Rainer Werner Fassbinder knew how to make three different kinds of films better than anything else – the comedic (Beware of a Holy Whore, Chinese Roulette), the melancholic (I Only Want You To Love Me) and the tragic (Fox and His Friends, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul) – and in his extremely prolific career, nearly…

Hollywood in the late 1930s. We are introduced to the various residents of the San Bernadino Arms, a complex that serves as the home of a variety of people related to showbusiness, or at least those who claim to be. Tod Hackett (William Atherton) is a talented visual artist who has been relegated to drawing…

Júlio Madiaga (Bembol Roco) has just arrived in the Filipino metropolis of Manila after living most of his life in a rural area. His appearance is presumably that of finding a job, just like the countless other young men driven to the big city, looking to make a living and provide for their families, most…

In the history of cinema, there has never been someone like Lina Wertmüller. Not only did she make history numerous times, but she has also left an indelible impression on the industry, not only paving a path for several female filmmakers to have their voices heard but also becoming one of the greatest directors of…

Jade (Vicky Knight) is a young woman who has just been released from hospital after a vicious attack, whereby a disgruntled ex-lover thought it would be perfectly acceptable to throw acid in her face, leaving her permanently scarred. Now reentering society, Jade finds it even more difficult to assimilate back into her normal life, because…

The great filmmaker and amateur stand-up comedian Ingmar Bergman once said of a particular director “[Andrei] Tarkovsky is the greatest of them all” – and while these are certainly enormous words coming from a director who is one of the very few that can legitimately make claim to being amongst the greatest cinematic artists of…

Franky (Josh Wiggins) lives a pretty happy life. He has a loving family, is extremely popular at school, has many girls fighting for his affection and most importantly, has a solid friendship with Ballas (Darren Mann), who has been at his side since they were children. However, below the surface, there is something deeper troubling…

I was recently talking to a friend, and I mentioned that there are few words that are more profoundly striking at the end of a film than “Directed by Stanley Kubrick” because naturally, you’d have just been through a period of great existential manipulation, as was par for the course for a man who relished…

Judith Hearne (Maggie Smith) is an Irish spinster who has recently taken occupancy in a small boarding house in Dublin. A profoundly lonely woman, she has been forced to be constantly on the move due to her diminishing funds, and the fact that her career as a piano teacher is hardly enough to sustain her,…

Like any given year during the peak of his filmmaking, 1976 was quite a busy year for Rainer Werner Fassbinder. This year, in particular, bears significance because three of his most notable films were all released then, each one of them extremely different in genre, story and even quality. Amongst the films he produced in…