Born into the body of her deceased mother and setting off on a coming-of-age odyssey across the ocean, Bella Baxter’s existence is a wondrous paradox of surreal impossibilities in Poor Things, forming the centrepiece of Yorgos Lanthimos’ eccentric black comedy that draws an immense appreciation of life from its wickedly offbeat satire.
We glimpse many stories of modern Mexico in the periphery of Y Tu Mamá También, but Alfonso Cuarón’s modest coming-of-age drama proves to be just as integral to its national identity as any of those brief diversions, weaving a textured landscape of poverty, celebration, and sex from a road trip between two young men seeking a hedonistic escape with the woman they mutually love.
There might not be any historical record that the cultural traditions in The Ballad of Narayama existed anywhere outside of Japanese folklore, and yet it is exactly in that heightened, mythical realm where Keisuke Kinoshita’s film dwells, intertwining kabuki theatre, musical storytelling, and vibrant cinematic innovations within a distant dream of forgotten legends.
For what is essentially a prequel covering the origins of Roald Dahl’s famous candy man, the stakes are comically high in Wonka, tying Paul King’s eccentric wit, gentle slapstick, and charming sincerity into a tidy bow around a whimsical world where chocolate rules.
If The Boy and the Heron truly is Hayao Miyazaki’s last film, then it is poetic that such a grand adventure into surreal fantasy and back again should be the one to conclude his decades of animated world building, contemplating the power of fiction to mould trauma into fiery strength and maturity.
The god’s-eye view of humanity that Wim Wenders grants us in Wings of Desire flies high above 1980s West Berlin with watchful angels, and swoops down low to tune into the intimate thoughts of its citizens, crafting a dreamy city symphony that finds childlike wonder in its everyday pleasures and private sufferings.
Time is a precious resource at the train station where the secret lovers of Brief Encounter fall into a reverie, though David Lean exerts a fine control over its gentle flow in Laura’s nostalgic recollections, intertwining love and guilt within a complex affair that forces this heartbroken housewife into an even greater repression.
Even more disturbing than the realisation that Polish immigrant Trelkovsky is slowly transforming into the previous occupant of his apartment in The Tenant is the creeping feeling that his neighbours may be responsible, as Roman Polanski leads us down an absurd, psychosexual study of the alienation and guilt felt by outsiders in an inhospitable modern world.
Through Peter Jackson’s extraordinary adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s grand fantasy epic, we appreciate Middle Earth as one of the richest fictional worlds of literary history, imbuing The Lord of the Rings with a breathtaking cinematic awe that centres the smallest, unconventional heroes in a battle against forces of great spiritual corruption.
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 trademark self-deprecating irony and dark humour, taking us inside an extracurricular all-girls fight club started by two lesbians simply hoping to get laid.
