In “Wuthering Heights” — as Emerald Fennell sees it — death and ecstasy rest on the head of the same pin. Its opening credits are set to what sounds like someone groaning in pleasure on a squeaking bed; it’s soon revealed to be the last gasps of a…
Krakatoa If one were to conjure an impression of the apocalypse, it might be in the heart of sound — a detonation so vast and infinite that all imaginable existence would cease. Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove lent no little irony to the proceedings of annihilation when it overlaid its…
The haze of childhood offers considerable dwelling space for joy and grievance alike; forceful then but mostly latent now, these emotions nonetheless bear the transformative power that frequently molds children into the adults they love and fear most. For seven-year-old Swee Swee (Ong Xuan Jing), the effervescent protagonist…
Luc Besson, famed French director of Léon: The Professional and The Fifth Element, returns from making the relatively obscure June and John (2025) to release the highest-grossing French film of last year, Dracula. Subtitled A Love Tale in some territories, Besson’s Dracula is puerile and flamboyant. It has…
January Reviews Week of December 28 Genre Views We Bury the Dead — Zak Hilditch January 2 by Daniel Gorman Read Review Week of January 4 Genre Views Primate — Johannes Roberts January 9 by Christian Craig Read Review Spotlight Magellan — Lav Diaz January 9 by Matt…
Moonglow Writing in e-flux Journal on Klute’s semicentenary, Isabel Sandoval discussed in detail the immeasurable influence of Alan J. Pakula’s neo-noir crime thriller — especially its central female character Bree Daniels, as well as the actress that played her, the great Jane Fonda — on the kind of…
Writing in e-flux Journal on Klute’s semicentenary, Isabel Sandoval discussed in detail the immeasurable influence of Alan J. Pakula’s neo-noir crime thriller — especially its central female character Bree Daniels, as well as the actress that played her, the great Jane Fonda — on the kind of women…
In any competitive race, the relevant agents can be organized as such: the spectators, who traditionally stay rooted to the spot and view its proceedings as snapshots; the cameras, which assume an omniscient, televised view of start and finish; the corporations, which manufacture and sell the stakes; and…
After a long career as an actress, Marijana Janković stepped behind the camera to tell the story on her own terms. Her debut feature Home, premiering at the 2026 edition of IFFR, offers a narrative built with familiar materials, yet shaped with a quiet precision that feels newly…
Moments in pop music come and go, but none in recent memory have been eulogized quite like brat summer. Within a year, the promotional tail for Charli XCX’s monumental 2024 album had grown long enough to wrap around her own neck. Brat wasn’t just an era, it was…
There’s a school of thought that would read Pillion’s ending as a positive sentiment, in which a man who blunders his way into the BDSM scene finally discovers his boundaries and directs himself toward everlasting love. That school of thought belongs to maniacal men who dwell in shadows.…
Nightmare’s Advice Renaud Després-Larose and Ana Tapia Rousiouk, along with their frequent collaborator Olivier Godin, represent an alternative stream of Quebecois cinema, one that is both shoestring and grandiose, and that flits between extreme doses of whimsy and self-involved seriousness. The duo’s work is at least partially fueled…
Renaud Després-Larose and Ana Tapia Rousiouk, along with their frequent collaborator Olivier Godin, represent an alternative stream of Quebecois cinema, one that is both shoestring and grandiose, and that flits between extreme doses of whimsy and self-involved seriousness. The duo’s work is at least partially fueled by French…
Among all the defenses for art (as if art ever needed defending), the “timeless and universal” argument has the biggest currency. In this argument, human nature and emotions are constant regardless of the differences in societies, cultures, and histories, and the art which captures the essential emotional core…
First Light Nearly five years ago, Filipino-Australian filmmaker James J. Robinson hit the headlines after breaking into his alma mater St Kevin’s College, Melbourne’s elite all-boys Catholic school, and setting his old blazer alight on campus grounds as an act of protest against the toxic “hypermasculine culture” historically…
It’s low on the list of 21st century horrors, but there’s something uniquely off-putting about watching a self-recorded video of someone crying. It’s tough to say how it became a phenomenon — maybe our increasing isolation demands new avenues for empathy, maybe prefab vulnerability fit itself snugly into…
Chronovisor Even when Jorge Luis Borges wrote screenplays, they weren’t necessarily “Borgesian” — not, that is, distilled into the particular pleasure of following one of Borges’ threads through maybe-real obscure texts to arrive at a sort of academic horror. His screenplay for Hugo Santiago’s Invasión (1969) is a…
Fuori, the latest film by Italy’s Mario Martone (Nostalgia, The King of Laughter), is curiously inert, especially when you consider that most of the film features its two main characters wandering through Rome. This is a noncommunicative film, which may be a problem of cultural translation. It’s about…
Film adaptations of video games can be a dicey proposition. Part of the issue lies in the elements getting lost in translation: the inherently immersive factor of a game rarely makes a successful leap to the screen, and most video games are already so vividly realized that casting…
Three Austrian documentaries from the past two years turn their gaze to the racially marginalized of the small mountain country. The oldest of the three, Favoriten (2024), follows a school class from second to fourth grade in the biggest elementary school in Vienna. It derives its name from…