El Planeta (2021)

A box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates in a display window. Filmed in digital black and white, a framed image that the camera lingers on and one of my favourite shots in the movie El Planeta (2021). In the Spanish town of Gijon, there are numerous shops boarded up, closed down on account of a recession. […]

Pacifiction (2022)

The white suit. When commissioner De Roller (Benoît Magimel), an official of France working in Tahiti, rides on a boat towards a surfing competition as part of his duties, he waves to a couple of people on the shore. It struck me how the white suit De Roller constantly wears in Pacifiction (2022), which seems […]

The Novelist’s Film (2022)

I’m still reading Dennis Lim’s book about Hong Sang-soo’s film Tale Of Cinema, which is used to discuss the prolific auteur’s body of work. I’ve seen a lot of Sang-soo’s films this year, mainly due to the fact that many of them were added to SBS OnDemand. By seeing more than one of Sang-soo’s productions, […]

Anaïs In Love (2021)

Anaïs In Love (2021) played at festivals, if I remember correctly like the French Film Festival, and feels like it would have been overshadowed by The Worst Person In The World coming out in the same year. There’s a resemblance between the two leads – lithe brunette white women – and they’re both chaotic presences […]

In Front Of Your Face (2021)

I could imagine the further you delve into prolific Korean director Hong Sang-soo, a feeling of sameness might set in, or more just seeing the recurring themes, structures and approaches more clearer. A week between seeing Grass and In Front Of Your Face (2021), both currently streaming on SBS On Demand with half a dozen […]