Max Ophüls’ untethered camera sways freely with the currents of history and destiny that swirl around renowned dancer Lola Montes, exposing the tragedy that sees the perverse celebrity culture of 19th century Europe simultaneously glamourise her rise to fame, and degrade her into an object of commodified, gaudy spectacle.
It is one thing to have the emotional capacity to love, Steven Spielberg posits in the heartrending sci-fi fable of A.I. Artificial Intelligence, yet only by feeling the warmth of that unconditional love in return can one experience the full joy of being human, as one robotic child discovers on his journey through futuristic landscapes towards spiritual validation.
The self-centred bourgeoisie of The Rules of the Game are content living with a constant mistrust of their own peers if it means preserving their status and wealth, becoming the targets of Jean Renoir’s biting social satire as he comically undercuts the egos entangling themselves in an intricate web of affairs over one weekend at a country estate.
The perfect synthesis of art and action in Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters is just as essential to Paul Schrader’s formal representation of Yukio Mishima as it is to the nationalistic writer himself, seeing the latter’s life and novels coalesce into a vibrant portrait of a traditionalist born out of time, as he rigorously pursues the reconciliation of aesthetic and spiritual beauty.
With their veneers of whimsical innocence that mask quiet tragedies, it is clear through Wes Anderson’s adaptations of four short Roald Dahl stories that he sees parts of himself in the children’s writer, keeping his spirit alive with a curated, theatrical style that creatively reimagines fables of eccentric psychics, bullies, exterminators, and patients.
The Creator’s stimulating combination of grand theological questions and sci-fi action spectacle offers the genre fresh spiritual depth, using a futuristic conflict between humans and artificial intelligence as a messianic allegory of insecure gods, their tortured children, and the dehumanisation of enemies in wartime.
Ingmar Bergman’s contemplations of regret and old age in Saraband are far more grounded in his firsthand experiences than ever before, as his final film reunites the ex-lovers from Scenes from a Marriage to consider the echoes of family trauma throughout generations, and finds a soothing, spiritual peace in the act of reminiscence.
The stage is a place of deep meditation for theatre director Henrik in After the Rehearsal, letting memories of past and future relationships manifest with a subtle, time-shifting surrealism, and seeing Ingmar Bergman’s nostalgic humility take eloquent form as he looks back on his career.
It wouldn’t be hard to believe that each location in Duelle is interconnected within some giant, labyrinthine complex, entangling its mortal characters in a phantasmagorical web of manipulation set up by two warring goddesses, while Jacques Rivette’s obscure narrative uncovers the intransient magic simmering beneath the most ordinary corners of modern society.
While post-war Rome crumbles in Umberto D., Vittorio de Sica interrogates the isolating shame of poverty through the trials of one elderly pensioner, confronting the bleak realities of homelessness within an urban landscape of rich cultural history and cold, harsh discomfort.
