Just a brief note before we begin – I have not set out to spoil this film or ruin its many surprises, but in an effort to speak more openly about some of its themes and ideas, I have taken a slightly more liberal approach. While the actual solution isn’t revealed at any point, I…
Category: mystery
The Mystery of Marie Rogêt (1942)
Few authors earned their reputation more than Edgar Allan Poe, and his status as the quintessential master of the macabre, his style being embraced as some of the most important literature ever to be written in Gothic horror and mystery. Pinpointing his most challenging and disturbing work is a challenge, but one of the strongest…
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…
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
It’s always a worthwhile endeavour to explore the early careers of the greatest filmmakers of their generation since looking at their origins can yield fascinating results, even if their early work is not particularly reflective of what they did at their peak. In the case of Alfred Hitchcock, he always seemed destined to be one…
The 39 Steps (1935)
While it may be hyperbolic (and inaccurate) to say that cinema truly only started once Alfred Hitchcock stepped behind the camera, there is a vocal group that praises him for being one of the first directors to truly establish a solid foundation in terms of what makes cinema so entertaining. Even the likes of Robert…
Ballad of Dog Beach (1987)
Some mysteries are meant to be solved, others are better suited to remain ambiguous forever, which is not something that particularly aligns with viewers’ desire to get all the answers we seek, but which has been the foundation behind some truly tremendous art. José Fonseca e Costa implicitly understood this concept, and used it as…
The Pledge (2001)
When we were children, many of us were taught the importance of a promise – the unbreakable, infallible pledge to someone that could not be challenged or destroyed, regardless of whatever obstacles stand in our way. As we grow up, the importance of a promise begins to waver, and they are soon used as tools…
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)
There is a tendency for cherished works of literature to be the subject of unnecessary trifling when artists (normally far detached from the original creator of the work) attempt to redefine the characters through their perspective – it’s not so much a matter of adapting a particular work as it is plucking out the characters…
A Haunting in Venice (2023)
Much like quite a sizeable portion of the filmgoing audience, I was also somewhat cynical of the idea of Kenneth Branagh venturing into the world of Agatha Christie a few years ago, since he is not a director who inspires too much confidence based on his tendency to resort to conventions far too regularly, which…
Murder by Death (1976)
One of the great literary fallacies of the past few centuries has been the belief that everything needs to make sense – it is a concept that has driven the vast majority of literature across every conceivable medium, with the general guideline being that everything needs to be resolved neatly and without any sense of…
The Postmodern Pelican 