Most artists lend themselves to discussions that have a clear beginning, middle and end – it’s only logical to provoke audiences into linearly viewing their work. Yet, there are some to which this principle cannot be applied, because their work is too abstract and offbeat to be subjected to the same trite approach. Bertrand Bonello…
Author: The Postmodern Pelican
One of Them Days (2025)
They say friends are the family we choose – and just like family, they have a tendency to get on our nerves from time to time, as is the case with any kind of relationship, with the most meaningful usually being those that are built from a combination of love and frustration. This idea is…
Flowers in the Attic (1987)
As has often been said, blood is thicker than water – but it’s certainly equally true that it’s usually your family that can do the most harrowing damage to one’s psyche. Hopefully, very few of us felt the betrayal and abandonment of an unloving domestic situation, but unfortunately, they do exist and can heavily influence…
Timestalker (2024)
Originality is such a valuable commodity in contemporary cinema, particularly because it seems so elusive – it has always seemed slightly unnerving the degree to which the industry relies on existing properties rather than embracing the potential of discovering some new, untrodden artistic concept or style. Yet, there are still some filmmakers who are firm…
Presence (2025)
There was some discourse recently about the best filmmakers who don’t have a single masterpiece to their name, a sign of someone being technically gifted and a solid authorial voice but who has struggled to establish themselves as having at least one work that carries their legacy. One of the names that came up in…
Harper (1966)
Detective fiction has been one of the most popular sub-genres of literature and cinema for over a century – going from the days of the penny dreadful to the era of pulp fiction and television procedurals, audiences have always responded with incredible vigour to stories of resourceful investigators set out to solve cases that seem…
Better Man (2024)
You could go back to any point in the past where celebrity culture has existed and find public figures who say that being famous is akin to living as a circus animal, being the subject of constant gawking and attention to the point where having a single moment of one’s own is beyond impossible. Few…
The 4:30 Movie (2024)
One of the most common recurring trends in contemporary cinema is the tendency of any director of even the slightest stature to make a film later in their career that is either marketed as a love letter to the cinema or a distinctly personal work based on their formative years, crafting stories about their younger…
Seven Chances (1925)
There are some artists whose work is singularly impossible to describe since even attempting to condense the impact they made on their medium into a single coherent sentence is a challenge, primarily because understanding their brilliance requires us to address several different elements that went into the creation of their work. There is a reason…
Hard Labour (1973)
Mike Leigh is quite simply one of the greatest filmmakers of his (or any) generation, and for over half a century, he has been at the forefront of politically charged, socially resonant storytelling that has shattered boundaries and positioned him as arguably the greatest social critic to ever work in the medium. Yet, much like…
The Postmodern Pelican 