First Name: Carmen (1984)

Jean-Luc Godard in the 1980s is terrain I’ve always wanted to investigate. The French auteur coming back to narrative movies after the 1970s, retaining his experimentation and politics, and constantly assessed by reference to his fertile 1960s heyday aka “the fun stuff.” First Name: Carmen (1984) was the first from this 80s period that I […]

Last Year At Marienbad (1961)

Guests in suits and evening dresses. A palace repurposed as a hotel. Refinement that feels like another time, another place. The camera tracks through the hallways, taking in the space, the high ceilings, the ornate interior decoration. In the hotel, people often stand still, pausing as if waiting for direction. Like actors in the small […]

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 […]

Liebestraum (1991)

Liebestraum (1991) takes its title from the Franz Liszt composition; we hear a swing-era version playing on a turntable when a couple are murdered during their after-hours affair. The titular piece of music is one fetish object in director-writer Mike Figgis’ neo-noir narrative, but it is supplanted another fetish object – the building itself. A […]

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 […]