Due to the frenetic nature of modern streaming churn based on shareholder growth over humane work practices or audience desire, the Star Wars industrial complex has pivoted to television in recent years. These shows have the blown-out budgets for blockbuster sci-fi epics, but are piped into our TVs and laptops. Some of these shows are great (Tony Gilroy’s Andor), and some aren’t (Obi-Wan Kenobi), but as a whole, this pivot has created a dearth of real blockbuster sci-fi with a sense of originality and modernity.
Enter The Creator (2023), the latest from visual stylist Gareth Edwards of Rogue One (2016) and Godzilla (2014) fame. In an alt-history world where robotic development arrived much earlier and Asia is seemingly conquered by Japan (the film is not equipped to deal with the meaning of his choice) and renamed New Asia, the US, seemingly under martial law, has declared war on AI who have allegedly detonated a nuclear weapon on LA (another choice we are not left given time to process). Joshua (John David Washington), an ex-special forces soldier, still mourning the death of his pregnant wife Maya (Gemma Chan in the most thankless role of the year), is brought onto a mission in New Asia to extract what they believe to be a new AI weapon.
Quickly we discover the weapon is actually an adorable child whom Joshua names Alphie (the standout newcomer Madeleine Yuna Voyles), turning The Creator into a showreel of Star Wars (1977) tropes that begin with a lone wolf and cub story, and concluding with the inevitable explode-death-ship-equals-victory mission. From the outset, the film is at war with itself, with its cheesy 90s sci-fi plot machinations and tropes on AI, robots, and human connection in a sci-fi world, styled as a contemplative Denis Villeneuve sci-fi. Edwards compels you into this visually entrancing film with real locations, considered visual effects, and evocative lighting that is truly stunning.
John David Washington and Madeleine Yuna Voyles in The Creator
The extraordinary production and visual design keep you invested in a film that’s narrative constantly draws groans from the audience. With a fifth of the budget of Star Wars Episode 9: Rise of Skywalker (2019) ($80m vs $416m), it is incredible what Edwards and his all star team have created visually. To contend with the wash of franchise blockbusters, Edwards has returned to the big screen with real weight behind him, including Hans Zimmer, cinematographer Greig Fraser, and editors Hank Corwin and Joe Walker, to elevate this familiar story to greater heights than this script deserves.
With Zimmer behind the wheel of a modern sci-fi, one would expect to be awestruck at the master composer’s work, but in The Creator, the great German is on autopilot. With some truly bizarre needle drops including Radiohead’s Everything in its Right Place, the audience is constantly pulled between the furiously disjointed world that is created in the theatre. Edwards has an enormous mountain to climb with this hacky script, with each decision taking away instead of building upon the last.
The film is loaded with arresting images and beautifully unique production designs, like the Nomad ship and South East Asia setting, but it’s all in service to a script that is a collection of sloppy plot machinations and simple tropes rather than genuine insight or human emotion. There is a pregnant wife to be sacrificed as character motivation. There is a surrogate child given to a character that lost a child to learn fatherhood. There are moustache-twirling, blonde military villains that were seemingly given a tape of Stephen Lang in Avatar (2009) to emulate. None of these moments are knowingly familiar or aware that fall into place by a steady hand, instead arriving to us as a manic bingo card of staid sci-fi plots that consistently underwhelm and frustrate.
Madeleine Yuna Voyles in The Creator
Events, even the visually stunning ones, occur as cheap building blocks designed to arrive in its most obvious destination. There is no room for exploration and character moments in this beautifully realised sci-fi world, like a child given every toy in a store only to spend an afternoon throwing a rock at a wall. These critiques on story and film structure pale in comparison to the wild othering and orientalism that occurs throughout this story that can seemingly be put down to a team of white writers not considering their choices and subject matter, a trend that becomes clear the further down the rabbit hole of the film you go. It is lovely to see the real world locations of Cambodia and Vietnam used in a large-scale studio sci-fi, but at what cost?
Concluding with a mandatory ‘defeat the enemy by blowing up their Death Star’ plot removes any hope for a satisfying and unique story that earns its dazzling imagery and sound design. The Creator flashes of brilliance are crashing waves, thrashing you against the sea, but once those waves subside, you realise you can easily stand in the shallow depths of the water.
With another wonderful festival in the books, MIFF 2023 was a surprising mix of emerging artists from home and abroad spotlighting the program that gave the year a distinct flavour. Here, our writer Darcy has dropped part one of his notebook full of notes and thoughts on the many films he was able to catch at the festival, all of which should hopefully be brought to larger audiences throughout the rest of the year.
Sleep (Jason Yu) 2022:
A wonderfully charming but uneven riff on Rosemary’s Baby (1968) dances between comedy and genuine tension throughout, Sleep (2023) will keep the audience teetering on the edge of uncertainty until its delicious final image.
With an entrancing combination of performances by Lee Sun-kyun and Jung Yu-mi as a young couple about to welcome their first child, the stage is set for a tension-filled domestic horror, one that filmmaker Jason Yu is adept in weaving despite it being his first feature. Sleep, however, is more brash and darkly comic in nature, with a tone that will certainly reward the film with a certain cinephilic cult status.
While structurally inventive that should always stay a few steps ahead of even the most adept horror fans, Sleep’s third-act decisions lessen the forceful impact that was delighting and engaging its audience in the delicious tension Yu builds in exciting and unexpected ways. The enjoyment of the film stems from the deft dance between genre formalism and charming diversions, so further exploring these third-act choices will lessen the adventure as a whole.
I’m being deliberately coy about these aspects of the film as Yu has earned the surprise of these revelations on future audiences. This is a proud and confident debut that is sure to elevate Yu as an emerging voice in Korean genre cinema, one that is sure to expand on and improve on his deft filmmaking skills.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
The Breaking Ice (Anthony Chen) 2023:
A collection of transitory young people in moments of quiet stagnation that could soon harden into a crisis, Anthony Chen’s first of two films at the festival, the familiar but evocative drama The Breaking Ice (2023), illustrates the filmmaker’s deft hand in crafting relatable and defined characters you can’t help but see yourself in.
The film is an exploration of life’s transitional nature, depicted through the constant theme of ice. Ice is a fascinating property to base a film around, something that is constantly thawing and refreezing, altering its shape when in contact with warmth, only to regain its solidity through its frigid surroundings in a new shape, forever changed by this transition.
Situated in a frozen Chinese town of Yanji on the North Korean border, a town that literally exports and profits from the ice around them, we meet Haofeng (Liu Haoran), a depressed Shanghai financier alone at a destination wedding of a distant college friend. Through happenstance, he wills himself onto —’s () tour bus, a relatively new local who is also in a moment of stagnation and personal crisis. They quickly form a trio with — (), an older local kitchen hand who feels stuck in this small town.
The film brings to mind a more modern and sombreBande à part (1964) with its young trio traversing a town and experiencing a shifting world. A romantic film depicted with true honesty, Chen has a deep love for these three transitory characters who arrive and depart in different and life-affirming ways. This intense connection between the trio doesn’t change the matter of their being, but they were thawed out enough to emerge in a new shape. These are still the characters who question the value of their life and the purpose moving forward that we are greeted by but are more assured in their sense of self and their place in the world that is deeply moving.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
La Chimera (Alice Rohrwacher) 2023:
There is no one like Alice Rohrwacher working today, with the Happy as Lazaro (2018) filmmaker consistently producing wry, comic, and deeply felt films that harken back to a stranger and often more interesting period in arthouse cinema. With her new feature, La Chimera (2023), Rohrwacher uses her breezy charm to glance into the world of Italian generational class and history through the lens of an instantly iconic band of lost boys, led by Josh O’Connor in a true star-making performance as the ivory suit wearing tortured archaeologist-slash-graverobber Arthur.
The separation between grave-robbing and archeological profiteering is placed at the centre of this brilliant surrealist tragicomedy, asking us to constantly look downwards and question the rights and possessions of the deceased, especially the impoverished deceased. There is weight to these themes and Rohrwacher’s often allows her characters to linger in their moral ambiguity, but through her virtuosic camera work and editing, La Chimera is full of vitality.
Rohrwacher’s camera is alive with cinematic ideas both profound and charming, exuding both personal character moments as well as a wider filmmaking language that can beguile a full theatre in its motions. She is able to land big ideas in her films through her focus on both cinematic and mythic storytelling styles that are rarely so well blended. Few films look and sound like La Chimera, as Rohrwacher is both patient in showing you her style, and confident enough in the story being told that the audience will be put under its spell.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
Drift (Anthony Chen) 2023:
Anthony Chen’s second feature at the festival, Drift centres on a young woman Jacqueline (a captivating Cynthia Erivo) who finds herself houseless on a Greek island, both running from her past and avoiding her future. In a mostly wordless first act, Erivo moves through the town, just managing to survive as she sleeps amongst the crashing waves and rock pools on the coast.
Drift operates across three timelines, showing us her life in London with her girlfriend Helen (a surprising Honor Swinton Bryne appearance), and her trip back to her family in Liberia that precedes her arrival in Greece. Much like Jacqueline, we drift through these moments with little to latch ourselves into. Where The Breaking Ice succeeds is in informing its audience about the characters enough to engage and propel the narrative forward. Here, however, the withholding nature of the storytelling becomes the combustion engine of the film instead of the central characters. This structure works perfectly in thrillers and horror, but in a more contemplative character drama, the results are too slim to be wholly engaging.
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Ama Gloria (Marie Amachoukeli-Barsacq) 2023:
Featuring one of the best child performances in years, Marie Amachoukeli-Barsacq’s Ama Gloria (2023) follows 6-year-old Cléo, (a charming and captivating Louise Mauroy-Panzani) who spends her summer with her au pair Gloria (Ilça Moreno Zego), who has returned home to Cape Verde to care for her own children after the death of her mother. This tight-focus drama of a young person sharing a final core memory with someone they love is emotionally potent in its simplicity. For two characters that have endured recent untimely loss, there is a genuine warmth in showing this elongated goodbye to a loved one that washes over you like the summer afternoon sun.
The visual highlight of the film is in the gorgeous animated painting sequences that dot the short runtime of Ama Gloria, diving into not just Cleo’s mind, but of Gloria’a, riding an ocean of tears back home. The second painted sequence transforms into a roaring volcano, enacting Cleo’s rage at the sudden departure of her surrogate mother. Both sequences are transitioned with gorgeous sonic match cuts, blending seamlessly into the ether of the 4:3 film stock showing the control and respect Amachoukeli-Barsacq has for her characters and the relationship we have invested in over the efficient runtime of just 83 minutes.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
Earth Mama (Savanah Leaf) 2023:
A debut of honest warmth, Savanah Leaf’s Earth Mama (2023) is designed to stay with you the next time you pass a stranger on the street. With its captivating 16mm cinematography of Oakland by Jody Lee Lipes and provocative central performance by Tia Nomore as Gia, a pregnant single mother of two trying to get by while battling the US foster care to regain custody of her children, Earth Mama strips away feelings of judgement until only a depth of empathy is left.
Instead of constructing a film with a tight, domineeringly singular perspective of Gia, Leaf opts to move supportingly alongside her. In the opening moments of the film, a pregnant mother tells us matter-of-factly, “You can’t walk in my shoes, feel my experience, but you can walk alongside me, holding my hand.”
The heartbreak and emotionality of Earth Mama stem from Leaf’s tender honesty she exudes in telling Gia’s story. We want the best for her and her family, so when she hits her lowest point, we feel that moment, not as if it were ourselves, but as a dear friend.
The film shines in its unexpected relationships as Gia searches for solid ground inside a world that feels designed to destabilise. On first meeting with the prospective family in a diner, Gia has a beautiful moment with the family’s teenage daughter Amber (Kami Jones), who she immediately strikes a connection with. Earth Mama has quickly demonstrated Leaf’s deft hand as a writer and filmmaker who will only improve as new opportunities arise.
With another wonderful festival in the books, MIFF 2023 was a surprising mix of emerging artists from home and abroad spotlighting the program that gave the year a distinct flavour. Here, our writer Darcy has dropped part one of his notebook full of notes and thoughts on the many films he was able to catch at the festival, all of which should hopefully be brought to larger audiences throughout the rest of the year.
Blue Jean (Georgia Oakley) 2022:
It would be a diminishment to label Blue Jean (2022) a period film as the theatrical experience felt closer to a retrospective of a lost 80s gem than an indie debut from 2023. The debut feature from Georgia Oakley set the stage for a wonderful festival of emerging artists, centring on a young queer gym teacher Jeanie (a transfixing Rosy McEwan), trying to balance her life amongst the authoritarian and anti-LGBT+ Thatcher government in late 1980s Newcastle. The film is intricate in its layering of Jeanie’s clashing worlds as she aims to compartmentalise her sexuality from her work and family, loading even the simplest gestures and moments with palpable anxiety.
Oakley positions the story in an interesting state of generational limbo, with Jeanie’s behaviour clearly ingrained by the regressive world she grew up in and remains. She must navigate being an authority figure to a group of teenage girls that feel destined to progress past her. It’s almost cliche for films centred on teachers to develop into a story of the kids being the real teachers, but Blue Jean is able to maturely navigate these waters with confidence and purpose, developed through an immense level of authenticity.
And this achievement in period authenticity by Oakley and the whole crew cannot be understated. Oakley, alongside cinematographer Victor Seguin and production designer Soraya Gilanni Viljoen, work well beyond their means to create an incredibly lived-in 80s period drama that grounds the worlds of the characters. All three will be ones to watch in the following years.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Disco Boy (Giacomo Abbruzzese) 2023:
Disco Boy (2023) is a fascinating but slight debut from Giacomo Abbruzzese about a pair of interconnected but opposed soldiers, Aleksei (Franz Rogowski) and Jomo (Morr Ndiaye), which aims for Denis but lands closer to Winding Refn. A fascinating moral portrait of who fights our wars and for what purpose, Abbruzzese weaves compelling visual choices, including a heat-vision sensory explosion of violence in the Niger Delta, into this more atmospheric than deeply felt character work, bouncing between engaging and alienating in equal measure.
More a collection of fragmented visual ideas about self-identity, cultural identity through conflict, and purpose, than a developed story, Disco Boy ultimately disengages and limits one’s investment in the story of Alex and Jomo, especially as it enters its final act.
These are weighty themes for a debut feature, one that often falls into flat abstraction instead of provocative imagery that in more seasoned hands, would envelop an audience more fully.
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Showing Up (Kelly Reichardt) 2022:
Even a minor feeling Reichardt is still an event, packed with nuggets of wisdom and exploration into the delicate, tiny worlds of its characters. With her muse Michelle Williams, Reichardt centres the world of a tight artist community in her standard milieu of Portland. Williams inhabits Lizzy, a ceramics artist trying to get by while she works on her new independent show. Her friend-slash-landlord Jo (the terrific Hong Chau) keeps putting off fixing her hot water on top of a myriad of other minor obstacles involving an injured pigeon, her office work at the artist’s community keeps overtaking her time, leaving little time for Lizzy’s passion for her art as her patience gets stretched to a breaking point. But there is no true outburst of crescendo to Lizzy’s frustrations, that is never how Reichardt operates.
The master of American neorealism, the lives and conflicts of Showing Up (2022) involve the anxiety of unexpected moments soaking up time. The beautiful counterpoint to these moments however, is in the simple giving of one’s time, whether through a simple walk home, alleviating a colleague’s work, or coming to a friend’s art show, is as powerful a show of love one can demonstrate in this life. In a time of feverish multitasking and anxiety-inducing attention economy, Reichardt instead centres her film around just showing up (which is why this is easily the film title of the year).
There is an intense focus on the physical work of creativity rarely shown on film, giving the sensation of a mid-afternoon stroll through a tiny gallery, seeking to understand an artist through their work. There is genuine comedy rarely felt in Reichardt’s films here that is never snarky or mocking. She has a real care and love for this world and the people within it that emanates through Showing Up, allowing its humour to bubble to the surface in surprising moments.
When she is at her best, Reichardt’s screenplays never show the seams of a Robert McKee-approved story structure, with character arcs never becoming clear until their peaks are unveiled through the clouds. This allows her work to thrive and engage an audience consistently, developing one of the most consistent filmographies in 21st-century American auteurs. We should not take these films for granted.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Shayda (Noora Niasari) 2023:
A gorgeous debut from a real bright light in Australian cinema, Noora Niasari’s deeply personal portrait of her mother, portrayed in the film by the stunning Zar Amir Ebrahimi, brings to mind many great films before it, including MIFF 2022 highlight Aftersun, but is able to confidently stand on its own.
Following a young mother, Shayda, and her six-year-old (Selina Zahednia) daughter Mona, escaping an abusive father to a women’s shelter, Niasari has a clear-eyed but empathetic view of a story so close to her that emanates through the screen. Shayda’s (2023) sense of place and community is tight and focused while still allowing a beautiful freedom for the performers.
Niasari has a graceful way of weaving inner character life into scenes that in lesser hands would be doled out as blunt exposition. By giving the audience just enough story to understand the situation, we are rewarded with an expanded glance into the world of these characters and their relationships as they navigate the difficult situation they have been placed in. This year’s festival has been a wonder of debut features and emerging voices, with Shayda a real spotlight on the new and creative minds coming out of Australian cinema. It was heartwarming to see the festival wrap their arms around her and this impressive film.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
Past Lives (Celine Song) 2023:
I wrote about my favourite film of the year in my Sydney notebook here, but I just had to come back to see it with a packed MIFF crowd. It’s just as gorgeous the second time around. An absolute miracle in filmmaking, Celine Song is able to toe the line between the grandiosity of life and destiny and the minutiae of a relationship across many years with the ease of a veteran screenwriter and filmmaker.
In Celine Song’s extraordinary debut Past Lives (2023), time is the central tenet. During the post-screening Q&A, Song said she wanted the film to have the lived-in feeling that “12 years could pass in an instant, but a two-minute wait for an Uber could be an eternity.” What stood out on rewatch at the festival is the underrated challenge of editing this film, particularly in its shifting perspectives at the placement of its time shifts. We are never rushed into these leaps, nor are we led slowly into them, but Song and editor Keith Fraase (who came up working with Terrence Malick) are able to achieve a breathtaking sensation of each stage in Nora (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung’s (Teo Yoo) relationship feeling cut short.
MIFF is the perfect place to be exposed to the emerging talents of filmmakers and actors that will define the next generation, with Song joining Aftersun’s Charlotte Wells at the top of that list. This is the year’s best film to date with an instantly iconic ending that holds a packed theatre’s heart in its hands.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
Anatomy of a Fall (Justine Triet) 2023:
Beginning with an abrasive soundtrack of 50 Cent’s P.I.M.P (not a joke), Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or-winning film Anatomy of a Fall (2023) is seeking to destabilise its audience. With a winding courtroom structure and almost comical documentary film style, we are shown an increasingly engaging excavation in truth and what it means to us.
The film is a fascinating investigation of marriage and family through the lens of a tense courtroom drama that lures you deeper and deeper into its world with a powerful pair of performances by Sandra Hüller and Milo Machado Graner as mother and son Sandra and Daniel. Sandra Voyter, a novelist, stands trial for the murder of her husband Samuel (Samuel Theis), who “fell” from the second floor of their reclusive vacation home in the Alps.
Over the extended 150-minute runtime, Triet explores the legal system, guilt, and a family living with trauma inside a distinct Cinéma vérité comic realism. Anatomy of a Fall is a film that teaches you how to watch it, forcing an audience to give themselves over to its style and storytelling. This may be too big an ask for some films, but through Hüller’s all-encompassing guile as the compelling figure of Sandra, alongside Graner’s stellar work as her son Daniel, the beating heart of the film, it achieves something special as the story reaches its tipping point.
While J. Robert Oppenheimer’s name might be synonymous with the deadliest device ever created, Christopher Nolan’s latest three hour biopic, Oppenheimer, looks at the man behind the atomic bomb through a much more introspective lens without ever insinuating that audiences should feel a sense of sympathy for his brilliant mistake/s. Of course, introspection is a key building block to any biopic, but given Nolan’s ouevre hasn’t ever focused on a historical figure of this magnitude —or any historical figure in this sense which still isn’t as big a shock as not casting Michael Caine—, there’s understandably a greater interest surrounding this biopic if not for the simple fact that it’s a Nolan film, then definitely because its subject is one of the most infamous, and misunderstood, scientific minds ever.
That Oppenheimer was a brilliant theoretical physicist who was the victim of his own belief that man could be trusted with forces larger than them, is undeniable. But Nolan’s film isn’t just concerned with the cookie-cutter facts that you can pull from a Wikipedia page. While the film is based on 2005’s Pulitzer winning novel, ‘American Prometheus’, Nolan’s interest jumps from the key, often glossed over moments in Oppenheimer’s life, and interrogates them more carefully.
Nolan’s Oppenheimer (a perfectly cast Cillian Murphy) is a man struggling to be faithful, who is always in his mind, viewing every next move like an equation on a chalkboard. His relationship to theory stretches into his everyday life as he struggles to maintain meaningful relationships, always approaching life by the numbers and relegating himself to a disconnected observer as opposed to a practical artisan. At one point he is in disbelief that scientists overseas have figured out how to split atoms from each other (or something to that effect), stating that it’s not possible from a theoretical point of view (POV), and it’s through this sort of mould that he carves his Oppenheimer from — a man unlike those around him, an outlier.
L to R: Florence Pugh is Jean Tatlock and Cillian Murphy is J. Robert Oppenheimer in OPPENHEIMER, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan.
In this way, he isn’t too different from other Nolan characters like Bruce Wayne or Joseph Cooper in that he’s committed to what he knows, and does what he must for the greater good. His distant persona also affects his ability to build sustainable relationships, often pin-balling across various lovers and failing to forge a life beyond his commitment to his craft as exacerbated by a scene where he offers his crying baby to his friends as he doesn’t have the time to look after it (a selfish move he recognises).
Early in the film he’s encouraged to pursue his interest in theory and master it, and this is the point in his life that Nolan opts to introduce us to. And it’s in the early stages of the film that Nolan really portrays the internal struggle that will go on to plague Oppenheimer in the film’s later stages. He cleverly uses hazy, almost dreamlike visual motifs that equally look like beautiful stars and bomb fragments. These moments are some of the most thought-provoking as they provide a real deviation from the coolness and level head of Cillian Murphy’s performance that makes the character difficult to read — as though he’s got everything under his hat and under control.
It helps that multiple POV’s are being deployed by Nolan here in what is probably the most un-Nolan-esque part of this movie. Not only is Oppenheimer’s view of the world on display, but that of his early ‘affiliate’, Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr. at his brilliant best). This duality helps build tension and allows the events of the third act to come together more tightly than might otherwise have been possible. Frequent Nolan cinematographer, Hoyte van Hoytema, shoots in colour for Oppenheimer and black and white for Strauss, further helping create this sense of separation through subjectivity and objectivity, ultimately adding to Oppenheimer’s unknowability and the difference in views that the two characters have. Whether or not this approach works in its entirety is difficult to tell from a first viewing, especially since it does tie events together, but equally throws one out of rhythm from time to time with the various timelines intersecting.
Robert Downey Jr is Lewis Strauss in OPPENHEIMER, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan.
The most jarring instance of rhythmic intrusion is also the film’s best for the very fact that it’s the most speechless moment in the film. If you’ve followed the marketing, the controlled atomic set-piece (atomic in its own right) is where the full force of seeing this 70mm beast in IMAX really sells itself. By this point a lot of the establishing from the first half —namely around the politics of the Manhattan Project and the scientific lingo that will fly over most people’s heads— has been rounded off and Nolan finally gets to play with his own toys by unleashing the mother of all bombs, creating a spectacle that almost transports you to the New Mexico desert with the characters. It is really the punchline of the film, rewarding your patience by drowning out all of the noise in its countdown and the ensuing blast.
Whether or not Oppenheimer is the sort of Nolan film audiences are eager for is tough to say; there’s no tricky logic that fans of Interstellar (2014) or Inception (2010) wouldn’t wrap their heads around, but the film also sees Nolan at his rawest and most cynical, choosing to show a world destined to implode on itself just as it’s beginning to take shape. While The Dark Knight (2008) followed a similar path, there was at least the knowledge that its commentary was so distant from reality rather than a part of it. Yet in a film full of so many competing elements whether it’s the performances, the dialogue (which has has never really been the sweet-spot in a Nolan film as much as the moments around it are), the rapturous score from Ludwig Göransson, the staging of the key set piece or even the candidness of the story, there’s no doubt that like Oppenheimer, Nolan was all in on going big, and the final result is one that will stick with many long after the end credits roll by.
“Who the fuck is he?!” There are few better ways of introducing the bravado world of the European music scene in the 18th Century than a violin battle between Mozart and our protagonist. Bursting onto the scene as a young, brash upstart, Joseph Bologne (played wonderfully by the emerging star Kelvin Harrison Jr.) won’t take no for an answer, accruing skills and accolades like his life depends on it, which they perhaps do in this world of extreme prejudice.
Chevalier (2022) is a briskly paced period musical drama in the mould of a stripped-down Amadeus (1984), focusing on the untold story of Bologne, a famed composer, fencer, and violinist, named Chevalier de Saint-Georges right on the precipice of the French Revolution. Harrison Jr whips through courtrooms and ballrooms with an active charm he wields as tightly as his rapier, staving off potential suitors and snobbish aristocrats in equal measure.
Directed by veteran TV journeyman Stephen Williams, Chevalier is as modest as a period drama can feel. At a brisk 108 minutes (50 minutes shorter than Amadeus), the film structures itself on the familiar grounds of music biographical drama, with Bologne’s newest goal to conquer in becoming the head of the Paris Opera, set out as a competition by his friend Maria Antoinette (Lucy Boynton) against the courts preferred pick, German composer Christoph Gluck (Henry Lloyd-Hughes).
Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Joseph Prowen in Chevalier
Bologne’s confidence and deeply ingrained desire for victory propels the story into a familiar but compelling opera-based sports film, with the customary training montages, interwoven romance subplot with his lead singer and muse Marie-Josephine (the great Samara Weaving), and buildup to the final game. The middle act of the film centres on the romance between Joseph and Marie-Josephine, with a whirl of montage spinning us through their relationship as it intertwines with the writing of their opera. There are few surprises through these moments, but the chemistry between Harrison Jr. and Weaving is given room to flourish and charm in the limited time given.
Penned by the great Atlanta writer Stefani Robinson, Chevalier feels unique next to the staid and rigid period biopics that have become all too predictable and unengaging. By highlighting instead of shying away from Bologne’s personal history as a biracial Creole man born of an enslaved mother Nanon (Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjo) and her enslaver George Bologne (Jim High), Robinson has crafted a savvier story that deserved a larger budget to tell his full story. Joseph’s deep desire to defeat any who challenge him stems from his father’s demand for his son to be great at all things, believing that is the only way he will be allowed entry into this white world. This idea permeates Chevalier, as Joseph’s identity stems from this complex moment that is at once a slave owner telling a young boy to dominate those around him to get what he wants out of a world that is against him, and as a father wanting more for his son.
Joseph’s identity is the engine that maintains the course of this unevenly paced drama that easily could’ve stumbled into a cheap cradle to grave story. While uniquely modest for a period drama, Robinson adeptly avoids the many potential cliche landmines that litter historical features of this time.
Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Lucy Boynton in Chevalier
Where the film thrives is inside the relationship between Joseph and his mother Nanon, who comes to Paris a free woman after the death of George. Being taken from his mother and shipped off to a white boarding school, Joseph was forced to adapt to survive and thrive within the white world of European aristocracy and the musical landscape, never given the opportunity to learn of his culture and grow a relationship with his mother and that part of his life. Chevalier is at its best when we see this relationship, which is at first a tension point in Joseph’s life which he is eager to avoid, blossoms into a beautiful story of defiance and familial and communal bonds.
As Joseph learns to embrace his whole self , he wields the very defiant confidence and power he used to become accepted into the French aristocracy as Chevalier against them. With the undercurrent of unrest simmering under the surface throughout the film, we are led carefully through Joseph’s discovery of his place in these two worlds that are on the precipice of violence. As a man forced to survive through competition and determination inside the aristocracy that will not accept his place amongst them due to his race, Joseph Bologne is deserving of a place at the table of epic period dramas. In a more fleshed out and well funded telling of this tale, we would follow through into the French Revolution and Bologne’s impressive role in it. But for now, we will have to embrace Robinson and Williams for giving us this compelling and engaging, albeit brief encounter, with his story.
There has never been a more impossible task for the powerhouse creative team of Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie than following up their genre-defining film Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018), but they chose to accept it. With a more global reaching threat that feels more anchored to the moment in its AI focus, Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) has treated us to a weightier but immensely enjoyable film in the enduring franchise that is striving to operate as a final capstone like never before.
By tying the film onto Ethan’s past from the very beginning, Dead Reckoning Part One gives itself capital ‘I’ importance, a sensation unique to the McQuarrie era of mostly lightweight but masterfully crafted action romps. While the stunts are close in quality to Fallout – getting even close is an achievement itself – the focus on thematic and franchise storytelling far exceeds where the previous McQuarrie entries have gone before. The centring on AI technology that challenges the IMF in ways we haven’t seen before heightens the stakes into genuinely stressful sequences that have usually been left for the extreme stunt moments.
Now more about those stunts. Whether it’s dabbling in an extended car chase in Rome, an astonishing train sequence on the Orient Express (when you can, why pick any other train?), or a Venetian rave that feels equally John Wick 2 (2017) and Don’t Look Now (1973)inspired, Dead Reckoning’s staggering set-pieces leave few stones unturned. There are few cinematic experiences as overwhelming as a Mission: Impossible stunt sequence, with McQuarrie and Cruise becoming veterans in pacing out these moments to keep audiences on the hook for the runtime.
Hayley Atwell and Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
The introduction of Hayley Atwell as Grace, a pickpocket out of their depth is wonderful, countering the veteran spies that orbit around her throughout the film. While there is certainly a female character fridging issue that has plagued the MI series and is even more present in Dead Reckoning, it should be commended how each new woman that enters Hunt’s life operates on an entirely different wavelength. Other notable inclusions are Pom Klementieff as the flamboyant assassin Paris that works brilliantly as a silent action star, Esai Morales as the mysterious Gabriel, and the great Shea Whigham (with some tremendous hair) as G-man Jaspar Briggs sent to capture Hunt. They all add a unique flavour to the nearly three-hour runtime that knows when to add something new to the mixture.
Mission: Impossible films centre around their locations, an idea that was once a staple in the jet-setting action genre, but now feels fresh and invigorating in a climate of Atlanta studio lot set-pieces that leave an audience tired and unengaged, criticisms that can never be lobbed at this franchise. With wonderful sequences in Rome and Venice, Dead Reckoning never stays in one place for long but always uses its locations to its extremes, making it feel like the largest budgeted film in existence.
Adding onto the John Wick comparisons are the style and storytelling choices of Dead Reckoning that feel closer to the Keanu-helmed action epic, or even the most recent Bond film No Time to Die (2021), than the espionage trickery that defines this franchise. By opening Dead Reckoning with an extended prologue that sets up the stakes, we are given a rare glimpse into information that the IMF isn’t aware of. While this isn’t uncommon in action movies to establish the story this way, this alters how we as an audience view Hunt and his team throughout Part One, who are almost always a step ahead of us. Mask reveals and double crosses are part of the trade in the spy franchise, but in Dead Reckoning, McQuarrie and Cruise have doubled down on the world-spanning action epic elements that have defined their collaboration since Rogue Nation (2015).
With the strange re-emergence of bifurcated films in recent years (Dune, Spider-Verse, MI), larger stories are being told on the big screen, interesting creative decisions are being made in terms of where to split the narrative, a difficult decision that Dead Reckoning Part One has succeeded well above its peers in giving its eager audience the best of both. The magic trick McQuarrie and Cruise pull off here is in creating the sense that no cinematic idea is being held back, while still concluding satisfyingly with the knowledge that a part two will raise the stakes even higher.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is in theatres now.
With the release of his new feature Peter Pan and Wendy (2023), now is as good a time as any to dive into and rank the films of a personal favourite auteur. One of the most interesting and compelling American filmmakers to emerge in the 2010s, David Lowery has crafted a diverse filmography that leaps from quiet indie, Disney reimaginings, and Arthurian epics, all while keeping his unique style intact.
With his signature wistful (key buzzword for Lowery) yet hopeful idealism seeping into his features, Lowery is an impressively economical filmmaker that respects his audience while also searching to give them an entertaining and unique viewing experience, making him one of my favourite modern American filmmakers.
Ranking films of this ilk certainly centres around personal aesthetic preferences, with a clear upward trajectory that makes Lowery a must-see director moving forward, but I have done my best to order them here.
Some of these films are difficult finds, but most can be found on several streaming services.
7. St. Nick (2009)
A quiet and simple debut that focuses on vibe over story, St. Nick centres around a pair of real-life siblings, Savanna (11) and Tucker Sears (8), who seek to survive on their own in the Texas wilderness.
All of the hallmarks of a Lowery feature are here: runaway plot, youthful wistfulness, and a focus on atmosphere to establish character. While not on the level of engagement as his films to follow, this is an interesting debut that establishes Lowery’s tendencies that have made him such a creative voice in American indie cinema.
6. Peter Pan and Wendy (2023)
Lowery’s newest feature unfortunately arrives near the bottom of this list, lacking the tactility and sense of space that allows Lowery’s previous work to thrive. Peter Pan and Wendy never felt grounded in London or Neverland. Where the beauty and style of Lowery’s live-action Disney film Pete’s Dragon (2016) is drawn from its Pacific Northwest location, this film is desperately searching for an identity, a criticism laid at the feet of most recent Disney features.
While certainly an improvement on the misguided Joe Wright film Pan (2015), this new adaptation is anchored to the original work, striving for recognition as the definitive version that is ultimately misguided. The only standout inclusion to the story is the compelling camaraderie between the three central female characters: Wendy, Tiger Lily, and Tinkerbell. The casting of Alyssa Wapanatâhk as Tiger Lily, who speaks Cree throughout the film feels in direct response to Wright’s film which cast frequent Lowery collaborator Rooney Mara in the role, as well as the cultural insensitivity that has been a constant in the character’s story up until now. Unfortunately, by not replacing the problematic sequences with anything of substance, Tiger Lily is sidelined completely in a second half that was sorely missing her involvement.
Lowery’s penchant for in-camera work, production design, and practical effects gets pushed to the limit of the Disney machine here. Where films further down this list require certain CGI moments for its story, Lowery always limited its use. That was not possible here. Whether through the many flying sequences, the muddy crocodile sequence (hastily edited to avoid scrutiny), or the dry emergence into Neverland that never sparks wonder, Peter Pan and Wendy too often loses its footing, limiting the audience’s ability to lean into the story.
5. Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (2013)
The film that put Lowery on the map, this out-of-time, Badlands (1973) and Bonnie and Clyde (1967)style indie drama has moments of immense quality that will be further nurtured and heightened in future projects. Working with Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck for the first of many collaborations, Saints is able to flow on a river of pained expressions that the pair have made careers out of.
The true star of this film, however, is cinematographer Bradford Young, three years before his Oscar-nominated work on Arrival (2016). Young’s work is full of expression both in his use of the strong Texan sun and harsh shadows the pair find themselves in.
Lowery feels driven to craft a 70s Texan atmospheric drama akin to Malick or Wenders, often getting in the way of the story itself. This is usually the case with young filmmakers unsure of their own voice, which will come in his later films that exude an easy confidence.
4. Pete’s Dragon (2016)
A warm and wistful reimagining of the 1977 animated musical of the same name, Lowery’s Pete’s Dragon is a much more successful Disney film by the auteur, demonstrating his ability to work within the machine. Set in the Pacific Northwest but shot in New Zealand, there is a strong sense of place in all of Lowery’s features, allowing an audience to settle into a world and atmosphere.
Lowery from his early work is shown to be a wonderful director of children, no doubt a major reason he has worked closely with Disney. Oakes Fegley gives a delightful child performance as Pete, full of both warmth and trepidation, allowing Pete’s Dragon to feel honest amongst extraordinary circumstances.
The film boasts an impressive ensemble that allows the film to ascend to heights few live-action Disney films have, including Robert Redford, Bryce Dallas Howard, Fegley, Karl Urban, Wes Bentley, and Isaiah Whitlock Jr. Redford, in particular, has a remarkably tender monologue that really elevates the film.
The film takes strong influential cues from The Never Ending Story (1984), both in its stylisation of Elliot the Dragon and in its thematic ties. The dark force Nothing in the 80s film series can be co-opted easily into the environmental parable at the heart of Pete’s Dragon. The sequence following Elliot’s capture is full of pure heartbreak, laying him out like a rich Redwood cut down for paper. This sequence’s sound design and score is hollowed out, echoing the turmoil and anti-environmentalist point of view that centres the film. When the discourse around real care is rarely given to movies for families (Eric Kohn even centred a discussion at IndieWire around Pete’s Dragon and the new Mario film), this is where the bar should be.
3. The Old Man and The Gun (2018)
Working once again with the legend, Robert Redford, The Old Man and The Gun is a slick and tightly structured 70s crime film centred on an older bank robber Forrest Tucker (Redford). Shot on Super 16mm, the film washes over you like a cool fog in Autumn, combining its filmed aesthetic with its editing and sonic style that makes it such a joy to watch. Lowery pairs this relaxed but taught cat-and-mouse film with a uniquely wistful editing style akin to Steven Soderbergh’s debut The Limey (1999).
Lowery has always been an economical storyteller, using composition and performance to tell a wider story in fleeting moments. The introduction of Casey Affleck’s detective John Hunt, shot externally through a smashed window of a bakery, with a weathered look telling you everything about where this character is mentally and how they view their work (on their 40th birthday to add).
The shift in sound for the final 30 minutes, once Forest and John meet in the diner bathroom is subtly affecting. Lowery has always had a respect for conscious sound design choices (the man adores an L cut) that allow his films to flow with the quiet calm of a gentle river.
2. The Green Knight (2021)
I wrote about this film on the site on release and it is still one of my favourite films of the 2020s. A murky, ethereal dream ballad of a film that demonstrates Lowery’s ability to expand his style onto bigger projects. His films are regularly grounded by terrific but always understated lead performances, and Dev Patel shows his range here as Sir Gawain. The knight is a character never sure of their footing as the ground feels to be constantly shifting beneath them through his own trepidation.
Feudal period films rarely feel as perceptive and relatable as this, while also making time for some truly majestic Arthurian imagery composed by returning collaborator Andrew Droz Palermo (A Ghost Story) as cinematographer.
Lowery has a clear inclination towards the myth-making side of storytelling – a likely reason he has operated well with Disney IP – that is fully maximised here. Similar to Robert Eggers with his three films, Lowery is able to manipulate his filmmaking sensibilities to different worlds, forming unique creations that are wholly consistent with themselves and with their wider filmography. Where Eggars is driven by a rigged accuracy to world-building and language that becomes a bedrock to tell engaging narratives, Lowery uses a combination of natural lighting, emotive sound design, and empathic screenwriting to form stories that are engagingly wistful, lightly melancholic, but always hopeful. The Green Knight is Lowery’s boldest execution of this to date. Need this to return in theatres.
1. A Ghost Story (2017)
A miracle of a micro-budget indie that stands up to any film released in the past 10 years. A failing relationship depicted as a haunting, how things left unsaid can feel like immovable weights when someone is gone, A Ghost Story packs a lot into its 92-minute runtime. The classic depiction of a ghost as someone who has left things unresolved is a potently sad concept when shown from their point of view. Untethered from time and space, a ghost has nothing but these unresolved emotions to anchor them to this world. While the more powerful emotion of the film comes from the relationship between M (Rooney Mara) and C (Casey Affleck), the second half focusing on C’s ghost is always engaging with ideas that will linger in the mind forever.
Much gets made of Lowery’s eye for compositions in his films but it’s his considered use of sound throughout his filmography that allows his work to shine, none more so than A Ghost Story. The gorgeous Badalamenti-inspired score by frequent collaborator Daniel Hart allows us into the world without ever pushing us through the door. Its combination of sombre and hopeful tones flows through Lowery’s filmography, allowing us to feel for both characters who are miles apart but physically close.
The two central set pieces, the pie scene and the headphones scene of I Get Overwhelmed are anchored by the full emotional range of Rooney Mara, a gift Lowery has complete faith in. She commands our full attention with barely a word, so when it comes time for us to depart, her absence is profoundly felt, by us and C.
The film’s one misstep in a largely perfect feature is the grandstanding monologue from Will Oldham (cast in Lowery’s short Pioneer), as it never felt necessary to use most of the dialogue in the script to explain its ideas. The film is such a Rorschach test of stillness and delivery that a level of dynamism from a performer was required in the film’s psychedelic time skip sequence, a moment that widens A Ghost Story’s themes past the grieving couple, but ultimately sours the experience.
The final 30 minutes are an extraordinary passage-of-time poem – something Lowery follows up within a wonderful panning shot in The Green Knight – shot with wisdom, humour, and contentment that leaves you with more hope than you’d expect to find in a film about grief and time.
This film had a profound impact on me on release, executing something much larger than the sum of its parts, with a tiny budget but a committed cast and crew to create the highest-level student film possible. With gorgeous still photography, considered use of score, and a powerful pair of performances operating almost silently, A Ghost Story is one of the best films of the decade that will outlive us all.
While I, as a Melbourne-based writer, eagerly wait for MIFF to roll back around in August, an opportunity to travel to Sydney arose just in time to catch the final days of the Sydney Film Festival to scratch my never-ending festival itch.
In four days I was able to see 10 films of varying quality worth reporting on, so I have emptied the notebook out of my thoughts on a great selection of films from the festival. I have avoided discussing plots too much here as hopefully, most of these films arrive by year’s end for people to catch.
Past Lives (Celine Song, 2023)
The pick of the festival and best film I’ve seen in 2023, Past Lives is a simple but evocative story told with a subtle precision that will stay with you through multiple lifetimes. Joining the lineage of cinematic depictions of romantic longing that define some of the greatest works in the medium, Casablanca (1942), In the Mood for Love (2000), and Before Sunset (2004), debut feature director and writer Celine Song set the bar incredible high for her debut that she overcomes with an assured ease.
Following an invisible tether of 12-year increments, we accompany Nora (an incredible, awards-worthy Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (a revelatory Teo Yoo), two deeply linked childhood friends that reconnect online a decade after Nora’s parents emigrate to Canada. The film is best experienced the less you know, especially its final act, so I shall leave the breakdown there for now but will return when it opens wide on August 31st.
Past Lives is an extraordinarily shot film by Song and cinematographer Shabier Kirchner, who also shot the incredible Small Axe (2020) series. This is the best looking film since Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), with its lingering pans and still images that would be enough to crown Song’s debut feature as a major achievement on its own. But it’s the deeply layered script, self-referential in the way our own stories are, that allows it to bloom into a uniquely moving experience.
With a Casablanca-level final act that had a sold-out audience on the verge of bursting from their seat and skin, Song has gifted us with a script and film of deeply personal experience that never feels alienating. The most personal is always the most universal, and Past Lives is a tremendous achievement that must be seen in theatres. Romantic dramas may be out of vogue as a theatrical genre, but I implore you to seek this one out with a crowd as soon as possible.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
Shortcomings (Randall Park, 2023)
A stronger comedy than romance, Randall Park’s debut feature Shortcomings, adapted from the screenwriter Adrian Tomine’s 2007 comic of the same name, is an uneven but enjoyable coming-of-age story centring a difficult protagonist, indie theatre manager Ben, played by Justin H. Min. The film is a provocative comedy centring on Bay Area millennials trying to work out the stagnation of their lives and relationships that is deeply influenced by Judd Apatow comedies, buoyed by its bright characters that have a horrible case of foot-in-their-mouth.
With a terrific comedy ensemble including Sherry Cola, Ally Maki, Sonoya Mizuno, and Timothy Simons, Shortcomings doesn’t attempt to reinvent the rom-com wheel, but its acidic dialogue and loquacious characters lead to many hysterical moments and an overall enjoyable watch.
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
How to Blow Up a Pipeline (Daniel Goldhaber,2022)
A work of pure tension and electricity, Goldhaber has made a powerhouse feature for an emerging generation brought up in a world of climate fatalism. Based on the acclaimed nonfiction book of the same name, Goldhaber and co-writers Jordan Sjol and lead actress Ariela Barer (Xochitl) bring the genre formalism of heist and caper cinema to a subject matter that is too often weighed down by its own importance.
Due to the time restraints of filmmaking, it is rare for a film to feel pressingly of the moments, which makes Pipeline an even more impressive achievement. The film operates almost as a forbidden, micro-budget indie that works so effectively in films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and The Blair Witch Project (1999), allowing the tension and drama to feel rooted in desperate reality that makes for an irresistible watch.
Pipeline excels through its terrific ensemble of well realised modern Gen Z characters in Sasha Lane, Lukas Gage, Forrest Goodluck, Jayme Lawson, Jake Weary, Kristine Froseth, and Marcus Scribner. All the performers are just obscure enough to allow the film to maintain the air of unexpectedness and panic that heightens every shaky hand and nervous breath that will have you clawing at your seat for 90 minutes.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Sand (Visakesa Chandrasekaram, 2023)
Stronger in intent and theme than execution, using local crews and first-time actors, Sand evocatively places you in a difficult moment in Sri Lankan history. As a survivor of a decades-spanning civil war, Rudran (played wonderfully on debut by Sivakumar Lingeswaran) must pick up the pieces of his life, including moving back home to live with his soothsayer mother (Kamala Sri Mohan Kumar), standing trial for his slowly explained role in the war, going through therapy for his wartime injuries, and seeking out a lost love Vaani (Thurkka Magendran).
There is a wall of plot to scale in this quiet and meditative 101-minute feature that makes for an often unengaging watch, perhaps by design as we feel the immeasurable weight that the war has left upon the shoulders of survivors like Rudran. Nonetheless, Chandrasekaram has crafted a vital film that lacks polish but oozes authenticity, about an overlooked part of world history, grounding it in the life of one character to illustrate the complexity of the moment.
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 2.5 out of 5.
Afire (Christian Petzold, 2023)
Not the only comedic film on this trip to centre on a self-absorbed artist played by a German actor who cannot help their destructive tendencies from impacting those around them, but is certainly the only film that sits inside the bucket of a climate parable.
A film relatable to anyone who has ever used their work as a shield against the world, the great Christian Petzold’s newest feature, Afire, centres on young novelist Leon (Thomas Schubert) who travels to his artist friend Felix’s (Langston Uibel) family home on the coast of the Baltic Sea to finish his new novel. When they arrive at the holiday home, they learn that Felix’s mother has rented out a room to the mysterious Nadja (the terrific Paula Beer), an unwelcome distraction of the world that Leon was hoping to escape. Compounding this, there is an encroaching wildfire from the west that doesn’t appear to phase the characters, even as it spreads ever closer to their door.
Petzold often works in myth and wider thematic ideas that drift into his films as suggestive poems, with Afire centring on love, passion, and an unique climate metaphor that manages to ground itself in these young people working out their lives in a rapidly changing world.
The unique filmmaker’s first true comedy, Afire is an oddly engaging film with unique and difficult characters, similar in ways to his 2020 mythological mermaid feature Undine (also with an incredible Beer performance). Petzold never allows an audience to stay on solid ground, matching the uncertainty his characters constantly feel, which makes for a compelling experience even if you find the characters unlikable.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
L’Immensità (Emanuele Crialese, 2022)
A story that follows similar tracks to others before it, but told with an aching honesty and specificity, will always transcend into feeling bold and unique. L’Immensità (2022), a coming-of-age trans story set in 1970s Italy, inspired by the real life experiences of writer and director Emanuele Crialese, who came out as trans at the premiere of the film at the Venice film festival, is a beautifully shot and treated film that is at both grounded in its location, while also levitating above it as a reflective piece of filmmaking.
The brilliant duo of performances from Luana Giuliani and Penélope Cruz as Andrew and his mother Clara excel in this slight but potent domestic story. Cruz, clearly taking inspiration from Gena Rowlands in A Woman Under the Influence (1974), is the all enrapturing sunlight of the film, illuminating an immense warmth that is equally difficult to live alongside as Andrew is trying to find footing in an uncertain world. With several madcap dance sequences taken from Italian television musical moments, L’Immensità never feels weighed down by its bleakest moments, allowing the film to flow freely into its uncertain future as the credits roll.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
Passages (Ira Sachs, 2023)
A sardonic tale of romantic messiness depicted with a raw honesty that bleeds into tenderness in this perfectly cast love triangle. Starring three terrific actors in Franz Rogowski, Ben Whishaw, and Adèle Exarchopoulos, Sachs’ Passages is a fascinating and comedic film that keeps you on uneven ground throughout.
With a combination of complicated and withholding characters shown in what feels like the fraught final stages of a relationship between Rogowski’s Tomas and Whishaw’s Martin, as well as a collection of honest sex scenes that feel so rare in modern cinema, Passages is a wholly unique experience in modern romantic storytelling that while lacking sentimentality, never lacks tenderness.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
Monster (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2023)
Returning in quick succession off the back of the divisive but personally beloved Broker (2022), the master humanist filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda has crafted a complexly woven, if only slightly contrived Rashomon-styled story on empathy in an increasingly uncaring world.
The first film without a screenwriting credit since his powerfully assured debut Maborosi (1995), working with Japanese TV writer Yûji Sakamoto, Monster follows similar trends and themes to some of the revered filmmaker’s best work, notably Nobody Knows (2004) and Shoplifters (2018), while still feeling unique in the auteur’s wider canon of family and child-based dramas.
The film plays out in three distinct phases, beginning with single mother Saori (Sakura Ando), who is trying to get to the bottom of her son Minato’s (Sōya Kurokawa) bruises and erratic behaviour who blames his homeroom teacher Hori (Eita Nagayama). Explaining more will break the spell Sakamoto and Kore-eda cast across the film, which impeccably places you within each phase, commanding a genuine shock whenever a new moment expunges all previous notions we had of events and characters. What allows the film to excel is how these revelations are shown with compassion and care, never a trick for an audience to feel twisted around like a winding road thriller, even though the film is oftentimes thrilling. With a balanced score by the late master Ryuichi Sakamoto (using mostly older recordings with a few new compositions) as his final final work that he would’ve loved. I cannot wait to watch this again with the full scope of experience in mind.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Reality (Tina Satter, 2023)
Reality is the guiding principle of this film which was clearly a more effective work of experimental theatre, filmmaker and playwright Tina Satter brought Reality (originally titled Is This a Room)to the stage in 2019, to rave reviews, and is now being adapted for a wider audience. A compelling story playing out in mostly real-time, using only the dialogue from the audio recordings of the real encounter the day the FBI arrives at the door of NSA translator Reality Winner’s (played by Sydney Sweeney) small Augusta rental, Reality plays out as a thrilling interrogation even if you know details of the story.
The dialogue’s clunkiness and awkwardness heightens the reality (impossible for that word not to be tip of the tongue throughout the film) of the situation, even if it oftentimes lessens the cinematic quality of the film itself. The moviemaking flourishes are isolated to the moments of redaction from the file that are purposely jarring that begin as an engagingly disorienting experience, but by its 10th roll around becomes tedious.
The terrific central performance by Sweeney and the minimalist filmmaking and set design choices by Satter allow Reality to commit to its goals of highlighting the real events of that day in exacting detail, while giving the audience an evocative theatre experience.
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Cobweb (Kim Jee-woon, 2023)
The newest entry from Korean cult filmmaker Kim Jee-woon, Cobweb (2023) may be the most bizarrely hilarious film of the year. Set in the heavily regulated world of 1970s Korean cinema, Cobweb stars Song Kang-ho as director Kim, an obsessive filmmaker that has to desperately attempt to convince his crew, actors, and producers to reshoot two more days of his newest film Cobweb, to make it a true masterpiece. If that synopsis ignites the receptors in your cinephilic brain, this is the film for you.
With its biting satire and melodramatic comedy that bleeds over from the film-within-a-film to the film itself, Cobweb is closer to Robert Altman’s The Player (1992) than The Disaster Artist (2017) – there is an incredible moment where the melodramatic music starts to be used on the crew that shifts the whole film’s perspective. This overtly indulgent filmis both an investigation into this important time in the evolution of Korean cinema that is so vital to the medium now and a hilariously over-the-top comedy about the ludicrous nature of the film industry that will have you falling out of your seat.
The grief monster lives inside the house. Based on a 12-page short story by Stephen King from the 1970s that obscures the nightmare between supernatural and psychological, The Boogeyman (2023) is a lean and enjoyable 90-minute horror that is as good a theatre experience as you’ll find right now. There is no obscurity here, as screenwriters Scott Beck, Bryan Woods, and Mark Heyman begin with a horrific cold open that leaves little doubt about the threat at the centre of the film.
The Boogeyman follows a similar trajectory to most Stephen King stories – familial grief made manifest, a central car crash, overlooked teens, etc – but it’s in execution where the film thrives. After the sudden passing of their mother in a car crash, the Harper family of teenager Sadie (Sophie Thatcher), much younger Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair), and father Will (Chris Messina) are struggling to cope in the aftermath, leaving them vulnerable to the presence of a looming spectre in the dark. The film is light on narrative invention, but has some of the most impressively creative horror set pieces that engages an audience far more than the story.
(From left) Sophie Thatcher, Chris Messina, and Vivien Lyra Blair in The Boogeyman.
Emerging onto the scene with the impressively minimalist Covid horror film Host (2020), Rob Savage weaponised the familiar with Zoom calls and our collective sense of isolation during the pandemic that made it so effective. Given a studio budget and higher-level actors to work with, the filmmaker created an effective horror film that should stand as one of the year’s best. Savage’s impressive use of light and negative space that he flexed in Host (especially in its constraints), is heightened in The Boogeyman, especially through the use of unique light sources in the set pieces like Sawyer’s light ball, a PlayStation game, or the therapist’s red pulsating light pillar that ratchets up the tension greatly.
Looking for narrative invention and complexity in a film titled The Boogeyman is like searching for water in the Sahara, and Savage is acutely aware of this. The film’s narrative simplicity strips it down to its base elements of a grief-addled family and a monster feeding off their pain, allowing the set pieces and creative execution to thrive. Feeling much like a short story that hastily needs connective tissue to leap to its heightened moments, the film takes narrative shortcuts to arrive at its impressive set pieces. This is not uncommon in the horror genre, but in a post-Get Out (2017) world, its lack of self-awareness is surprising, especially in its very post-2020s setup of therapy and grief.
Supported by a solid all-around cast, Thatcher and Blair are terrific as the mourning sisters. Sophie Thatcher in particular, in her first lead film role since breaking out in the TV series Yellowjackets (2021), holds the movie together with a combination of teenage resolve and raw open nerve that is always engaging. Horror has long been a genre that’s allowed young actors to break out, and Thatcher’s performance here is one of the more impressive in recent years.
The Boogeyman is another in a long run of recent film and television centred on therapy, which while an important addition to culture to lessen the stigma, it makes for a collection of tired tropes with little insight. Will is a therapist, which certainly heightens his fear of opening up to his daughters about the sudden passing of his wife and their mother, but is hollow as a character (something not uncommon with adults in King stories). The depictions of therapists in the film, Will and Dr Weller (LisaGay Hamilton), are harsh and broad, ultimately hurting the characterisation of the profession instead of illuminating it.
Despite its narrative flaws and simplicities, it’s hard not to get swept up in the enjoyment and genre craft on display in The Boogeyman, from a recent emerging talent in Rob Savage. Comfortably levelling up to studio horror scale, Savage heightens every moment with creative set pieces that will thrill any horror fan seeking a new cinema experience.
Beginning, as most noir stories do, in a detective’s office. In enters the striking heiress Clare Cavendish (Diane Kruger), seeking to hire the famed private investigator Philip Marlowe (Liam Neeson) to find her missing lover, Nico Peterson (François Arnaud). These familiar beats are established efficiently and with a breeze of frictionless storytelling that makes for pleasant viewing to begin a film, but makes for a shaky foundation to build a twisty detective caper. Based not on Raymond Chandler’s series of novels, but the 2014 novel The Black-Eyed Blonde by John Banville, the film feels notably modern while inside the familiar world of the famed detective, making for a unique watch.
Marlowe (2023) has the presentation early on of a Sunday matinee theatre film, which makes the sudden shift with a quite gnarly sequence in its first act even more jarring. It destabilises the film, which could be an interesting choice to move the audience into an unexpected place, but these two styles run on parallel tracks throughout the film. L.A. noir stories are often about the seedy underbelly of the Hollywood system, so these juxtaposed styles could reinforce that concept, but in Marlowe they lessen the impact of each other completely.
The performances are solid all round, especially in the smaller side characters headlined by Jessica Lange and Alan Cumming, but is let down by a lacking lead performance by Neeson, who is still within his post-Taken mode that feels out of place for a Marlowe role. While Robert Mitchum’s performance of Marlowe in Farewell, My Lovely (1975) was hard-nosed and rough as sandpaper, there was still the famed character’s wisecracking and philosophising that made him beloved. Whether these changes have been ground down with this much older Marlowe is unclear, as the film focuses on addressing his age physically, not emotionally or mentally. It’s difficult to separate the previous Marlowe performances here, but it’s those changes that flatten the film as a whole.
Liam Neeson in Marlowe
A causal change with this flat Neeson performance is the lack of chemistry he has with Diane Kruger, which should be the igniting spark for the whole film. An underwritten femme fatale part is a staple in the noir genre, usually buoyed by the filmmaking and dynamic chemistry with the detective, neither of which are serviced to Kruger, who should be the standout element of the film.
Philip Marlowe has always been a compelling literary and screen character throughout the years due to his iron moral backbone being constantly put up against the rapidly shifting immorality of old Hollywood. This is shown in flashes in Marlowe – it will never grow tiring to see the villain attempt to bribe the unflappable detective – but the portrayal here is focused on Marlowe’s desire to either retire or return to the police force for a more stable life. While unique for a screen portrayal of the character through its source material, this forces the film into a thematically inert corner that does not make for engaging cinema.
The film’s strange mixture of modern sensibilities (graphic violence, modern dialogue, handheld camerawork) inside of a period setting makes it a fascinating but not always engaging watch. The final act devolves into a strangely modern action spectacle – equipped even with the neon-drenched scenery – that has a stronger connection to last year’s Neeson action film Memory (2022) than The Big Sleep (1946). In theory this could all work as a form of adaptation of old Hollywood noir tropes through a modern lens, but in practice Marlowe ends up a mess of contradictions that complicates what began as a charming enough Summer noir for older audiences.
Rating Frames 