“Everyone has demons…mine just have names” It always feels like a major event when a beloved and acclaimed auteur returns to filmmaking after a lengthy break. Whether it was a case of reneging on a previously-announced retirement, or the fact that they couldn’t acquire either inspiration or financial means to make another film for a…
Everyone Says I Love You (1996)
When a director has as wide and varied a career as Woody Allen (where he was essentially directing one film a year at his peak), we often find that there is an enormous debate about what their best film is, which is not made any easier when they show such a remarkable aptitude at every…
Triangle of Sadness (2022)
Ruben Östlund is one of our greatest living filmmakers, and someone whose artistic integrity and profound curiosity as a storyteller have allowed him to explore a wide range of complex themes. From his early works that were steeped heavily in social realism, to his depiction of a marriage in trouble in Force Majeure (his breakthrough…
Going in Style (1979)
Growing old is certainly not for the faint of heart, which we have seen addressed on countless occasions in a range of films, many of which focus on how challenging it is to reach an advanced age in a society that sometimes neglects its senior citizens. Few films have been able to capture the experience…
About Schmidt (2002)
As far as universally-resonant themes go, few are more challenging to talk about than ageing and death. These are two of life’s most notable inevitabilities, and while not everyone gets the opportunity to grow old, we all age and learn vital lessons along the way. So many artists have discussed the topic in their work…
The Paradine Case (1947)
One of the more interesting anecdotal facts about The Paradine Case is that, at the time of its production, it was considered extraordinarily expensive, with the cost to produce this film being close to that of Gone with the Wind, the gold standard for epic-scale filmmaking. Where this money went is anyone’s guess, since the…
X (2022)
Recently, we’ve seen the emergence of the sub-genre that is affectionately known as “elevated horror”, which is precisely what the name suggests – attempts to take one of the most popular genres in the history of cinema and infuse it with layers of deeper meanings and poignant allusions to reality that somehow gives it artistic…
Mommy (2014)
There are few filmmakers who see the world in quite the same way as Xavier Dolan. A young artist who grew up enamoured with the world of cinema that quickly captivated him, it’s easy to see how he was impacted by the presence of certain genres during his formative years. Inspired by the melodramas of…
Raymond & Ray (2022)
We all grieve in our own way – and for the protagonists of Raymond & Ray, the journey to coming to terms with their father’s death is not an easy one, both geographically and emotionally. Rodrigo García is one of our great journeyman directors, a filmmaker who may not always have the most distinct authorial…
Nightmare Alley (1947)
At its peak, film noir was one of the most popular genres – whether extracted from the wildly entertaining pages of pulp fiction novels that were consumed at a rapid pace by readers of all ages, or more high-concept, experimental works that saw various filmmakers taking on more original ideas, these films were extremely popular,…
The Postmodern Pelican 