Revered Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof’s latest film The Seed of the Sacred Fig was made in secret before Rasoulof fled Iran under threat of arrest and imprisonment. He now lives in Germany and this film was Germany’s nominee for best International Feature Oscar. While this mostly riveting film maintains the very high standard of works from Iranian directors that reach
Read moreIn 2008, Mickey Rourke made a much-lauded comeback in Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler. That movie explored the traumatic life of a person on the fringes of the entertainment industry (in that case, lower tier pro-wrestling) facing the end of their career. In so doing, it examined identity, masculinity, the industry in which the character worked and seemingly reflected the challenging
Read moreMixing raw and confronting ‘life on the skids’ drama with touches of the surreal, British director Andrea Arnold’s impressively ambitious if uneven, Bird will entrance many but leave some a little confused. The film centres on 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) who lives in a highly dysfunctional household with her sullen brother, Hunter (Jason Buda) who seems to be part of
Read moreQueer is Call Me By Your Name and Challengers director Luca Guadagnino’s adaptation of William S. Burroughs semi-autobiographical 1985 novella. That book is known for conjuring a visceral, sweaty and seedy world fuelled by the lead character’s self-loathing. Guadagnino’s film while artful and inventive is too manicured to capture this primal world. Queer sees Daniel Craig playing William Lee, an
Read moreIt’s alarming to think that it’s been nearly a quarter of a century since the ditzy but charming and unstoppable Bridget Jones first bumbled her way onto cinema screens. The film Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001), which was based on the successful Helen Fielding novel was a sufficiently big hit to spawn multiple sequels. While Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason from
Read moreBabygirl is a bold, visually seductive, funny but repetitive psychological drama from Bodies, Bodies, Bodies director Halina Reijin. The film touches on a range of themes including sexual hang-ups, office politics, lifelong trauma, social rules and the collision of different forms of power – particularly corporate and gender – in the uncertain context of a changing economy and society. The
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