Alphaville (1965)

My enduring memory of Alphaville (1965) was the shot near the end of a Parisian freeway at night, the collection of lights in the darkness, a simple and low budget way of implying a future space. To travel to another galaxy as mundane as driving down a highway, yet still otherworldly in the grainy black […]

The Beaches Of Agnes (2008)

Every time I watch an Agnes Varda film for the first time, I am always left with the feeling: why am I not watching more Agnes Varda? Or just all the time? As an autobiographical documentary, The Beaches Of Agnes (2008; Les plages d’Agnès) also works as a primer for the French filmmaker’s career, with […]

Sibyl (2019)

I think I had the mistaken impression that Sibyl (2019) was an erotic thriller (the first act initially made me think of Francois Ozon’s Double Lover), which it isn’t. But there’s lots of intrigue and tension throughout, a psychological character study that is about a few things at once: sexual desire, substance addiction, creative process, […]

Personal Shopper (2014)

Irma Vep might be director Olivier Assayas’ high-point and the first film I saw of his back in the late 1990s. I’m a fan of Assayas when he also skirts with the thriller genre, the films of his that involve tracking characters through geo-political espionage such as Demonlover, Boarding Gate (one of my faves) and […]

Knife + Heart (2018)

I was so keen to see Knife + Heart (2018; Un couteau dans le coeur), a queer take on the giallo genre, when it showed at the French Film Festival a few years back. I missed it at cinemas and was meaning to catch up with it – thank the neon-lit heavens for Mubi keeping […]