The name Roberto Rossellini evokes many different images, very few of them having anything to do with comedy. He was not a director known for making lighthearted films, instead being one of the formative voices in the Italian neo-realist movement, which saw him addressing the postwar period through an array of gritty, direct dramas that…

After many years of honing his craft as one of the most creative and reliable directors of music videos (an artform he helped define), Jonathan Glazer took the leap into long-form filmmaking, in the form of Sexy Beast, his feature-length directorial debut. He may have only made three films to date, but each one of…

No one writes women quite like Pedro Almodóvar, at least not anyone who has been working in the medium of film in the last forty years. From his earliest days of subversive, darkly comical morality tales that took him to the furthest corners of society, to the present moment where he has engaged with many…

While his name has come to be associated with a range of prestige dramas and well-constructed comedies, there was a time when François Ozon was more known for his transgressive, boundary-pushing films that were the embodiment of bad taste in a way that no one else of his generation seemed willing to work. This is…

As they say, revenge is a dish best served cold – but what happens when this concept is placed in the careful hands of a filmmaker known for his warmth and candour? This is only one of the many fascinating elements of La Poison, the hilarious and exuberant dark comedy by French master Sacha Guitry,…

No one did absurdity quite as well as Eugène Ionesco, one of the most fascinating playwrights to ever work in the theatre. While he isn’t massively popular outside of theatrical circles, as well as amongst literary communities, the author’s work has remained poignant and captivating, decades after his plays were first staged. His most significant…

The Thompsons are a well-meaning, ordinary British family living in the countryside. They’re headed by the cheerful Tom (Chris Langham), his dedicated wife Sophie (Amanda Hadingue), and their two daughters (Anna O’Grady and Helen Cripps), who have recently left their pastoral home in pursuit of a life in London, where they stay with their roommate,…

In the middle of the deserts of Morocco stands a hill, upon which a shrine has been built to an unknown saint that was buried there. This structure overshadows the community below, serving as a towering entity that drives both their spiritual and social lives. However, what most don’t realize is that there is something…

The trouble with The Trouble with Harry is that it’s not nearly as celebrated as it should be. Despite carrying arguably the most prestigious name in cinema in the form of being helmed by the iconoclastic Alfred Hitchcock, it has nestled comfortably into the status of being one of his lesser efforts, with many not…

If anyone was going to make a film that deftly combined social satire with broadly slapstick comedy, it would be Jean Renoir. The esteemed French director was a cinematic pioneer that made some of the greatest films of their era, in a career that stretched across multiple decades. The 1930s were undeniably his most distinct…