With a witty, grandiose screenplay and a camera that cleanly navigates political battlefields, Steven Spielberg uses the final months of Abraham Lincoln’s life to examine the messy game of American politics, carefully observing his tactical orchestration of congress to pass the slavery-ending 13th Amendment.
The psychological horror of I Saw the TV Glow turns a discerning eye towards the false identities and duplicitous illusions thrust upon queer communities, as Jane Schoenbrun casts a surreal, Lynchian filter over the journey of two nostalgic outcasts searching for truth in their favourite childhood show.
The coming-of-age vignettes that make up My Little Loves do not depict particularly momentous occasions, yet it is in the mundane minutia of Daniel’s year away from home that his self-discovery unfolds, as Jean Eustache tenderly captures the whiplash of a lonely, confusing, yet stimulating adolescence.
The question of what exactly constitutes a fraud is meticulously woven throughout Steven Zaillian’s monochrome study of a New York con artist in Ripley, witnessing his unscrupulous attempts to ascend the social ladder by way of identity theft and murder, even as his own amoral corruption threatens to sink him into a dark, suffocating abyss.
So tragically naïve is aspiring painter Maurice in La Chienne that Jean Renoir does not even let his demeaning fall from grace speak for itself, but rather frames this pitiful antihero as a mere puppet on life’s stage of poetic irony, weaving lyrical musings on romance and despair through his fated love triangle.
The infamous Madonna-whore complex is baked right into the title of Jean Eustache’s bleak treatise on juvenile masculinity, as The Mother and the Whore applies an intensive focus to a young narcissist’s thorny relationships with his long-term girlfriend, his secret lover, and the intellectual hypocrisy that underlies his infidelity.
The assassination that will finally allow secret lovers Julien and Florence to elope couldn’t be more carefully planned, and yet the fatalistic pull of destiny has other mischievous intentions in Elevator to the Gallows, as Louis Malle intertwines two Parisian tales of love and crime with dark, seductive malice.
The Devils may be set during the witch trials of 17th century France, and yet Ken Russell’s cynical condemnation of religious tyranny escapes a narrow relegation to the distant past, infusing his cautionary tale with a bitter, anachronistic timelessness.
The sad state of the modern Italian film industry does little to dampen the spirits of its artists in Intervista, as Federico Fellini whimsically blurs the lines between life and his own film production, and celebrates the timeless relationships formed behind the scenes.
Trap’s premise of a pop concert being one enormous setup to catch a serial killer is inherently absurd, but M. Night Shyamalan is nothing if not bold with his high-concept thriller, drawing an intriguing divide down the middle of one man’s dual identities as an affable father and a sadistic murderer.
