudden new adventure that continues past the point the story should have wrapped up. Films as boldly ambitious and wickedly funny as Poor Things are so exceedingly rare that flaws are simply part of the lavishly embellished package, relishing the magnificent improbability that any natural or manmade creation should ever exist to begin with in a world as preposterous as our own.
If there is one thing that Paul King’s whimsically spirited prequel understands about the world of Wonka, it is that chocolate is not merely a treat – it is a meal, a drug, an entire system of currency, and the source of all meaning in life. In the urban winter wonderland of 19th century Paris, every corner of society is controlled by those wealthy chocolate makers who feed the sweet-toothed church and state, using their extensive powers to shut out rival entrepreneurs. For what is essentially an origin story covering the young adulthood of Roald Dahl’s famous chocolatier, the stakes are ludicrously high, hilariously blending conventions of crime, heist, prison break, comedy, and musical genres into a delicately crafted piece of cinematic confectionary.
Though delightfully entertaining on its own terms, the decision to connect Wonka’s story directly to the 1971 adaptation Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is ultimately double-edged. Had it been framed as an original spin on the novel, perhaps King might have put a more unique stamp on Dahl’s work, but he still clearly relishes the camp designs of the orange-skinned Oompa Loompas and nostalgic musical cues. Almost every original number here seems like filler between reprises of ‘Pure Imagination’ and ‘The Oompa Loompa Song’, both of which wistfully hint at the future Wonka will set up for himself at his chocolate factory.
For the most part at least, Wonka largely avoids being weighed down by its intellectual property, letting Timothee Chalamet put his own refreshing spin on the role previously played by Gene Wilder. Given that they are essentially playing the same character at separate points in his life, the differences between both performances are notable. Where Wilder’s Wonka was a mischievous cynic who had grown disillusioned with the world, Chalamet’s is a woefully naïve optimist, overly trusting of strangers and romantically hopeful that he can make his fortune within a day of moving to Paris. This Wonka does not confine himself to a factory, but effortlessly builds a network of allies and joyfully dances atop the glass ceiling of the Grand Palais with his closest friend, street urchin Noodle. Armed with nothing but a small case of enchanted items and chocolates, he proves his resourceful intellect from day one, even as he struggles against scheming competitors and greedy proprietors.
The cast that King gathers around Chalamet is similarly impressive, drawing on old collaborators from The Mighty Boosh like Rich Fulcher and Simon Farnaby, as well as Sally Hawkins and Hugh Grant from the Paddington movies. Joining his troupe for the first time as well are the comedic talents of Rowan Atkinson, Matt Lucas, Keegan Michael-Key, and Olivia Colman, the latter of whom particularly impresses as a greasy, Madame Thenardier-type con artist and innkeeper. There isn’t a weak link in this ensemble, each carrying through the eccentric wit, gentle slapstick, and charming sincerity that King has built into the fabric of his semi-magical world.
Next to these lively performances, King’s playful scene transitions and bouncy choreography similarly move the humour along at a rhythmic pace, though it is the production design which most crucially connects Wonka’s boundlessly creative ethos to his candy-coloured environment. The careful curation of pink, purple, and red palettes sets an air of warm festivity against the snow flurrying through Paris’ streets, while props and set pieces are as imaginatively bizarre in their visual conception as they are in their narrative functions. When Wonka finally sets up his shop at the Galeries Gourmet, these impossible visuals only continue to heighten with candy cotton clouds circling a giant, blossoming tree growing in the centre.
Given that Wonka’s candy also has physiological effects on consumers, from intoxicated overconfidence to spontaneous flying, it is no wonder the Chocolate Cartel see him as such a threat. The culmination of their sabotage arrives in a climactic display of remarkably economical storytelling, knitting about a dozen plot threads together into a tightly woven pay-off not unlike the final acts of the Paddington films. Giant questions such as the mystery of Noodle’s parentage are answered, but even more impressive is the intertwining of seemingly irrelevant plot points such as Slugworth’s extraordinarily firm handshake, Wonka’s illiteracy, and his friends’ incredibly niche skillsets. There are no loose ends to be found in this tidy bow of a resolution, save for those which lead directly into Dahl’s story. Wonka is so easily digestible, it might as well have been made by the chocolatier himself.
Given how deeply connected all Hayao Miyazaki’s films are to his sense of childhood wonder, trauma, and pantheistic spirituality, it may be useless singling out any one as his most personal. Still, the fact that The Boy and the Heron unusually captures the storyteller at two different points in his life through a pair of surrogate characters offers new, introspective dimensions to his body of work. For the first time in his decades-long career, his young hero is a boy, Mahito, clearly standing in for his younger self as he escapes into a fantasy world and tries to reconnect with his deceased mother. Fortunately, Miyazaki’s mother did not pass away until old age, and yet the time she spent in hospital during his formative years was clearly a point of reckoning with mortality for the young artist.
Next to Mahito, the mysterious Granduncle who constructed the whimsical realm of cursed oceans and anthropomorphic creatures also becomes a stand-in for Miyazaki, albeit one who is older, wiser, and full of regrets. Both are world builders with the power to shape imagined landscapes into either harmonious paradises or freakish nightmares, though given the innate human flaws of their creators, any setting is likely to be a mix of both. Now coming towards the end of their lives, they both seek out successors to carry their legacies, and yet the question of whether their work can or should be continued looms large. At some point in life, fantasy has run its course, and one must return to reality armed with the new perspectives that have been gained from their dreams.
For Mahito, this is a reality he would much rather forget – the Pacific War has not only killed his mother, but has forced him to evacuate Tokyo with his father, thereby staining his childhood with wartime trauma. His complicated feelings around moving to the countryside and his father remarrying his aunt Natsuko drive him to act out, while the presence of a mysterious grey heron that lives on the estate and an abandoned tower in the yard also tease the possibility of adventurous escape. It only takes Natsuko’s strange disappearance for Mahito to start connecting the dots between each of these, eventually journeying into the tower that was built by her eccentric Granduncle many years ago to discover the surreal universe which lies beneath its foundations.
The whimsical similarities to Alice in Wonderland are evident in this setup, betraying Miyazaki’s adoration of Disney’s animated classics, though the allusions don’t end here either. The influence of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs can similarly be traced right down to the seven eccentric grannies occupying Mahito’s countryside home, as well as the unconscious heroine who lies helpless inside a glass coffin late in the story. Much like his pioneering American counterpart, Miyazaki’s storytelling strengths lie in his manipulation of recognisable archetypes, even as he develops his narrative and symbolism in far more elusive directions.
Most prominent among the allegorical icons in The Boy and the Heron are the human-like birds who commonly bear some sort of malicious intent, whether it is the pelicans who eat the souls of unborn babies, or the legion of parakeets who strictly adhere to an authoritarian rule. The raspy-voiced heron in particular becomes a devious twist on Alice in Wonderland’s White Rabbit too, luring Mahito into his world with cruel illusions and grotesquely hiding his true form of a stumpy, caricaturish man in his toothy beak. Though Mahito learns that all herons are liars, he also finds this particular birdman reluctantly becoming one of his closest allies, and incidentally learns from him along the way that not all fabrications are necessarily evil. When the possibility of bringing back his deceased mother is dangled in front of him, he no doubt sees the sham, and yet it is his open-minded curiosity which leads him into a journey of emotional healing through his ancestor’s dreamlike creation.
“I know it is a lie, but I have to see it.”
Miyazaki delights in using hand-drawn animation to construct these layers of verisimilitude, heavily evoking a Salvador Dali-style surrealism when a duplicate of Mahito’s mother eerily melts away, and elsewhere when a dropped rose unexpectedly shatters into tiny pieces. This world operates on a dream logic that distorts the very structure of space and time, leading our young hero down an endless corridor of doors opening to different points in the past, and moulding his deepest fears into life-saving superpowers.
Lady Himi proves to be incredibly significant here, wielding control over the fire that killed Mahito’s mother, and thus turning that destructive force which haunted his nightmares into a force for good. Elemental imagery of air, water, and earth is woven through much of Miyazaki’s fantasy world, and yet it is her whirlwinds of blazing orange flames which consistently provide the most security to Mahito, as well as a maternal guidance that he has sorely missed in his grief.
Conversely, the direction that the Granduncle provides his young descendant is not one of nurture, but rather a burden of responsibility which may not even be worth the continuous effort. Life and fiction must both come to an end, Miyazaki recognises, and yet meaning persists in the wake of both. If The Boy and theHeron truly is his last film, then it is poetic that such a grand adventure into escapist fantasy and back again should be the one to conclude his decades of marvellous, animated world building.
The Boy and the Heron is currently playing in theatres.
There is little in Bottoms that breaks the formula of the classic high school teen comedy, though it is in this familiar realm that Emma Seligman is most comfortable sending up its Gen Z archetypes with their own brand of self-deprecating irony and dark humour. On its surface, the premise of two unpopular lesbian students beginning extra-curricular self-defence lessons for their fellow female students subverts the hyper-masculinity of its most obvious influence in Fight Club, though its narrative calls back even more distinctly to the sex-driven quest of Superbad and the violent black comedy of Heathers. After all, behind Josie and PJ’s mission is the simple objective to lose their virginities to cheerleaders Isabel and Brittany, and it is apparent that there are no lows too depraved for them to stoop to along the way.
The comic timing that Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri share in these lead roles is sharp, positioning them as socially awkward and morally dubious misfits ready to exploit whatever good cause or convenient lie presents itself to them. They didn’t start the rumour that they spent summer in juvenile detention, but they are happy to capitalise on the clout it gives them, and local concerns around recent attacks from rival school Huntington provides the perfect feminist justification for their self-defence lessons. Of the two, Edebiri delivers the more sympathetic performance, though Sennott’s bratty egotism even more effectively underscores the hypocrisy of high school politics – regardless of where one sits in the hierarchy, everyone is as equally cruel.
This isn’t to say that Bottoms lacks sincerity, as Seligman pays real attention to the development of each fight club member towards a united empowerment, but even this comes by complete accident through PJ and Josie’s misguided leadership. Much like Seligman’s debut Shiva Baby, Bottoms is at its strongest when it embraces the chaos and savagery of the ensemble’s wildly conflicting personas, but also successfully turns the goofiness up a notch when painting out the meathead jocks as the broadest caricatures of them all. Outside of the fight club, quarterback Jeff is the greatest source of physical comedy, theatrically keeling over in extreme pain when PJ’s car gently bumps his knee, and submitting to his role as a damsel in distress at the film’s marvellously choreographed climax.
By the point that the full force of Seligman’s cinematic excellence is unleashed in this heightened, Tarantino-esque finale, it is a little too late to save the relatively dull visuals that pervade the rest of Bottoms, but if there is any scene which deserves such a remarkable set piece it is this. The stunt work is complex and dynamic, turning the football field into a battleground between two schools literally fighting for their lives in dramatic slow-motion and high-contrast while spectators watch in awe from the grandstand. Any remaining shred of realism that had previously lingered is gone, and in its place is a full-throttled commitment to bizarre spectacle exposing the absurdity of teenage politics, and the carnal desire for sex and violence that lingers beneath. In her deft balance of conflicting tones, Seligman smartly realises that there is no point choosing between sharp-tongued irony and lowbrow slapstick. Like so many real-world teenagers she is levelling her playful satire at, the high school students of Bottoms are as brilliantly quick-witted as they are disastrously stupid, and are all too happy staying that way.
The task of cinematically adapting a historical legacy as immense as Napoleon Bonaparte’s is not one to be taken lightly, especially when densely packing a feature film with several decades’ worth of his conquests. Although Ridley Scott’s interpretation of the French leader’s life covers an enormous span of time from the French Revolution to his eventual exile, it does not carry the same dramatic weight as Abel Gance’s more focused 1927 epic, which ends its story much earlier with Napoleon’s grand triumph at 1796’s Battle of Montenotte. A great deal of room is allowed there for the sort of historical detail which Scott merely skims over in title cards announcing new characters, events, and years – and even with a shorter length on his side, his Napoleon rarely carries the same vigorous energy as its five-and-a-half-hour counterpart.
To be fair, this comparison to one of France’s most celebrated cinematic masterpieces does not give Scott credit where it is due, and only serves to emphasise how thinly he spreads this story across a vast scope. The strength of his direction here lies not so much in its loosely sprawling structure as it does in the humour, blocking, and spectacle of individual moments, offsetting Napoleon’s legacy as a military commander and tactical genius with scenes of his childish petulance. The sense of divine purpose which imbues him with regal confidence is the same which drives him into entitled tantrums at the dinner table, as he amusingly proclaims that “Destiny has brought me this lamb chop!” with an absurd lack of self-awareness.
Scott does not go so far as to probe the psychosexual depths of Napoleon’s emotionally stunted nature, though his inability to connect intimately with others is all too apparent, especially when his wife Joséphine enters the picture. Their sex is profoundly dispassionate at first, though an awkward intimacy soon develops which only further underscores his strange infantilism. Tied in with that as well is an egotistic dependence on her admiration, forcing her to declare that he is the most important thing in the world, and conversely seeing him admit with far greater truth that he is nothing without her. After all, he needs an heir to carry on his legacy, and the prospect that he may be infertile threatens the foundations of his entire reign.
Perhaps this is why Joaquin Phoenix slips so naturally into this eccentric vision of the French emperor, despite being much older than Napoleon actually was at the height of his power. This is not a young, virile man with boundless charisma and masculine poise, but a cagey strategist who cannot translate his sharp mind on the battlefield to his own personal life. This is not the Napoleon that history remembers, and given the accusations of historical inaccuracy that Scott has brushed off with disregard, it may not even be the Napoleon that existed. Creative licence is a powerful tool in the right hands though, and the line that Scott draws between male leadership, ego, and impotence is vivid, demonstrating that the insecure fool and the impressive military leader are not mutually exclusive identities.
After all, when it comes to the latter Scott relishes shooting Phoenix’s Napoleon against backdrops of remarkable spectacle, starting with Marie Antoinette’s execution at the Place de la Révolution in front of riled-up masses, and later seeing him win extravagant battles in Austria, Russia, and Egypt. The siege of Toulon is his first great success as an artillery commander, and also Scott’s first real demonstration in Napoleon that his deft control over giant set pieces has not faded over the years, borrowing a few visual and editing cues from D.W. Griffith as soldiers scale colossal walls and fires light up the night.
It is no coincidence that the detail of Napoleon’s tactical manoeuvring directly correlates to the brilliance of Scott’s technical direction either, as both reach their peaks upon the frozen wastelands where the Battle of Austerlitz unfolds. Using its natural geography of hills, trees, plains, and fog to his advantage, Napoleon lures the united Austrian and Russian forces into an ambush, drives them to retreat over a frozen lake, and shatters the ice with cannonballs, thereby winning one of the most significant battles of the Napoleonic Wars. Scott’s visual storytelling is remarkable here, coordinating complex interactions between enormous numbers of extras through hostile landscapes, and intercutting the action with visceral underwater shots of drowning, bleeding soldiers desperately fumbling to escape their fate.
Elsewhere, Scott imbues scenes with a dramatic weight in his slow-motion photography, and curates handsomely muted colour palettes with soft blue filters and the dim, golden lighting of candles. Napoleon’s greatest weakness though is its unevenness, inconsistently letting these soaring visuals come and go, and eventually dropping the focus on the French emperor’s personal life as the Battle of Waterloo approaches. In place of his emotional immaturity, an even greater form of egomania becomes apparent, seeing him boldly charge into combat with blazing confidence before witnessing the demise of his entire life’s work. For once, it is the opposing side that Scott captures with noble admiration, watching the Duke of Wellington’s army form infantry squares in rigorous uniformity and take the higher ground over Napoleon’s men.
Even with everything lost though, this is a man who will still carve out his own version of history. Was it the Russians who burnt Moscow to spoil the French victory, or was it part of Napoleon’s plan all along? Was it really his fault that he lost the Battle of Waterloo, or was it his incompetent marshals? Is the image of a mighty leader and master strategist really all there is to the first emperor of France? Scott does not so much seek truth in that matter as he uses it to underscore a modern scepticism towards our male leaders, and especially those whose meagre wisdom and childish convictions are undeserving of such enormous egos. If only this film was a little more refined in its focus, then perhaps he might have reconciled these distinct features into one character with greater formal acuity, backing up his technical brilliance with the sense of purpose that Napoleon himself was so blinded by.
Whoever or whatever Oliver Quick may be in Saltburn, he is not human. He wears the skin of a lower-class outsider from a troubled family, but his instincts are sharp like a spider’s – or perhaps he is a moth banging up against a window, trying desperately to infiltrate the wealthy Catton family who he is staying with for the summer. “Lucky for you I’m a vampire,” he purrs to Venetia Catton as he grotesquely licks her period blood off his fingers, and when he suits up for an Oxford ball, a classmate lightly jokes that he’s almost passing for “a real human boy.” Perhaps his eccentric hosts sense some animalistic depravity in their son Felix’s new friend, though for the time being they are happy to keep him around like a trophy proving their own generosity.
Emerald Fennell’s follow-up to Promising Young Woman delivers yet another subversive interrogation of power and privilege, and yet Saltburn proves to be far more obscure in its formal construction than that tightly plotted revenge thriller, layering mysteries upon secrets within the titular country estate. With a strong set of creature metaphors at her disposal, Fennell weaves a monstrously sinister fable around Oliver, stealthily wandering through a maze not unlike that which sits in the Catton family’s enormous garden. To those souls unfortunate enough to reach its centre, a giant minotaur sculpture awaits, frozen in the act of ripping apart a victim as it proudly bears its naked manhood. The visual parallels between this mythical creature and Oliver in his truest form are striking – in the absence of wealth and social influence, sex becomes his greatest weapon, and clothes are shed to reveal the aggressive masculinity lurking beneath.
The convention and order of the Saltburn estate slips into perverse chaos.Fennell illuminates her scenes with a David Fincher-style lighting setup – dim golden lamps and candles drenching these scenes with a haunting atmosphere.
Through Fennell’s elegantly dynamic camerawork, we too find ourselves trapped in these characters’ magnificent habitats, following behind them in three long tracking shots which formally mark our introduction to Oliver, our introduction to Saltburn, and the brilliantly twisted final shot of the film. Especially in the latter two, Fennell relishes the classical architecture and production design that could be straight out of Pride and Prejudice, traversing cavernous ballrooms and lavishly decorated corridors that essentially form a maze of their own.
The severely narrowed aspect ratio contributes to this claustrophobia too, making for some particularly disorientating compositions of an upside-down Oliver reflected in ponds and dinner tables, and wide shots that close in Saltburn’s walls around us. Within these opulent interiors, Fennell draws a haunting beauty from the dim, golden lighting of lamps and candles, setting us up for jarring shocks each time she switches to a blood-red wash that encases its residents in mortal peril.
One of Saltburn’s most striking compositions – perfect lighting, symmetry, framing, and yet totally disorientating.Blood-red lighting encompasses the residents of Saltburn in madness, anger, and grief.
This danger does not simply emanate from Oliver though, as Fennell also prompts us to question whether the Cattons’ peculiar traditions and behaviour are truly as innocuous as they seem. From this angle, Saltburn appears to be in direct conversation with Jean Renoir’s class satire The Rules of the Game, underscoring the complete absurdity of the family’s black-tie dress code for dinner, and the strange request to remain cleanshaven so as not to incite Lady Elsbeth’s irrational fear of beards.
Rosamund Pike offers brilliant comic relief in this role, right next to Richard E. Grant’s maddeningly gleeful Sir James, though the greatest achievement here belongs to Barry Keoghan. Looking back at his collaborations with Yorgos Lanthimos and Martin McDonagh, it seems as if his career of playing unconventional misfits has built to this unrelenting portrait of obsession, perversion, and manipulation. Whether at Oxford or Saltburn, it is impossible for Oliver to blend into crowds, though he doesn’t exactly try hard either. His choice to wear a pair of stag antlers at his Midsummer Night’s Dream birthday party is subtly symbolic, asserting his primal masculinity in stark opposition to the men and women who dress in fairy costumes. When his outward meekness isn’t shrinking him in the frame, Keoghan confidently dominates Fennell’s compositions, most prominently while seducing his hosts. Venetia may be the one luring him out into the gardens late at night, but as he lines up his facial profile behind hers in a close-up and whispers commands into her ear, the link between his physical and psychological influence visually manifests onscreen with invasive intimacy.
Saltburn marks a prime achievement for Barry Keoghan, who after many years of playing supporting roles takes the spotlight with disturbing relish.
If we are to believe his voiceover’s claims that such actions are genuine expressions of love, then we would be severely underestimating the depth of his inner emotional turmoil, and the extent to which it robs him of the control he desires. To make matters even more complicated, the Cattons still view him as a lowly child of the working class, and so he must make certain capitulations for the sake of his hosts’ egos and sensitivities. Felix and Venetia are happy to exploit his insecurity when they demand he strip to join them sunbathing, and later when he is tricked into performing a demeaning karaoke song, his resentment only continues to build.
With a narrow aspect ratio, shadows, and sharp lighting, Fennell composes a shot that could be from F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu.
Perhaps then Oliver’s love of Felix is not so much a romantic or sexual attraction, but a desire to inhabit his very being, and to access the privilege that comes with it. In this way, Saltburn’s intricate examination of power plays within a rigid social hierarchy bears many similarities to other contemporary class satires such as Parasite and The Favourite, though Fennell’s eccentric characters have nothing to hide but repulsive, hollow hearts. Some may mask it with lavish displays of charity, and others with a superficial subservience to their superiors, but as Saltburn reveals at the centre of its brilliant maze, this twisted game of exploitation will only be won by whoever is prepared to sink the lowest.
As journalists Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole chase down leads and uncover new pieces of evidence against the Boston Strangler, the more disturbingly apparent it becomes that this investigation alone will not bring true justice. While the list of suspects grows, so too does the list of men complicit in this repeated pattern of murdered women – though not all of them may even consider themselves guilty.
This total lack of accountability may be the most demoralising discovery of all in Boston Strangler. Multiple felons collude behind the scenes, seeking to capitalise on their crimes and escape conviction, while the police and media gloss over what they believe to be a string of unconnected murders. Incidentally, they are also providing the perfect cover for copycats looking to cover their own bloody tracks – a “convenient way out for everybody else” as Loretta notes. Matt Ruskin’s crime procedural takes several creative liberties in its true crime reconstruction, though it still poses a cutting criticism of those patriarchal institutions seeking to protect one half of society, while the other half lives in perpetual fear.
The Boston Strangler’s modus operandi is terrifyingly simple, disguising himself as a handyman, gaining easy access to the homes of older women, and murdering them in broad daylight. Stylistically speaking though, this doesn’t stop Ruskin from cloaking so much of his scenery in a David Fincher-like darkness, faintly lit by the dim lamps and fluorescent lights of empty newsrooms and dingy apartment buildings. The period-specific production design pairs beautifully with this murky ambience, transforming Ruskin’s vision of 1960s Massachusetts into an urban nightmare crawling with malice, and rooting us in a consistently strong aesthetic while the narrative occasionally falls back on far too familiar beats.
After all, it is not merely the visuals that Ruskin is borrowing from Fincher here, but Boston Strangler also wears its Zodiac influence a little too explicitly. As Keira Knightley’s tenacious reporter probes deeper into the brutal murders scattered around the city, she encounters strikingly similar threats of heavy breathing from an unknown caller, and an unsettling suspect inviting her into a shady backroom. It is rather through Ruskin’s manipulation of Hitchcockian devices that the suspense becomes palpable instead, leading into murder scenes with long takes and focusing the camera on extraneous details that visually detach us from the violence – a slow dolly forward on a blank wall for instance, or a dripping tap growing steadily louder with the sound of guttural chokes and screams.
Even when we aren’t witnessing this serial killer’s perverse handiwork, we feel a tangible paranoia spreading across America’s northeast, though one that is experienced solely by women. The lack of urgency within the police department is no surprise given its masculine demographic, and even Loretta’s efforts to break free of writing lifestyle columns and report on the murders are met with pushback from her male superiors. As such, the mirror that Ruskin holds up between both sides of the law is incredibly damning. The ferociously discreet misogyny which kills women and the institutional sexism which forces them into subservience are in service of each other, even letting one suspect confess to everything with the promise of legal immunity and the added potential for a book deal. It is only through the alliance of journalists Loretta and Jean that we find any hope at all in Boston Strangler. Its villains may be repulsive creatures, but just as slippery is the ineffective justice that keeps escaping accountability, and which simply continues to feed humanity’s most rotten, corrupt vices.
Boston Strangler is currently streaming on Disney+.
Michael Fassbender’s dead-eyed assassin goes by no name other than that which is presented in the title of The Killer. He serves no god or country, and refuses to take sides in his clients’ affairs, instead dedicating his entire mind and body to the task at hand with extraordinary patience. “Forbid empathy. Empathy is weakness. Weakness is vulnerability,” his inner voice repeats, like a mantra of short, staccato instructions inducing a state of complete detachment. “Anticipate, don’t improvise. Trust no one. This is what it takes to succeed.”
Why then does The Killer see him tread the fine line between success and failure so frequently? It is a trend that begins to unravel right from the opening scene when, after spending days staking out a Parisian hotel room from an abandoned apartment across the street, he misses his target and hits an innocent woman instead.
The opening scene of The Killer is long and drawn-out, carefully building the image of a cold-blooded killer who does not make mistakes, before picking at a loose thread in his tightly woven procedure.
The error is as shocking to us as it is the Killer himself. He is a man who has refined his craft through self-control and routine, keeping his inner voice from wandering by listening to The Smiths, and tracking his heart rate through a smartwatch. He may believe himself to be immune to human error, and yet it is exactly this which rears its head all throughout The Killer. Much like Michael Corleone claiming in The Godfather that his work is not personal but just business, there is a tension between this hitman’s voiceover and his actions. After all, as much as he would like to believe otherwise, the quest for vengeance that he sets out on shortly after this deadly slip-up is driven by nothing but his own furious desire for justice.
With such a vast emotional distance established between audience and character in The Killer, it is no wonder why David Fincher was drawn to its methodically structured screenplay. Murderous psychopaths have long been at the centre of his meticulous narratives ever since Seven, and even when his focus has drifted to less lethal subject matter in films like The Social Network, there still resides a vague hollowness in his characters. Still, The Killer delivers an icy interrogation of this mindset so distinct from any of those previous films that it is surprising Fincher hasn’t explored the psychological territory of a professional assassin sooner. Jean-Pierre Melville’s neo-noir crime films have long been an influence on Fincher’s work, and so it was only a matter of time before he remodelled the rogue hitman story of Le Samouraï into his own painstaking character study of cold-blooded perfectionism and stifled vulnerability.
The Killer is a feather in the cap for Michael Fassbender after a quiet few years, holding an intensive focus and impassive face that only occasionally breaks to reveal a shameful vulnerability.
Like Melville, Fincher is also a dedicated technician of film lighting and colour, though much preferring his desaturated golden palettes and pronounced shadows over the French auteur’s cool blue washes. The Killer is formally divided into six chapters, each set to a different city made visually distinct by their architecture and weather, and yet it is that consistency in Fincher’s gloomy, yellow aesthetic which formally unites these locations within a treacherous underworld. Whether he is stalking a taxi driver along the tropical coasts of the Dominican Republic or a fellow assassin through the snow-blanketed streets of Chicago, the Killer’s silent operations are shrouded in shadow.
Fincher’s trademark gold lighting illuminates the city streets of Paris, Chicago, New York, and the list goes on. It makes for a good number of excellent establishing shots, uniting each location within a treacherous underworld of assassins.
It is the highly controlled soundstages where Fincher is at his strongest though. The sources of his ambient lighting setups are frequently part of the scenery, with reading lamps, fluorescent battens, portable floodlights, and other fixtures decorating everything from high-end restaurants to bare apartments. It is thanks to these visible light sources that Fincher holds such a command over his darkness as well, letting us lean forward to pick out the incredible detail of his compositions without letting it entirely disappear.
Light sources frequently become part of Fincher’s mise-en-scène, casting a moody ambience across dim restaurants and hotel rooms. If cinematographer Gordon Willis is the ‘Prince of Darkness’, then Fincher is the Duke – simply one of the best lighting technicians in cinema history.
It is a level of aesthetic precision that is not unusual for Fincher, but which here makes for a perfect formal match to the Killer’s slick, patient procedures, fastidiously traced through long stretches of purely visual storytelling accompanied only by that taciturn voiceover. “If you are unable to endure boredom, this work is not for you,” he informs us, and indeed the large majority of his work does not simply involve killing, but rather travelling, tailing, infiltrating, and waiting around to spring into action. Though he claims to have no affiliations, it is in these mundane moments that his idiosyncratic habits come to light – taking the bread off his breakfast muffins, for instance, or his routine stretching.
Fincher’s rogue hitman narrative is patient and methodical. This is not John Wick, constantly moving from one fight to the next – the Killer spends time exercising, waiting, stalking, and infiltrating, approaching every action with absolute precision.
After years of working in franchises and briefly taking a hiatus from acting altogether, Fassbender’s return to auteur collaborations is very welcome here, applying an intensive focus to every action and thereby compelling us to do the same in our observations. Conversely though, the flashes of anger and panic that cross his impassive face whenever he is faced with unexpected diversions also develop a growing sense of unease, building to a violent climax when he is ambushed by a brutish hitman with multiple advantages over him.
Fassbender’s unblinking Killer may have a quick mind and agile body on his side, but he is not a machine, flawlessly executing plans with pinpoint accuracy. He is prone to errors, riddled with weaknesses, and perhaps even capable of the empathy he so frequently derides. Whether or not he can accept this, he cannot simply will his imagined supremacy into existence by repeating the same empty affirmations. This wannabe psychopath does not belong among the few who are truly void of emotion, but among the many who willingly fall victim to it, vulnerable to an innate humanity that limits perfectionism, yet equally expands our self-understanding.
Fassbender is consistently isolated in Fincher’s compositions, mostly as a lone wolf, though here framed in a portrait of melancholy solitude.
The Osage Nation had already suffered one great upheaval in the 19th century when the United States government forced them to relocate from Kansas to Oklahoma, cutting them off from their historical and cultural roots. Given the discovery of abundant oil in their new territory almost immediately after the funerial burial of a ceremonial pipe though, it appears as if the spiritual forces of nature have come to deliver them from their tribulations, sending manna from heaven that guarantees them a prosperous future. From their great loss springs new life, but while “the chosen people of chance” dance in slow-motion beneath the gushing well of newfound riches, the colonial powers that be are not so ready to let this opportunity slip through their fingers.
Nature delivers the Osage people from their persecution, raining down manna from heaven. The slow-motion dance is joyous, revelling in newfound riches that bring a new kind of danger.
Just as Martin Scorsese seems to have had his final say on the gangster genre with The Irishman, a new spate of violent assassinations and underground conspiracies emerge in 1920s Oklahoma, though the victims in Killers of the Flower Moon are not rival mobs or compromised associates. The primary orchestrator of this plot is William King Hale, a wealthy rancher who purports to be a good friend to the Osage people, speaks their language, and even offers a reward to whomever comes forward with information regarding their senseless murders. He has the untouchable evil of Noah Cross from Chinatown, and yet Robert de Niro applies a genteel Southern charm to this chilling façade of warmth, consequently giving his best performance in almost thirty years.
Each murder is a brutal interruption of the narrative’s easy pacing – cold, dispassionate, often played out in wide shots. Victims are lulled into a false sense of security before being gunned down, following a pattern set in Scorsese’s previous gangster films.
From the perspective of the FBI agents coming to investigate these murders, this narrative could have very easily been a murder mystery, and indeed the early drafts of Scorsese and Eric Roth’s script were close to following this route. As it is, Killers of the Flower Moon does not play this game for very long, explicitly revealing which men have been killing the Osage people, and under whose orders.
At the centre of Hale’s plot as well is a cross-cultural marriage intended to grant him a large portion of the local wealth, and his nephew Ernest Burkhart is perfectly positioned in this matter. There is no doubt his budding romance with Osage woman Mollie Kyle is at least partly genuine, but there are few characters here as stupidly craven and weak-willed as him. He is a pawn in his uncle’s long game, blowing up his neighbour’s home and poisoning Mollie through her insulin shots, and yet somehow still finding the audacity to feel guilt over his despicable actions as he obediently carries them out.
Lily Gladstone might walk away with the best performance of the film, even while going up against acting titans Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert de Niro. She is softly spoken, resilient, and intellectual – but also trusting to a fault.
This is the first time since This Boy’s Life in 1993 that Leonardo DiCaprio has starred opposite de Niro, and though there is a palpable screen chemistry between the two defining actors of their generations, Lily Gladstone stands toe-to-toe with them as the unfalteringly resilient Mollie. Having made a small name for herself in Kelly Reichardt’s indie dramas over the past few years, she now brings her softly spoken yet self-assured presence to a larger canvas, letting those moments where grief and fury break through her usually composed demeanour land with absolute devastation. Even as she pursues justice for her people, there is little that can sway her from her husband’s side, convincing herself that he may be the only innocent white American in the entire county. After all, how could anyone keep such a dangerous lie from their own family for so many years?
De Niro gives his best performance since the 90s as the chilling William King Hale, simultaneously befriending and murdering the people of the Osage nation.He’s not Michael Chapman or Michael Ballhaus, but cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto is on a solid run here collaborating with Scorsese, following up The Irishman with another impressive visual work of sprawling significance.
Just as the enormous running time of The Irishman sinks in the sad weight of a former hitman’s hollow life, the fact that the crimes depicted in Killers of the Flower Moon continued for so long without any legal ramifications is made all the more despairing by its sprawling scope. With a pace that thoroughly teases out each side character and subplot, Scorsese fully realises the enormous depth of this divided community, and further brings its setting to life through his authentic production design and sweeping camerawork.
Scorsese’s long shots are a marvel in Killers of the Flower Moon, especially using the oil fields to brilliant effect as icons of industry and capitalism.The high angle establishing shots of these train stations and rural settlements feel very influenced by Sergio Leone, carrying great historical weight and detail.
There is a touch of Sergio Leone in these dynamic long shots, craning up above train stations, rural settlements, and oil fields to reveal the marks of white colonisers seeking to capitalise on the Osage people’s wealth, but Scorsese does not relinquish his own visual style so easily either. In one long take, he tracks his camera through a busy house hosting a party of Native Americans, and later when a ranch burns to the ground he envelops us in Ernest’s guilt-ridden fever dream, distorting silhouettes of men trying to fight the fire through its ethereal, orange haze. Hale and his men have unleashed hell on Earth, and there is little salvation to be found in this biblical blaze, embodying a fast-spreading, bitter derangement that sees a self-loathing Ernest drop a small dose of Mollie’s poison into his own whiskey. Conversely, Scorsese also draws on the animalistic iconography of Native American spiritualism, twice over haunting those targeted by Hale’s men with owls – an omen of death in many tribes.
One of the great scenes of Killers of the Flower Moon sinks us into a hellish fever dream as the land lights on fire, melding images of destruction, guilt, and sickness through Thelma Schoonmaker’s editing.
In moments like these, Killers of the Flower Moon shifts away from the impression of factualism and reveals the inherent subjectivity that comes with dramatising history. Composer Robbie Robertson’s fusion of bluesy guitar riffs, humming vocals, and traditional pipes accentuates this point in its anachronistic delirium, and sadly marks his final film score before his passing earlier this year. Its formal consistency is unfortunately not a feature shared by the silent newsreel interludes that almost completely drop off after the first half hour, or the fourth-wall shattering epilogue that lacks any kind of setup. In moments like these, Scorsese’s film reveals itself to be a slightly more uneven work than The Irishman, angling at some critical point about reconstructing the past through storytelling, but never quite unifying it with the broader narrative.
As far as historical epics go though, Killers of the Flower Moon does not waste its length, and Scorsese’s reflections on the racial tensions of 1920s Oklahoma are never oversimplified. White man’s fetishisation of Indigenous people’s ethnic purity and skin colour is often written into the subtext of their creepy exchanges, and the Native American symbol of abundance represented in the titular ‘Flower Moon’ is effectively tarnished by the timing of Hale’s genocide.
The cutaways to silent newsreels and old photos would have been a great formal motif had they been carried through more consistently. As it is, they drop off in consistency after the first half hour.The flower moon is a symbol of growth and prosperity in Native American culture, and one that is totally corrupted by white men.
This is a two-faced villainy bred not from ignorance, but from an intimate knowledge of one’s economic rivals, and the capitalistic belief that only the ruthless deserve to prosper. Not even family ties will stand in the way of Hale’s accumulating wealth, and the justice eventually delivered by America’s legal system is only a half-hearted indictment of the perpetrators accountable when their web of lies begins to unravel. For once, the existential despair that Scorsese leaves us with does not hang solely on his criminal characters and their catastrophic life choices. In the end, Killers of the Flower Moon is just as much a wistful lament for the exploitation of America’s Indigenous people, and the trust many of them placed in allies with warm smiles and greedy hearts.
Killers of the Flower Moon is currently playing in theatres, and will soon be streaming on Apple TV Plus.
