White Material (2009)

The workers have reluctantly agreed to help. Five days at a coffee plantation as violent conflict happens. An unnamed African country. Rebel soldiers and the military fighting. The French colonialists have withdrawn, only Isabelle Huppert’s character stubbornly staying behind for a business that she married into. One more yield before they pack up and leave. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]