Bastards (2013)

Cascading rain in close-up against a building at night as moody synth from the Tindersticks plays over the soundtrack. The opening shot to Claire Denis’ film, Bastards (2013), hooked me in and visually established its neo-noir vibe. One of my favourite shots later in the film was of a woman, Chiara Mastroianni – seen from […]

Merry-Go-Round (1981)

“… generally considered a failure – but what a failure it is!” A quote from the Mubi “our take” description accompanying Jacques Rivette’s Merry-Go-Round (1981), and if you do any cursory reading around the film’s making you can understand why even the director himself considered it a “failure”. The third of four planned movies he […]

On The Beach At Night Alone (2017)

A beach is always a contemplative site in cinema, and South Korean director Hong Sang-soo seems to return to it as a space for his characters. On The Beach At Night Alone (2017) features two beaches – one in Hamburg, the other in South Korea – and neither takes place in the pitch-black of night […]

I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History As Barbarians (2018)

I was a fan of Romanian director Radu Jude’s Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, and was reading recent interviews with him about his next film doing the festival rounds. This compelled me to track down some of his earlier films, and the only one available on SBS On Demand is I Do Not Care […]

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 […]