Category: Film Review

The Passenger (1975)

Michelangelo Antonioni | 2hr 6min

Television journalist David Locke doesn’t know much about fellow hotel guest Robertson, but based on their limited conversations, it appears that he is joyfully liberated from the burdensome responsibilities that so many carry in modern society. “No family, no friends. Just a few commitments,” the mysterious Englishman shares in their first meeting. “I take life as it comes.” Now as Locke finds his new friend’s body lying cold in his room, he does what any man seeking to escape an unfaithful wife and unsatisfying job would do. This is his opportunity to make a clean break from his dull, disappointing life, reporting the death as his own and adopting Robertson’s identity.

In this moment, Michelangelo Antonioni plays a familiar trick of discontinuity that he had previously experimented with in L’Eclisse and Blow-Up, though in The Passenger it is his camera movement rather than editing which shifts our perception of reality. As Locke forges a new passport, an audiotape recording of his and Robertson’s first meeting plays over the top, and we slowly pan towards the balcony where the voiceovers imperceptibly transition into a live flashback. When their discussion begins to wrap up, Antonioni similarly drifts the camera across the room back into the present day, effectively eroding the boundaries of time and identity which have long been missing in Locke’s life. Perhaps becoming an entirely different person is the key to finding that purpose he has never known, our protagonist resolves, and thus he sets out on a globetrotting journey meeting all of Robertson’s scheduled engagements.

Locke stares down at the dead man whose identity he wishes to claim, resolving to start a new life.
Camera movement plays an unusually important role for Antonioni, erasing boundaries between past and present as it floats into this flashback…
…and then back to the present.

The Passenger’s scope is immense, spanning multiple countries across Europe and Africa which each hold some sort of clue to Robertson’s actual identity. This narrative might conceivably sound like a mix between Alfred Hitchcock and The Talented Mr. Ripley, though Antonioni is not so concerned with the meticulous plotting of its mystery, instead framing Locke as a man aimlessly wandering both a literal and figurative desert. This is where we meet him after all, not long before he is abandoned by his guides and gets his Land Rover stuck in a dune. He can scream at the sky all he likes, but that simply drives him to the point of exhaustion, collapsing him against the car as Antonioni’s camera despairingly pans across the Sahara’s vast, flat expanse.

Locke wanders a literal and figurative desert, searching for purpose in a world that simply drives him to exhaustion.

There are no manmade structures bearing down on Locke in this environment, and no busy crowds to stifle his expressions of anguish. Even when Antonioni does introduce magnificent architectural marvels into his mise-en-scène though, these aren’t the giant, oppressive monuments of his previous films, subjugating characters to a harsh, modern civilisation. Locke is not dominated by his surroundings, but lost in them, drifting through scenes set against vast backdrops of apartment buildings, cultural landmarks, and abstract public artworks. Somewhat ironically, this is also the sort of freedom that he relishes, every so often taking the time to appreciate this newfound independence. Leaning out of a cable car spanning a channel of water, he stretches his arms wide open, and he almost seems to fly as an overhead shot revels in his liberation.

One cinema’s great overhead shots as Nicholson leans out of a cable car, and for a brief moment seems to fly across the water.
Architectural marvels impose bold shapes and patterns on Locke’s environment.

Negative space is key to Antonioni’s compositions here, underscoring the emptiness which encompasses both urban and rural locations, though he often fills them in with textures that project Locke’s mental state onto the world. His outfit almost blends in with the white-washed plaster walls and green shrubs of a rustic Spanish settlement, and when he begins to realise that his wife Rachel has sent a television producer to track him down, his fragmented psyche manifests in a mosaic sculpture decorated with jagged ceramic shards.

Matching colours between Locke’s costume and surroundings, both bleeding into each other.
Negative space filled with gorgeous textures, underscoring the emptiness which encompasses our protagonist at every turn.
Locke’s fragmented psyche manifests in this mosaic sculpture decorated with jagged ceramic shards.

Without any clear boundaries defining these eclectic settings, the tension between Locke’s desire for both freedom and purpose sits at the heart of his inner conflict. To unite the two, he must effectively design his own labyrinth of winding paths and dead ends – and now that he has officially taken Robertson’s identity, what better artefact is there to arbitrarily craft it from than the dead man’s diary? Not even he knows what this itinerary might lead to, though it is surely more enticing a prospect than returning to the wife, house, and job that he has grown so disillusioned with.

Antonioni traps Nicholson in a modern labyrinth of winding paths and dead ends.
Modern structures rise up from concrete, forming the basis of Antonioni’s long shots and world building.

Jack Nicholson is sublime in his navigation of this quest, turning in his bombastic screen persona for a subdued uncertainty that pairs nicely with Maria Schneider’s gentle encouragement, spurring him on as a loyal companion. With no name given to her other than the Girl, her identity is kept vague enough to become whatever Locke needs in any given moment. It is fitting that he should introduce her as an architecture student as well, displaying an intellectual appreciation and understanding of their environments, even if she can’t always directly assist him. He alone must be the one to pave his path forward, discovering what it means to a live a life on his own terms.

The danger that comes with this unfettered independence is simply a part of the deal, Locke reasons, but there are certainly caveats here he would rather dismiss. When he learns of Robertson’s profession as a black-market arms dealer, he does not retreat to the comfortable confinements of his old life, but instead maintains the belief that he can keep outrunning trouble before it catches up to him. With both Rachel and a militant guerrilla movement on his tail though, each believing they are looking for Robertson, it is evident that the consequences of his decisions are inevitable – and perhaps there is a subtle recognition of this in his final monologue to the Girl as they lay down together in a rural Spanish hotel.

It is fitting that Locke’s love interest should be an architecture student, their first meeting taking place in this grand cathedral loaded with history and culture.

In the story Locke tells, the joy that a blind man found in regaining his sight was quickly dashed upon realising that “the world was much poorer than he imagined.” It doesn’t take a great imagination to recognise him framing himself in this allegory of existential suffering. The darkness that once consumed them both at least concealed the truth of life’s ugliness, and in the blind man’s case, suicide was tragically the only escape.

This is not the end that Locke is destined for in the final minutes of The Passenger, though his listless resignation to an early grave certainly aligns their respective deaths. The 7-minute long take which skirts around the edges of this incident formally caps off the wandering camerawork that has pervaded the film, and perhaps even stakes its claim as the strongest single shot of Antonioni’s career, divorcing us from Locke’s perspective as he lays down in his hotel room. With only his legs in frame, we peer across the bed at the window grills, opening onto the bright, dusty courtyard where each plot thread converges at once.

A 7-minute long take, and perhaps the finest shot of Antonioni’s career, beginning with a slow creep forward past Locke in his hotel.
The camera approaches the window grills and slyly slips through, seemingly defying the laws of physics.
The camera floats around the dusty courtyard as narrative threads collide.

As the Girl lingers in hesitation over whether to leave, the African assassin who has been right behind Locke for some time arrives, and Rachel arrives in a police car a couple of minutes later. Drifting forward ever so slightly, Antonioni’s camera frames everything perfectly between the iron bars, before it squeezes through the narrow opening and emerges outside. Antonioni’s nifty manipulation of the set in this moment lifts us beyond Locke’s subjective perspective, effectively defying physics as we take on the role of an invisible, neutral observer wandering the scene, and patiently wait for Locke’s inevitable collision with his pursuers.

Like our protagonist, we are but passengers on this journey, fluidly taking the point-of-view of whatever character we are positioned to identify with. There is an entire world beyond Locke’s solipsistic journey, but only now as the camera circles back on the building to look through the window from the other side do we view him within alternative contexts that he was blind to. Little did he realise when stealing Robertson’s identity that he was also adopting his fated demise, and the aftermath as well reveals a complicated legacy in his wake. “Do you recognise him?” the police officer asks Rachel, whose response in finding her lifeless husband rather than Robertson is layered with profound disbelief.

“I never knew him.”

The camera turns back around to look in at the hotel room from the outside, revealing Locke’s body as his wife arrives a few minutes too late.

Given the identical position of Locke’s body from when we last saw it, we can infer that there was little struggle when the assassin entered the room. That The Passenger should conclude not with this though, but rather a far simpler shot of the Girl departing the hotel at dusk only underscores his total irrelevance in a world that keeps moving on, fading his strange, fruitless bolt for freedom into the milieu. Antonioni does not seek to overwhelm us with grief here – that would be far too straightforward in its clear distinction between life and death. Like Locke, we must confront the desolate, senseless banality of the emptiness, and continue living with it long past his consciousness is granted a merciful release.

The Passenger is not currently streaming in Australia.

Smile 2 (2024)

Parker Finn | 2hr 12min

There is always the risk when turning a standalone horror film into a series that the core concept quickly wears thin, especially when such a firm narrative template has already been set. Smile 2 does not quite diverge from its predecessor’s steady, downward slide into tortured psychosis, and yet Parker Finn’s ambition has nevertheless grown, pushing his demonic metaphor for trauma into the realm of substance abuse and celebrity.

Pop star Skye Riley is the target of the smile curse this time around, suffering horrific visions throughout the week leading up to her comeback tour, which she rests her hopes for public redemption upon. It has been one year since her struggle with drugs led to the death of her boyfriend in a violent car accident, and although she has been on a path to recovery, bad habits are reemerging in the form of painkiller dependency and compulsive hair-pulling. It is initially easy to brush off her drug dealer Lewis’ erratic behaviour as a bad trip too, but after witnessing his bloody suicide via a gym weight to the face, it gradually becomes clear that the entity which haunted him is now threatening to send her reeling back into the dark, terrifying recesses of her mind.

We can see from the outset that Finn is swinging even harder stylistically here, as an 8-minute long take tracking police officer Joel’s attempt to deal with the curse picks up where the first film ended. We are hitched entirely to his distorted perspective, briefly passing by a hallucination of Rose’s burning body before entering a drug den where he intends to pass off the affliction. Every blunder here is heightened by the urgency of Finn’s camerawork, and when we finally make the leap to Skye’s point-of-view in the main storyline, these uneasy visual stylings barely let up. Close-ups narrow in tightly on Naomi Scott’s panicked expressions and flashbacks slice through in sharp cutaways, though even more chilling are their hallucinatory ingresses into Skye’s everyday life, stalking her wherever she goes with those stretched, sinister smiles.

This sequel’s shift to New York as the setting only adds to the malaise as well, flooding moody interiors with ambient lighting and turning the iconic cityscape into the subject of recurring, upside-down tracking shots. Although Skye is surrounded by people here, Finn is constantly emphasising her loneliness among crowds, leaving very few people she can turn to who don’t brush off her meltdowns as delusional relapses. Clearly the supernatural parasite knows how to play on this emotional isolation to feed on her suffering, taking the form of an obsessive fan severely overstepping boundaries, and later a troupe of grotesque, twisted dancers crawling in sync through her apartment.

Being the second film in the series, Smile 2 is also more liberated from the need for exposition, keeping the lore to a minimum while moving this story along through visual inferences and discomforting ambiguity. As Skye’s mental state rapidly declines, we begin to see the dysfunctional version of her that not only hit rock bottom a year ago, but which also claims a special place in her nightmares. That the smile entity chooses this as its most hostile form speaks deeply to her self-loathing, and perhaps at the root of her torment, it is this which keeps her from breaking free of its ruinous cycles.

Very gradually, reality slips from between Skye’s fingers, and Finn thrillingly paves the way to an apocalyptic finale which raises the stakes for a promising sequel. To relive one’s deep-rooted, psychological trauma is a frightening prospect on its own, and in Smile 2, he once again proves his ability to immerse us in that disorientating, self-sabotaging mindset. For it to be trivialised and gawked at on the world stage, however – that may be enough to shatter even the most ascendant of celebrities.

Smile 2 is currently playing in theatres.

Ivan the Terrible (1944-46)

Sergei Eisenstein | 2 Parts (1hr 40min, 1hr 26min)

So rapturous was the reception that Ivan the Terrible, Part I received from Joseph Stalin, it is hard to blame Sergei Eisenstein for recklessly pushing the boundaries of state censorship in its sequel. Both films are mirrors of each other – the first revealing an idealistic ambition in the young Ivan IV which Part II withers into paranoid cruelty, and together painting a vivid portrait of Eisenstein’s own shifting relationship with the Soviet Union. This was no longer the filmmaker who sought to reflect revolutionary principles in his experimental montage theory, but rather a disillusioned artist simultaneously defying and reluctantly cooperating with Stalin’s regime. It is a little ironic that the Communist dictator should see so much of him himself in the first Tsar of Russia, yet Eisenstein nevertheless took the metaphor as a creative challenge, risking his life and liberty to compose a vision of oppressive tyranny that stands true across centuries.

The casting of Nikolay Cherkasov as the imposing central figure here is particularly fascinating given his previous role in Alexander Nevsky, where he portrayed the titular 13th-century Prince of Novgorod. As a young, newly-coronated Ivan proudly declares Moscow a “Third Rome,” his eyes glisten with tears and hope, sentimentalising a vision of Russia’s future which doesn’t sound so different from Nevsky’s own utopian promise after vanquishing the Teutonic Knights.

Meticulous attention to detail in Eisenstein’s staging – this could very well be one of those images painted on the walls surrounding the young Tsar at his coronation, immortalised in history.

This is the ruler that Stalin admires, yet who is never viewed in such a pure light again after this moment, soon developing a distinctively hunched posture and angular facial features that become living extensions of Eisenstein’s majestic production design. Ivan’s bushy eyebrows, pointed beard, and crooked nose are virtually made for close-ups, and when his distinctive profile is cast in giant shadows upon the walls, he becomes a dark, physical embodiment of 16th century Russia’s formidable spirit.

An extraordinary performance from Nikolay Cherkasov, physically transforming into a hunched, crooked tyrant.
Meticulous framing in Eisenstein’s deep focus, imposing Ivan’s visage upon the Russian people.
An incredibly recognisable profile, cast against walls in darkened shadows.

Only the Kremlin’s lavish interiors can match his awe-inspiring majesty with religious iconography painted across arches and columns, reliefs carved from its stonework, and collectively resting the Tsar’s legacy upon centuries of culture and history. Eisenstein’s rich depth of field especially flourishes here, sinking the masses to the bottom of frames that revel in the overhead architecture, and symmetrically positioning Ivan at their centre. These vast, intricate halls of power may very well mark Eisenstein’s greatest achievement in mise-en-scene, borrowing heavily from F.W. Murnau’s expressionistic imagery to cloak characters in chiaroscuro lighting, and underscoring their constant psychological tension between good and evil.

Remarkable achievements in production design, sinking his actors to the bottom of the frame to bask in the murals painted all across these halls and arches.
Wonderful symmetry through framing, blocking, and production design, projecting power and control.
In the absence of formally innovative editing, Eisenstein turns his focus to composing magnificent shots like these through lighting and staging, marking Ivan the Terrible as his most beautiful work to date.

It is evident here that Eisenstein is far more than just an editor, though he nevertheless showcases those talents as well in the explosive siege of Kazan, where Ivan and his sprawling armies claim a stunning victory against the Khanate. As soldiers wait patiently upon hillsides with their cannons and banners, sappers furiously dig tunnels beneath the walled city to plant gunpowder, and Eisenstein clearly relishes the practical effects granted by his enormous budget when the time comes to blast brick, mortar, and smoke into the air. Rather than wielding his editing for intellectual purposes, here he dedicates it purely to the vast scale of his action, building Ivan’s grand authority upon the conquest of those who dare oppose his rule.

Eisenstein uses the natural terrain to block huge crowds of extras across hills, stretching their formations deep into the background.
Eisenstein proves he still has his knack for action editing, lingering on the burning fuse before unleashing a series of spectacular explosions around the city walls.

For the most part though, the greatest political threats to the Tsar are located within his own ranks, as conspirators plot to install his simple-minded cousin Vladimir as Russia’s true sovereign. The political intrigue carries a Shakespearean gravity to it, modelling Ivan after the likes of Macbeth or Richard III, and watching his games of manipulation unfold with treacherous delight. When he falls deathly ill and names his son Dmitri as heir to the throne, his aunt Yefrosinya is quick to whisper into the embittered Prince Kurbsky’s ear, perniciously encouraging him to announce her son Vladimir as the rightful successor instead. Kurbsky is smart to sniff out Ivan’s test of his loyalty here, as almost immediately after carrying out his wishes, the recovered Tsar emerges from his chambers and rewards his allegiance.

Shakespearean power struggles, treachery, and intrigue – perhaps Eisenstein’s strongest pure narrative to date.

Yefrosinya, on the other hand, is not so restrained. Though she prefers to pull strings from the shadows, she isn’t above getting her hands dirty, going so far as to weaken Ivan’s rule by poisoning his wife Anastasia. Later when he makes an enemy of Metropolitan Philip by overruling his religious authority, Yefrosinya again leaps on the opportunity to stir dissent among his followers, only this time rallying them behind an assassination plot that targets Ivan himself.

The murder is to take place after a banquet and theatrical performance, where Ivan the Terrible suddenly departs from the black-and-white photography which has dominated Eisenstein’s career thus far and catches aflame with hellish red hues. This vibrant burst of colour is a shock to the senses, accompanying Ivan’s final and perhaps most despicable act. Having plied Vladimir with alcohol and extracted the conspiracy from his lips, he mockingly dresses him in his own royal regalia, and lets him lead his entourage to the cathedral in prayer. Black, hooded figures trail behind Vladimir like spectres of death, and from the shadows the killer pounces, sinking his dagger into the flesh of the disguised prince.

An avant-garde eruption of blazing red hues as Ivan prepares to commit his most despicable act yet – a shock to our senses.
Shadows, candles, and hooded figures as Ivan’s plan is seen through to fruition, making for an outstanding visual and dramatic climax.

Yefrosinya’s celebration is critically premature. “The Tsar is dead!” she joyfully proclaims, before recognising the tragic turn of events which has befallen her son. Ivan cares so little for these traitors, he does not even bother to have them executed. After all, they are the ones who killed his worst enemy, and who have effectively destroyed themselves in the process.

With Ivan’s greatest threats in Moscow eradicated, the time has thus come for him to turn his attention to those on the outside – yet it is at this tantalising climax that we are left wondering what a third part to Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible trilogy might have looked like. Stalin’s fury at Part II’s tyrannical depiction of the Tsar not only kept the sequel from being released until 1958, but immediately ended production on Part III, destroying all but a single fragment of its footage. Even without completion though, the legacy of this truncated series is nevertheless secured in Eisenstein’s daring ambition. Through bold, inflammatory strokes, waves of Russian despotism are painted out in striking detail, reaching across centuries to impose familiar cruelties on this nation’s long-afflicted people.

Ivan the Terrible is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Two English Girls (1971)

François Truffaut | 2hr 10min

The first time François Truffaut adapted the young adult literature of Henri-Pierre Roché on film, he shook up the entire artform with Jules and Jim, telling the story of two male friends who fall for the same woman. When he directed Two English Girls nine years later, the love triangle which forms between aspiring French writer Claude and English sisters Muriel and Ann bore extraordinarily close resemblance to its gender-swapped counterpart, though it is evident that this is no accident. Much like Roché himself, Claude distils the romantic experiences of his youth into a semi-autobiographic novel pointedly titled ‘Jerome and Julien’, trying to heal his broken heart through artistic self-expression.

An incredible accomplishment of mise-en-scène for Truffaut, working wonders with the colours and textures of 1900s Europe.

Once again, Truffaut makes Roché’s work his own in Two English Girls, casting himself as our omniscient narrator. Through this voiceover he lifts passages directly from the source material, imbuing Two English Girls with a literary quality that probes the interior thoughts of his characters, and condensing lengthy conversations into prosaic summaries. Particularly in the early days of Claude and the Brown sisters’ burgeoning friendship, the rhetoric devices that Truffaut attaches to their leisurely adventures tenderly defines each individual in relation to the others, while uniting them as a whole under self-reflective similes.

“They stopped to gaze at a waterfall. They agreed that the upper smooth falls were like Ann, the turbulent splashes were like Claude, and the calm pool beneath like Muriel.”

Truffaut’s voiceover is not alone though, as letters and diary entries written by our three leads are often expressed in this pensive form too, while on a couple of occasions he even cuts to them directly addressing the camera. “Your ironic raised eyebrow, your face when you laugh, are etched inside me,” Claude romantically writes with Muriel on his mind.

“Each day is a new step. I imagine you as my wife, raising a child in our home. This vision enthrals me.”

The ocean and house become scenic backdrops from high angles, basking in the green, rugged coast of Wales.

These days spent in the Browns’ seaside cottage atop the craggy, green cliffs of Wales may be the most joyful of their lives, held up as a vision of youthful bliss by Néstor Almendros’ ravishing cinematography. Truffaut often frames their interactions outside the house from a high angle, turning the ocean into a serene backdrop, and the lush gardens into a fertile paradise. There, Ann finds immense inspiration for her oil paintings, while Muriel is given the time and space to soothe her damaged eyes. The 1900s period décor that adorns the interiors here are equally handsome, especially in Truffaut’s use of bright blue, mottled wallpaper that sets an oceanic contrast against the harsh red walls of Claude’s home back in France.

Oceanic blue wallpaper in Wales, offering a soothing respite from Paris.
Blazing red backdrops at Claude’s home in France – locations defined by colour palettes.

With both Muriel and Claude’s mothers objecting to their proposed matrimony, Paris is where he inevitably returns, abiding by their deal that the two lovers may marry if they are able to spend a year apart from each other. While Muriel yearns for her fiancé back home though, it unfortunately doesn’t take long for Claude to fall into bohemian circles and promiscuous affairs, eventually driving him to eschew all romantic commitments so that he may focus on his career as a writer.

This might almost end their connection altogether were it not for Ann’s visit to Paris some time later as a successful painter, thus beginning a new relationship – at least until she heads off to Persia with another man. Over the following years, the two sisters’ irregular visits to the French city keep Claude in a constant state of turbulence, cycling between the outgoing, adventurous Ann and the quiet, sensitive Muriel.

Quaint iris transitions close out chapters in these characters lives, calling back to silent cinema.
Gentle long dissolves between scenes, bringing a lyrical quality to Truffaut’s storytelling.

Though Two English Girls spans almost a decade of these characters’ lives, Truffaut does not rush his narrative, but much rather prefers to savour each individual encounter before skipping ahead in time. In the absence of literary chapters, his elliptical editing frequently bridges scenes in gentle fades to black, while closing out episodes in their lives with iris transitions calling back to cinema’s silent era. The playful energy that these bring is distinctly set apart from the melodramas of Truffaut’s classical Hollywood precursors, especially given his light-hearted indulgence in his characters’ sexual exploits, though he has certainly at least taken on their influence in his picturesque recreation of 1900s Europe.

Ann’s art studio is a bohemian mess of paintings, sculptures, and art supplies laying around the room.
Claude and Ann consummate their relationship during a brief escape to a lakeside cabin – a picturesque, nostalgic paradise.

Ann’s art studio which she sets up in Paris is a highlight of bohemian production design, its rough sketches, relief sculptures, and messy array of supplies curiously studied by Truffaut’s floating camera, while the cabin that she and Claude stay in by a lake makes a gorgeous setting for the consummation of their relationship. Elsewhere, Muriel’s most beautiful scenes keep her at a lonely distance, seeing her write broken-hearted diary entries from behind a rain-glazed window and super-imposing her face over passing country views outside a train. The love that Claude holds for both women cannot be compared, though Truffaut elevates them equally in his protagonist’s eyes, even as their desires and insecurities frequently escape his efforts to keep one or the other by his side.

Muriel is kept at a lonely distance behind rain-glazed windows as she writes broken-hearted diary entries.
Muriel reads her letter to Claude, her face superimposed against the passing countryside view from a train as Truffaut visually infuses her monologue with passion and vigour.

That Claude is still single fifteen years later in the epilogue of Two English Girls reveals just how deeply both women scarred his heart, with an ailing Ann eventually passing away and Muriel deciding that he could never be a father to her children. “We only recognise happiness in hindsight,” she once wrote, and now as he observes a group of young English girls playing in Paris, it is apparent that these words have stuck in his mind. Perhaps if there is one who bears resemblance to Muriel, then it could be her daughter, returning a trace of her mother and aunt’s essence to the streets of their youth. As far as Truffaut is concerned though, these are simply the musings of a middle-aged man who only chased after real love when it was too late, now left to mourn the memories of two beautiful women who disappeared with his heart into the ether.

Truffaut leaves us on an ambiguous note, denying the resolution that Claude seeks as he wonders if a remnant of his treasured memories still lingers somewhere in the world.

Two English Girls is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and is available to purchase from Amazon.

Disclaimer (2024)

Alfonso Cuarón | 7 episodes (45 – 55 minutes)

When journalist Catherine Ravenscroft first receives a mysterious novel called The Perfect Stranger in the mail, she is struck by the disclaimer – “Any resemblance to persons living or dead is not a coincidence.” The deeper she delves into the pages too, the clearer these resemblances become, and the revelations are deeply mortifying. Secrets she believed were buried deep in her past have been immortalised in ink for the world to see, and she immediately understands the threat it poses to every aspect of her stable, successful life.

This is only the start of widower Stephen Brigstocke’s plans for revenge though. The Perfect Stranger was written by his late wife Nancy, inspired by the grief she and Stephen both felt over the passing of their son Jonathan twenty years ago while he was travelling in Italy. They do not have a lot of information to go off, but after discovering erotic photographs of Catherine taken the night before his death, it doesn’t take long for them to reconstruct their version of events. To distil them into literary form, some truths may need to be twisted a little – but what good storyteller doesn’t smooth over such trivialities for the sake of a greater point?

Alfonso Cuarón’s unravels these layers with great patience in Disclaimer, keeping us from the reality of Jonathan and Catherine’s relationship until the final episode, yet the subjectivity of such accounts is woven into the series’ structure from the start. Two duelling voiceovers are established here – Jonathan’s speaking in first person, suggesting an inability to move on through its past tense reflections, and Catherine’s running an internal monologue via an omniscient, second person narrator. It lays bare the deepest thoughts of everyone in her family, but its direct, reproachful tone refers to her alone as “you”, as if framing her at the centre of a novel – which of course she very much is.

There is a third perspective here too, though one which takes the form of flashbacks rather than narration. This account belongs to the book itself, and by extension Nancy, who in her grief has desperately tried to make sense of her son’s profoundly unfair death. Cuarón wields excellent control over his non-linear storytelling to build intrigue here, particularly when it comes to the younger Catherine’s seduction of a stammering Jonathan and the provocative development of their holiday fling. With her husband Robert away on business, leaving her to care for their 5-year-old son Nicholas alone, this younger, unexperienced man seems like the perfect opportunity to escape the confines of marriage and motherhood.

At least, this is the version of Catherine that Nancy would like her readers to believe. As if to position us as observers looking through a peephole, Disclaimer uses iris transitions to formally bookend these flashbacks, effectively sectioning off this subjective rendering of events within their own idyllic bubble. In true Cuarón style, the camera romantically floats around Catherine and Jonathan’s interactions with tantalising intrigue, and grows particularly intimate when she finally ensnares him in her hotel room. Conversely, the cold detachment of his lingering shots in the present-day scenes underscore Stephen’s schemes and Catherine’s torment with a nervous tension, grimly witnessing the emotional isolation they have caused each other.

That Disclaimer possesses a greater command of cinematic language than most television series does not mean that it lives up to Cuarón’s own established standard though. It is far from the towering visual accomplishments that are Roma or Children of Men, and that it was shot by two of our greatest working cinematographers, Bruno Delbonnel and Emmanuel Lubezki, makes this all the more disappointing. Formal inconsistencies are infrequently scattered about, with episode 1 introducing flashes of lilac lighting that never appear again, and the final episode erratically falling into a zoom-heavy documentary style for a single scene.

Perhaps these flaws comes down to the challenge of sustaining such ambition over seven hours, though this then prompts the question of whether a series was even the right format for Cuarón’s story, particularly given the lagging pace of episodes 5 and 6. From there, the final stages of Stephen’s devilish sabotage and Catherine’s desperate attempts to salvage some dignity take the spotlight, carefully setting up the climactic collision of both characters in the finale.

Kevin Kline and Cate Blanchett’s performances are no doubt the highlight here, respectively capturing the roguish nihilism of a grieving misanthrope and the gut-wrenching trauma of a woman escaping his torment, though truthfully there is barely a weak link in Cuarón’s cast. Sacha Baron Cohen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Leila George are all given their moments to shine, while Lesley Manville in particular works wonders with her limited screen time as Nancy, subtly hinting at a bitter jealousy that transcends mere vindictiveness. As we follow the tangled threads of perspectives, not only are we led to challenge her biased presentation of Catherine and Jonathan’s characters, but Stephen too must question the foundation of his retribution – the conviction that his seemingly happy family held no responsibility for its own destruction.

After all, were those erotic photographs not just incomplete fragments of reality? And what is The Perfect Stranger if not Nancy’s disingenuous attempt to piece them together, assembling whatever pattern affirms her own assumptions? When Catherine finally gets a chance to speak about the events leading up to Jonathan’s death, her recollection is astonishing in its uncomfortably vivid detail, seeping through the flashback’s muffled sound design and visceral camerawork. Perhaps even more importantly though, it is also a complete shock to the beliefs we hold about virtually every single character, especially seeing Catherine’s implicating narrator latch on to another as they similarly face the inconceivability of their own redemption.

“Nothing can purify you. Nothing can absolve you. Ahead of you there’s nothing.”

What Cuarón leaves us with is more than just a lesson on the confounding subjectivity of storytelling. Disclaimer is a testament to the influential power of words themselves, granting us the ability to win sympathies, destroy lives, and even rewrite our own memories. There is little that can take them back once they have been put down in ink. Just as troubling as the guilt for what we have done is the shame over what we have said – and perhaps for those claiming to be passive witnesses in the matter, who we believed.

Disclaimer is currently streaming on Apple TV Plus.

Rebel Ridge (2024)

Jeremy Saulnier | 2hr 11min

When Marine Corps veteran Terry returns to the Louisiana police station where the $36,000 intended for his cousin’s bail has been confiscated, Chief Sandy Burnne and his colleagues are not prepared for the hell about to be unleashed on them. Jeremy Saulnier’s narrative has barely raised the heat past a gentle simmer up until now, matching Aaron Pierre’s cool performance with an equally composed pacing, though it is only matter of time before that patience wears thin. The police officers’ assumption that he lacks combat experience simply because he never served overseas during his military career is a dire mistake. Like so many action heroes of cinema history, Terry proves himself more than capable, using his unique set of skills and tactical wits to take down an entire squad.

Still, vengeance does not arrive through bloody carnage for this veteran. Violence is merely a non-lethal means to an ends, and so despite its proliferation in Rebel Ridge, the total fatalities remain remarkably low. Terry never killed a man during his service, and he is not going to start a John Wick-style rampage now, mowing down leagues of enemies before reaching a final boss. Institutional corruption must be dealt with at its source, and through his unlikely alliance with law student Summer, he begins to embrace a new fight for justice.

Of course, this is all purely tactical for Terry. Right from the opening scene when he is rammed off his bicycle by officers Marston and Lann, it is clear his identity as a Black man factors deeply into his careful interactions with the police. He is not going to pick any fights that he knows he is going to lose, and he is certainly not going to aggravate anyone looking for an excuse to detain or shoot him. In response to their extreme brutality, he responds with the least amount of force necessary, ironically demonstrating the ideal behaviour they should be modelling. Where Saulnier’s 2015 film Green Room veers far more heavily into gore and horror, Rebel Ridge makes for a far more sobering thriller, understanding the nuanced stakes that lie in this conflict beyond life and death.

Unfortunately, the dedication to murky, ambient lighting which gave Green Room such a distinctive visual character is largely absent here, leaving Rebel Ridge struggling to aesthetically set itself apart from the fray of modern action movies. At least beyond the remarkable fight choreography creatively tailored to Terry’s no-killing principle, Saulnier delivers a small handful of locations that play to his stylistic strengths, illuminating the police evidence room with a subtle blue wash and later piercing the darkness of the courtroom basement with green and orange light sources. Scenes like these do much of the heavy lifting when it comes to imbuing the setting with a sense of peril, hinting at the insidious exploitation lurking beneath the police force’s veneer of law-abiding respectability.

After all, the prejudice that Terry experiences is not an isolated incident. What starts as a quest to free his cousin inevitably gets wrapped up in a much larger conspiracy at play, raising suspicions when an unidentified whistleblower points Summer towards a strange anomaly in police records – over the past two years, many people who committed misdemeanours were held in jail for exactly 90 days before being released. The exposition which peels back the mystery here drags a little, though the payoff in Terry’s final confrontation with Burnne and his lackeys is certainly worth it, ultimately revealing where individual loyalties truly lie. Our veteran hero only may be alive due to his combat expertise, though physical conflict alone is never going to heal a broken system. Patience, discernment, and cunning are virtues embodied in his pursuit of justice, and superbly carried through in Saulnier’s tense, brooding storytelling.

Rebel Ridge is currently streaming on Netflix.

Alexander Nevsky (1938)

Sergei Eisenstein | 1hr 51min

The Teutonic Knights’ attempted invasion of Russia in the 13th century was not the last time the Slavs would feel the heat of rising German forces. Tensions between the Soviet Union and the Third Reich were similarly strained when Sergei Eisenstein was commissioned to direct Alexander Nevsky, seeing him use the titular Prince’s grand conquest of his foes to inspire audiences with patriotic solidarity. It had been ten years since his previous film, and the artistic failures he suffered while travelling Europe and the Americas brought him back to his home country, reluctantly asking Stalin for one last chance to prove his value. Supervised by co-director Dmitri Vasilyev and co-writer Pyotr Pavlenko, his instructions were simple: stay on schedule, do not stray into experimentalism, and do not embarrass the Soviet Union.

That Eisenstein was still able to create a film of such majestic ambition without stepping outside these restrictions is a testament to his incredible craftsmanship. Alexander Nevsky may not possess the formal innovation of his silent works, yet this venture into sound cinema maps out its historic clash of medieval armies with great finesse, inviting famed Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev to arrange a score that rumbles and sweeps across battlefields and villages. “The Russian lands we shall never surrender / Whoever rises against Russia will be smitten,” his male chorus sings in the opening scene after Nevsky refuses to join the Mongols’ Golden Horde. Although his vanquishing of Swedish invaders upon the Neva River has earned him a formidable reputation, his talents are not for sale. He is a hero for the Russian people, and a man this remarkable no doubt deserves his own folk songs to accompany his tale.

The horizon sits low in the frame as figures traverse barren hillsides, and disappears entirely when Eisenstein poses them against vast, grey skies.
Magnificent architecture of 13th century Russia, rising up as impressive backdrops to the rising political tensions.

Even before we reach the monumental Battle on the Ice, the scale of this narrative is equally matched by its astounding cinematic style, often tilting the camera at low angles to gaze up in awe at marvellously blocked scenes laid before us. The horizon sits low in the frame as figures traverse barren hillsides, and it disappears entirely when Eisenstein poses them against vast, grey skies, often with the domed roofs and arches of their buildings rising up in the background. The Teutonic Knights receive similar visual treatment as they overrun the city of Pskov, though they carry a far more daunting air of sadistic, almost cultlike ruthlessness, tossing children into fires and holding crucifixes aloft. Eisenstein’s montages do not unfold with the radical flourishes of Battleship Potemkin or Strike for once, but rather carry through a deep, sombre grief in their continuity editing and axial cuts, punching in on wide shots to underscore the horrific suffering of the Russian people.

Scenes of carnage and destruction in Pskov, setting in a deep, sombre grief.
The Teutonic Order possesses a cult-like ruthlessness, wearing white hoods and raising crosses as they torture innocent Russians.
Swastikas adorn the bishop’s mitre, likening his threat to rising Nazi powers in 1938.

It is no coincidence that the helmets worn by these invaders bear such close resemblance to mock-ups of German Stahlhelms from World War I, nor that the bishop’s mitre is adorned with swastikas. Next to these villains, Nevsky effectively becomes a twentieth-century man facing contemporary evils, rallying Novgorod to fight for its freedom. His rousing speeches are infectious, inspiring rival warriors Vasili and Gavrilo to prove their worthiness to the maiden Olga on the battlefield, and similarly stirring the grieving Vasilisa to seek vengeance for her slain parents.

Two warriors competing for the heart of one girl, stirring them to prove their value on the battlefield – clean, archetypal characters remain Eisenstein’s strength.
Beautiful, wintry sets as we approach the Battle on the Ice, freezing these half-sunken boats upon the lake.

Patriotic anthems continue to ring out as the peasants of Novgorod zealously raise their weapons and torches, moving as one mass towards their common destiny at Lade Chudskoe. There, Vasili and Gavrilo are ordered to take charge of the vanguard and left flank, while Nevsky leads the right flank. If his strategy works, then this should crush the Germans’ wedge attack, and the lake’s thawing ice will shatter beneath the weight of their heavy armour.

It is one thing to hear the Prince’s genius in theory, and another to behold it in action. The Battle on the Ice dominates almost thirty minutes of the film’s runtime, and stands among Eisenstein’s greatest artistic triumphs, setting a cinematic standard for medieval conflicts that would influence many legendary directors from Orson Welles to Stanley Kubrick. As the suspense slowly ratchets up in anticipation of the first charge, Eisenstein surveys the layout, obstructing shots of the Teutonic army gathering in the distance with a forest of spears sprouting from Nevsky’s forces. Vasilisa is one of a hundred Russian troops stationed across this vast, flat expanse, but here her focused expression is foregrounded, embodying the grit and strength of a nation that refuses to surrender quietly.

The terrain is vast and flat, yet Eisenstein still turns it into a visual marvel in his framing and blocking, filling the shot with negative space from the sky.
Vasilisa’s face stands out along the frontline of Russian soldiers, embodying the grit and strength of a nation that refuses to surrender quietly.
Minimalism in Eisenstein’s framing, frequently using low angles to set actors against clouds.
Welles would later recycle this shot in Chimes at Midnight – a forest of spears obstructing our view of the opposing forces.

Finally, the Teutonic Knights’ charge begins. From low camera angles that move with their horses, they seem to float like faceless spectres, and Prokofiev’s score builds its chants and horns to a dramatic climax before abruptly cutting out with the violent clash of both armies. Eisenstein is not content with simply capturing random chaos here, but choreographs the battle with tremendous clarity, closing in on smaller skirmishes between foes while tracking the movement of larger units. Though the Germans begin to make ground on the Russians, cutaways to Nevsky waiting for the moment to launch his surprise flank attack reassure us of his plan, and promise hope as he charges forward with a bold rallying cry – “For Rus!”

Teutonic Knights seem to float on the air as they rush into battle, almost like faceless spectres.
A violent clash of fighters from both sides, officially commencing one of Eisenstein’s most remarkable set pieces.
“For Rus!” – Nevsky launches his surprise flank attack, and shifts the balance of power.

Eisenstein’s editing paces this battle perfectly, slowing the action at key points as tactics are reassessed, and then building it up again with a fresh shift in power dynamics. We see this unfold when the Germans retreat into a defensive formation and rain arrows on the Russians, but also in the sweet, smaller-scale interaction that sees Vasilisi toss a wooden spar to a surrounded Vasili, saving his life. This is the sort of selfless bravery which holds Nevsky’s forces together while the Teutonic Knights crumble, forcing them onto the frozen lake where, just as he predicted, they shatter the surface and sink into its depths. Cinematographer Eduard Tisse’s practical effects are spectacular all throughout this battle, simulating wintry landscapes with lens filters and chalk dust, but it is here that his genius truly shines in constructing ice sheets out of melted glass and collapsing them upon deflated pontoons.

The Germans retreat into a defensive formation, forcing the Russians to reassess their tactics.
A constant focus on the smaller skirmishes between warriors, uniting Vasili and Vasilisi in this moment of heroism as they are surrounded on all sides.
A tremendous, resounding defeat rendered through montage and practical effects. The ice cracks, and the Germans drown in their heavy armour.

Nevsky’s victory is decisive, though as the camera slowly drifts over the field of slain warriors, Eisenstein takes a moment to mourn the sacrifices that have been made. “He who fell for Russia has a died a hero’s death / I kiss your sightless eyes and caress your cold forehead,” a lone female voice laments, before turning to the glory endowed upon those returning home.

“As to the daring hero who survived the fight,

To him I shall be a loyal wife and a loving spouse.”

Eisenstein’s camera slowly tracks over the battlefield and its bodies, quietly mourning the loss of Russia’s bravest fighters.
A proud return home, exalting the national spirit as woman and children embrace their men.

Indeed, Nevsky’s liberation of Pskov brings romantic resolution for his warriors, neatly tying up their own lingering arcs. With Vasili proclaiming Gavrilo the second-bravest fighter on the battlefield, he is the winner of Olga’s hand in marriage, while Vasili is more than happy to marry the bravest – his saviour, Vasilisi. The curtains are fully pulled back on the Soviet propaganda behind Eisenstein’s artistry in this moment, idyllically promising great rewards to those who put their lives on the line for Russia, as well as its alarming inverse to those who threaten war,

“He who comes to us with a sword shall die by a sword!” Nevsky warns, and it is plain to see here the threat that Stalin wishes to send to his own enemies. Eisenstein may have acted as a reluctant mouthpiece for the Soviet Union, though it is evident in Alexander Nevsky that he saw these political messages as an unfortunate mandate. Still, to forge an impassioned connection to the past through moving images, music, and the skilful synthesis of both – that alone justifies the noble pursuit of creativity in an autocratic culture that threatens its very existence.

Romances cleanly sort themselves out, promising great personal reward to those who risk their life for Russia.
An astounding arrangement of extras among buildings, playing to Eisenstein’s strengths as an epic filmmaker.

Alexander Nevsky is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel and Tubi TV.

Jean de Florette & Manon of the Spring (1986)

Claude Berri | 2hr 2min & 1hr 54min

In a rural French village, set nine years apart, a pair of fables unfold around two blocked springs.

The first is located on the property of cheerful hunchback Jean, who has come from the city with his family to start a new life as a farmer. Seeking to claim the land’s water as their own though, neighbours César and Ugolin have covered it with cement and soil, keeping him from ever knowing of its existence. Now all they must do is sit back and watch, as Jean’s struggle against the elements pushes him to the brink of destitution.

The first of two springs, promising prosperity to an uncle and nephew who plot the downfall of their new neighbour.

The second spring is the town’s main water supply, hidden in the crevices of a nearby mountain. When Jean’s grown daughter Manon stumbles across it almost a decade later, she immediately acts on the resentment she has harboured ever since her father was driven to an early grave, blocking its flow with clay. The plot to destroy Jean may have been committed by two neighbours, but the entire community was well-aware of it, and thus they are all responsible for his untimely passing. If water is the source of all life, then it is no surprise that its suppression inevitably leads to needless deaths in both instances, formally mirroring the tragedies of Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring against each other. Together, they take on an epic scope, as Claude Berri plays out the Shakespearean fall of two feuding families through greed, scorn, and betrayal.

The second of two springs, hidden away in a rocky crevice – a chance for Manon to exact vengeance on those who indirectly killed her father.

Based on the two-part volume novel ‘The Water of the Hills’ and shot in back-to-back productions, it is tough to consider these films as anything but a single work, strengthened by the formal connections that stretch across their conjoined narratives. César and Ugolin are our main characters in both, taking on the mantle of antiheroes from the moment they accidentally kill their neighbour Pique-Bouffigue in an altercation over his spring. Perhaps there is a bit of contempt here too, especially given that César was once in love with Pique-Bouffigue’s sister, Florette, who abandoned him many years ago.

If this is indeed the case, then it would also be safe to assume that César holds a similar disdain towards Florette’s disabled, newly-arrived son, Jean, thereby adding a second layer of motivation to ruin his life. So bitter is César that for the two years the hunchback lives on that farm, the old man cannot even bring himself to meet him face to face, instead choosing to watch his suffering play out from the comfortable distance of his home. While his nephew Ugolin directly implicates himself by cruelly denying Jean the use of his mule, it is César whose heart has been corrupted by resentment, remaining all too happy to sacrifice his neighbour’s wellbeing to accomplish his own goal of starting a carnation farm.

Picturesque landscapes of southeastern France, basking in the golden glow of natural sunlight.
Lovely depth of field in Berri’s compositions, layering his actors to separate the town from its pariahs.
Gorgeous, scenic farmlands composed with affection and adoration for the region.

The beauty of 1910s France’s sun-dappled pastures and settlements does well to mask the malice which resides in its seemingly humble farmers, as Berri crafts astounding visuals across both parts of this duology, basking in the golden glow of the countryside’s natural light. His establishing shots are astounding, setting quaint cottages against vast backdrops of majestic mountains, lush hills and valleys provide fertile ground for locals to cultivate. From inside their darkened homes, Berri often cuts out windows of light through which neighbours often spy on each other, though these interiors also frequently carry through that outside warmth through dim oil lamps and small fires. Across the four hours that Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring unfold over, Berri delivers enough painterly compositions to hang in a gallery, taking advantage of his widescreen frame to stage actors across superbly detailed period sets and landscapes.

Excellent framing from tiny windows in darkened rooms, often peering out to spy on Jean and his family.
Delicate lighting from fires and oil lamp, weaving the golden palette through interiors as an extension of the sunny exteriors.

When the local weather rears its nasty head though, Berri is not afraid to shed a harsher light upon these environments, testing the endurance of Jean as he struggles to grow produce in unpredictable conditions. When a dust storm strikes, Berri lays a musty, yellow filter across the lens, while winter conceals the land’s green and gold hues with pristine white blankets of snow. When clouds gather, the rain is always either too heavy for Jean’s vegetables, or taunting him from a distance as it falls several miles away. “There’s nobody up there!” he angrily swears to the sky, but each time he is ready to give up, he picks himself up again.

Berri uses a musty, yellow filter to represent a dust storm.
The land is stripped of its warmth when winter falls, developing a refreshing beauty through its pristine white blankets of snow.
Rain falls in the distance, but misses Jean’s farm – fate seems to conspire against this tragic figure who is brought to his knees and curses the heavens like Job.

For César, this resilience is endlessly frustrating, though from the outside we can’t help but admire the bright optimism of Gérard Depardieu’s performance. His spirit is indomitable, working against every obstacle thrown his way right up until he is fatally struck in the head by a rock during his attempt to build a well. The incident may be an accident, but César and Ugolin know very well that the guilt lies with them – as does Manon when she discovers them unplugging the blocked spring right after they purchase the property. “I hereby name you King of Carnations,” César sardonically proclaims, baptising Ugolin with water from the earth, though soon enough the young florist will wear this title with great shame.

A baptism using the plugged up water, selfishly revelling in the fortune that Jean’s death has granted them.

When Manon cuts off the town’s water supply nine years later in Manon of the Spring, the community is quick to lay blame on César and Ugolin – not for blocking it themselves, but for provoking God’s righteous anger. Where Berri’s staging once isolated the hunchbacked farmer from the derisive villagers, it is now the uncle and nephew who are ostracised, shrinking into small, lonely figures. Church attendance numbers surge with panicked locals suddenly “full of faith and repentance,” while the priest himself implicitly directs his homily towards those two men who everyone quietly recognises as the incidental culprits behind Jean’s death.

“I once read in a secular work a Greek tragedy, about the city of Thebes struck by a violent plague because of the king’s crimes. So I ask myself: is there a criminal among us?”

An older Manon returns to the town nine years later, turning the tables on her father’s killers with a sense of poetic justice.
These villagers’ lives are deeply entwined with their faith, but only in troubled times – surely the fountain running dry is a punishment from God.
César and Ugolin now find themselves isolated in Berri’s blocking, taking Jean’s place as the loathsome outsiders.

The feelings that Ugolin begins developing for Manon only further propagates his shame, though only on the most selfish level. Unlike César, he is a fool who lacks total self-awareness, and thus cannot comprehend the concept of regret or social decorum. His advances are awkward and obsessive, only deepening Manon’s disgust towards him, while she in turn grows closer to young schoolteacher Bernard. When Ugolin finally takes his life in despair, Berri does not even grant him the grace of our full attention, relegating his meagre, hanging body to the background of a long shot.

The return of the town’s water comes too late to save Ugolin, not that Manon particularly cares. The timing is impeccable, as it is only a short while after she unplugs the spring that the local fountain leaps back to life during a religious procession, seemingly reviving it through prayer. God’s love once again shines down on the village, felt by all except for César who must not only confront his grief, but also a final, devastating twist of the knife.

Tragedy tears through this epic fable, killing Ugolin with little fanfare as his body is revealed here hanging in the distance.
Prayers and processions bring the town’s water supply back to life – or at least this is the easiest explanation for the villagers.

Jean was not Florette’s child by another man, he learns from an old acquaintance visiting town, but rather the son she bore from César himself. The tragedy is heartbreaking, though not so much as to overshadow the irony of his self-destruction, wrought by arrogance and bitterness. “Out of sheer spite, I never went near him,” he mournfully reflects in his final letter.

“I never knew his voice, or his face. I never saw his eyes, that might have been like his mother’s. I only saw his hump and the pain I caused him.”

As César’s voiceover expresses real regret for the first time, Berri’s camera gracefully floats by the items in his bedroom. An envelope addressed to Manon, containing his confession and intent to leave his estate to her. A pair of spectacles, folded neatly in front. An old family photo, depicting the blood ties he has tainted through the ghastly act of filicide. Finally, we find César himself combing his hair in the mirror, preparing to lay down for the last time. Like Oedipus unknowingly slaying his father or King Lear’s hubris destroying his children, César joins history’s lineage of tragically flawed patriarchs, inadvertently cursing their own families as fate’s ultimate punishment. The stage upon which this plays out in Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring is not located within the grand halls of historical power, but as Berri paints out in the warm, intimate scenery of rural France, tragedy may topple pride in even the humblest of settings.

A delicate camera movement drifting through César’s room as he prepares to die, intensively studying the remnants of his life left behind.
This tragedy deals its final blow upon the patriarch of the family, his life ending in ruin due to his own selfish actions.

Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring are currently streaming on The Criterion Channel and SBS On Demand, and is available to rent or buy on Apple TV and YouTube.

Earth (1930)

Oleksandr Dovzhenko | 1hr 15min

The symbiosis between man, machine, and nature is a delicately choreographed dance in Earth, and it isn’t long after farming peasant Vasyl introduces a tractor to his community that we witness each unite in seamless synchronicity. Wheels carve out trenches in the soil, a steady stream of wheat flows through the harvester, and workers efficiently prepare it for the threshers, where unhusked grains shake in rhythmic motion along conveyer belts. After being crushed into flour, bakers swiftly mix and knead it into dough for the ovens, where bread is produced for the hungry masses.

This methodical assembly line sequence may be the closest Earth gets to non-fiction, though Oleksandr Dovzhenko also more broadly dedicates his film to depictions of collectivist agriculture, much like Sergei Eisenstein did a year earlier in his documentary The General Line. Under this system, plots of land owned by wealthier peasants known as kulaks would be consolidated into state-controlled enterprises, with the intention of freeing exploited labourers and industrialising the Soviet economy. Beyond presenting mere fact or opinion of the matter though, Dovzhenko also uses it as the basis of his invigorating visual poetry in Earth, meditating on the profound relationship that binds humans to the land that feeds them.

Dovzhenko’s filmmaking borders on documentary here as he traces the methodical processes of agricultural production in this new industrial era.

Compared to Sergei Eisenstein’s montage theory which sought to collide images in harsh juxtaposition, Dovzhenko’s editing is far more lyrical, emphasising the unity of all life on this planet. Clearly some of cinema’s most spiritual directors have drawn from this too, whether it is Terrence Malick finding divine inspiration in its graceful shots of workers in wheat fields for Days of Heaven, or Andrei Tarkovsky recreating the ethereal gust of wind rippling through long grass in Mirror. The death of Vasyl’s grandfather which occurs in Earth’s opening scene is not a disruption of such organic cycles, but rather a peaceful transition from one state of existence to another, seeing him lay down by an apple orchard surrounded by family. At the moment of his passing, Dovzhenko poignantly cuts to a sunflower gently swaying in the breeze, and thus reveals the fruits of this farmer’s labour thriving beyond his expiry.

Wind ripples through the long grass – scenes of pastoral tranquility that Malick and Tarkovsky would later borrow for Days of Heaven and Mirror.
Vasyl’s grandfather passes away surrounded by the figurative and literal fruits of his labour – his family and his orchard.

One would almost assume that Earth is a soothing expression of pantheistic spirituality were it not for the Soviet Union’s policy of state atheism in this era, though Dovzhenko’s open admiration of the Ukraine’s rural landscapes manages to skirt religious controversy, even as he turns his camera to the heavens. The low angles of vast skies become a strong visual motif here, pushing the horizon to the bottom edge of the frame in long shots, and forming cloudy backdrops to humans, animals, and plant life standing in tranquil stillness. These rural farms are as close to paradise as one can find on earth, yet political divisions in the community nevertheless threaten to strangle their natural evolution alongside Ukraine’s burgeoning agriculture industry.

Horizons hang low in the frame, minimising the earth beneath the vast open skies.
Low angles imprint people, animals, and plant life against the dark grey sky.

As we see in the economic conservatism of Vasyl’s father, Opanas, the kulaks are evidently not the only ones resistant to the collectivism that has swept through the village. He has manually worked the land his entire life, and the state’s rapid shift towards newer technologies is unnerving, driving a wedge between him and Vasyl who excitedly leads the movement’s charge into the future. Their initial confrontation plays out in mid-shots of their backs turned to each other, but as tensions rise, Dovzhenko turns them around and gradually cuts in tighter to their incensed expressions. Quite unusually though, Earth does not depict the black-and-white morality of other Soviet propaganda films of the era, instead allowing for more nuance in its characterisations. Opanas is not the villain of this piece – quite the opposite in fact, as his son’s eventual murder at the hands of an embittered kulak suddenly positions him as our unlikely protagonist.

Fine editing as tensions arise between father and son, beginning with mid-shots of their backs turned before cutting into close-ups of their incensed expressions.

Vasyl died for the new life, and so he is to be buried according to the new ways, a bereaved Opanas declares. There are to be no priests or prayers at his funeral, and in their place the community will sing songs of hope for the future. As Vasyl’s body is carried down the street in a procession, tree branches reach out to caress his face, and in one delicately framed shot he even seems to drift by on a sea of flowers. People and nature alike mourn his passing which, unlike his grandfather’s, has momentarily disrupted the circle of life.

Solidarity in mourning after Vasyl’s murder, sparking a mass procession down the village streets.
Vasyl’s body seems to float past trees and fields in these beautifully framed shots, as if giving him the blessing of nature.

It is during this sequence as well that Dovzhenko’s editing begins to broaden its narrative scope, building to a climax in its deft intercutting between multiple side characters. As the spurned Russian Orthodox priest prays for God to punish the sinners who have refused a traditional service, Vasyl’s bereaved fiancée Natalya cries out in agony, and his killer’s public confession falls on the deaf ears of the grieving, radicalised crowd. Suspicions of his culpability weren’t exactly secret, but now as the guilt-ridden kulak rolls in the dirt madly proclaiming “It’s my earth! I won’t give it up!”, it is apparent that the collectivist movement has already delivered his moral punishment.

Excellent parallel editing as anger, grief, and guilt collide at Vasyl’s funeral.

Perhaps most moving of all though is Opanas’ face among the masses, not broken by anguish, but listening to his son’s eulogy with stoic resolve. “You, Uncle Opanas, mustn’t grieve!” the speaker pronounces. “Vasyl’s fame will fly around the entire world like our Bolshevist airplane above!” Even the skies begin to weep at this point, showering the orchards below with nourishing rain, before concluding with Natalya rediscovering love and security in the arms of another man. The transfer of power back to the Ukrainian people is not bloodless in Earth, but as fresh beginnings wash away old sorrows, Dovzhenko’s formal cadences realign society’s march into the future with the harmonious, seasonal rhythms of the natural world.

A cleansing rain to wash away old sorrows and water the soil, continuing the cycle of life.
New beginnings as Natalya finds love in another man’s arms, healing her wounded soul.

Earth is not currently streaming in Australia.

Joker: Folie à Deux (2024)

Todd Phillips | 2hr 18min

When Todd Phillips created his own trauma-ridden version of Batman’s greatest nemesis in 2019, audiences were as polarised as the citizens of Gotham City. To a disillusioned minority, Arthur Fleck was an icon of bitter anarchy, seeking to tear down the broken system which drove him and so many others to madness. To critics, he was simply a glorified criminal, claiming the spotlight with little substance to back up his words and actions. This divide becomes the central tension in Phillips’ sequel, seeking to parse out the nuances missed by both sides in the debate over Arthur’s soul – and yet in doing so, Joker: Folie à Deux has met an even more troubled reception than the first.

Of course, part of this comes down to the perceived emasculation of our antihero, diverging from the tough guy persona he had artificially crafted for himself as Joker. Criticisms targeted at the duology’s surprising shift into the movie-musical genre are slightly more justified, especially given how hit-or-miss many of the numbers are, though even these condemnations fail to account for their sheer vibrance and passion. Phillips is no stranger to ambitious swings, and if there was ever a supervillain to make this leap into song and dance, then it is surely the one whose schtick is highlighting life’s senseless absurdity through colourful, extravagant theatrics.

It also makes sense that Phillips should credit Francis Ford Coppola’s maligned musical One from the Heart as a major inspiration here too, featuring similarly remarkable visual craftsmanship while drawing criticisms of ‘style over substance’. Both films float by upon expressionistic dreams of romance, detaching its characters from any recognisable reality and entering a realm that exists only in their elated minds. A brief nod to The Umbrellas of Cherbourg hints at this early on in Folie à Deux, but by the time Arthur is waltzing through the grounds of a burning Arkham State Hospital with fellow patient Lee Quinzel and singing an elaborate rendition of ‘If My Friends Could See Me Now’, we are fully immersed in their ecstatically unhinged delusions.

Unfortunately, the inconsistencies that plague Phillips’ direction of these scenes also happen to be among Folie à Deux’s most unflattering blemishes. Many great musicals are able express subdued emotion in duets without simply cutting back and forth between close-ups, but this is exactly the trap that he falls into here, leading to a sharp disparity between magnificently staged showstoppers and softer, blandly shot ballads. Additionally, songs that play out in creaky whispers waste the talent that comes with Lady Gaga’s otherwise inspired casting, while Joaquin Phoenix’s pitchy vocals are downright weak.

Still, Phillips is as confident as ever when it comes to his dystopian worldbuilding beyond the musical numbers, adeptly building upon the first film’s dingy ambience and grimy production design. Arkham State Hospital is one of two primary locations explored here, damning our protagonist to a hellhole flooded with murky green hues and heavy shadows, while maintaining an eerie elegance in long takes navigating its narrow hallways. The prison’s claustrophobic framing also strikes a dramatic contrast against the openness of the courtroom where Arthur revels in the limelight, violating the judge’s orders at every turn and reducing it to a circus where his Joker persona can deride the entire bureaucratic system.

Even then though, we are left wondering – what is this all for? Arthur’s indignation does not expose any hidden evil so much as it offers a cathartic release, but that too seems dubious when he is confronted by the innocent victims of his own actions. Luckily from among his throngs of fans, Lee emerges as the woman to put such insecurities to rest, effectively embodying that fetishisation of high-profile criminals which celebrates their iconography rather than understanding their humanity. “I want to see the real you,” she murmurs as she ironically paints Arthur’s face with clown makeup, and her glitzy musical influence only serves to further shape his identity to her vision of provocative sensationalism.

Phillips has never been a filmmaker who trades in subtlety, and while this has led to a series that aggressively beats its heavy-handed message home, it has also created some of the strongest imagery from any comic book movie in recent years. As the climax pulls Arthur through the streets of Gotham in a Children of Men-style long take and swallows him up in the dystopian monstrosity he has inadvertently created, we are reminded of what is truly at stake here. Not just “Gotham’s soul”, as The Dark Knight once operatically proclaimed – on a much smaller scale, Folie à Deux possesses a twisted kind of sympathy for broken individuals who respond to one evil with another, and a crushing lack of faith that righteous, even-handed justice will ever be served.

Joker: Folie à Deux is currently playing in cinemas.