Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017)

Often good acting is equated to external tics and Denzel Washington’s performance in Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017) is a barrage of choices. The glasses, the fro, the gap in his teeth, the bow-legged walk, and so on. There are a lot of choices to create this character but I thought they were deeply felt […]

Far From Men (2015)

Based on a short story by Albert Camus, Far From Men (2015; Loin des hommes) focuses on the inevitability of choice and of having to choose a side, particularly with its setting being the Algiers conflict in French-colonised North Africa during the 1950s. A former war veteran from World War 2, Daru (Viggo Mortensen) lives […]

Our Time (2018)

I took a chance on Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas’ Post Tenebras Lux mainly on the basis of the intriguing image of a red demon with horns moving through a living room. In the end, that was one surreal image included in a visually immersive arthouse drama about an upper class family and their workers in […]

Bacurau (2019)

This was one of the films I was looking forward to most this year and it’s a shame it’s not received a Perth or Australian release yet. For those who have a VPN, you could stream it from the Criterion Channel. I read up too much on the Brazilian-French co-production Bacurau (2019) and its narrative […]

Deerskin (2019)

Deerskin (2019; Le Daim) is directed by Quentin Dupieux who is also the electronic musician Mr Oizo and who has for the past decade built up a career as a filmmaker specialising in weird, offbeat fare. His first film, Rubber, which I’ve still not seen, was a meta-horror movie about a rubber tire that could […]