There may be some rustiness on David Cronenberg’s part in returning to body horror filmmaking after two decades, but his blend of film noir and science-fiction in Crimes of the Future nevertheless makes for an intriguingly grim contemplation of bodily autonomy, artificial evolution, and artistic expression, seeking to reveal the primal anarchy in humanity’s raw, physical existence.
There are few film noirs one could point to that typifies the genre more than Double Indemnity, where Billy Wilder’s gloriously expressionistic set pieces and passionately cynical writing evolves one man’s macabre curiosity into a hideous corruption of his soul, absorbing him in a murder plot almost as tightly wound as the gripping narrative that sees it slowly come apart.
Danny Boyle’s kinetic pacing, surreal trips, and intoxicating camerawork not only match the edgy vigour of Ewan McGregor’s cynical Scottish drug addict in Trainspotting, but he also uses them as distractions from the crushing despair lying just outside its bubble of energetic thrills, drifting through vignettes that stage a darkly comedic battle between primal temptation and sober stability.
Steven Soderbergh updates classic thriller conventions with pandemic-related concerns in Kimi, using its vigorous camerawork and tightly wound plotting to deliver a gripping take on cyber-age insecurities, twisting our most personal social anxieties into a cynical vision of a tech-driven society where privacy is void and the most frightening prospect of all is simply leaving one’s home.
It is not the factual details of Sayat-Nova’s life that The Color of Pomegranates seeks to explore in its hypnotic surrealism, but rather his inner creativity that gave birth to such enchanting music and poetry, and it is through Sergei Parajanov’s elusive imagery that it stands as a mystifying tribute to Armenia’s rich history and culture, vibrantly independent of any political or cinematic convention.
Though it mourns the souls of the deceased in the way its title suggests, Requiem for a Dream even more fully evokes a nightmare of disorientating maximalism that oversees a total degradation of humanity, as Darren Aronofsky draws on the existential horror of drug addiction in his aggressive editing to pessimistically conjure up an ensemble of tragic fates worse than death.
Recovering from a tragedy as horrific as that which Dani experiences in the opening minutes of Midsommar seems impossible, but even more disturbing than this crushing darkness is the insidious monster Ari Aster crafts in the dazzling, psychedelic radiance of a pagan Swedish commune, delivering a distorted catharsis from past trauma through sinister, ancient rituals.
Armed with a sharp wit and a penchant for intelligent subtext, Jordan Peele goes about examining the thread connecting humanity’s hunger for spectacle and its arrogant domination of nature in Nope, confronting us with a cosmic horror that lives in the sky above one ranch of Hollywood animal trainers.
A sudden immersion into the screwball comedy genre might be the perfect challenge to the stagnant lifestyle of middle-class yuppie Charlie, as through his impromptu road trip with the freewheeling Lulu, Jonathan Demme sends Something Wild spinning off in hilarious and terrifying directions, drawing us into the orbit of characters trying to reconcile their own contradictory, innate desires.
While The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover’s indictments of Thatcherism’s anti-intellectualism operate as a sharp political allegory in the vein of George Orwell, Peter Greenaway’s opulent Baroque aesthetic lifts it to another transcendent level altogether, transforming a restaurant into a gallery of vivid tableaux illustrating the horrific abuses of one gangster’s despicably gluttonous conquest.
