Knight of Cups by Terrence Malick - Review

The landscapes of South Dakota. The magic hour on the Texas prairie. The all-powerful nature of Guadalcanal. The strange beauty of a new world. The cosmos staring back at a family. The drifting of romance among the terrain. Now Malick brings us to the modern world of Hollywood as his quiet screenwriter Rick (Christian Bale) wanders through studio back lots, parties, strip clubs, and fancy smancy houses.

If you're somehow unfamiliar with the work of Terrence Malick then I suggest working your way through his filmography before diving into this modern motion poem of the Hollywood dream factory. Slowly Malick has been fine-tuning his art and for better or worse, has stripped away common elements of narrative film. His last two works, and this one, are not narratives but rather personal memories from Malick himself that he's recreated in evocative images and whispers of dialogue. The Tree of Life (2011) has grown in my mind to be a flawed masterpiece and works as a bridge from his earlier more narrative driven films and his new abstract quandaries. Where To the Wonder (2013) felt like an experimental seed planted by The Tree of Life, this film has roots and begins to grow branches of profundities.

Marguerite by Xavier Giannoli - Review

Marguerite is loosely based on the story of real life American socialite Florence Foster Jenkins, who became infamous for her insistence in pursuing a passion for singing despite her tragic lack of abilities. Here the character has been turned into a wealthy baroness in the Paris of the 20's, where the memories of WW1 are still raw. While originally keeping her "talent" to a select group of acquaintances for private concerts, a chance encounter with a journalist and an anarchist leads her to a bigger project, singing on stage for a real audience, much to dismay of her husband and those who try to protect her from the truth.

Director Xavier Giannoli and actress Catherine Frot are not household names in the UK, yet they are big stars in France. The former made a name for himself with The Singer (2006) with Gérard Depardieu, the story of a melancholic, ageing ballroom singer. The latter has had a consistently rich and rewarding career over the last 20 years, often with comedic parts but with a few notable dramatic ones too. She is best known here in the UK for her part in the terrific The Page Turner (2006).

Fidelio: Alice's Journey by Lucie Borleteau - Review

Fidelio: Alice’s Odyssey is the feature film debut by actress turned writer/director Lucie Borleteau. The film chronicles the sexual and emotional tribulations of its principal protagonist, a young female sailor and her adventurous journey into sexual and emotional discovery aboard an old cargo ship.

Alice (Ariane Labed, The Lobster, Assassin's Creed) is offered a placement on the ship after the sudden death of a crew member. She finds herself in familiar surroundings and male colleagues she has grown to know what to expect from. She does not flinch at the thought of sleeping in a dead man’s cabin while his body is still on board the ship. Although in love with her boyfriend Felix (Anders Danielson Lie), Alice goes on a journey of sexual discovery in her globetrotting voyage aboard the Fidelio.

Touched With Fire by Paul Dalio - Review

As spring rolls around we enter the first round of indie films, which is my favorite movie season of the year. Touched With Fire, from first time feature film director Paul Dalio, tries to balance a delicate love story of bipolar psychiatric patients, Carla (Katie Holmes) and Marco (Luke Kirby).

Carla and Marco are both poets - neither are very good. Both suffer from bipolar disorder and are off medication. We travel a year in their lives through ups and downs and checkpoints in their relationship. Dalio handles bipolar disorder in his script less like a study or exploration and more as a "how to live" guide, which proves to humanize the disorder while also limiting the story. The character's passion for poetry and artistry suggest that there's a connection between artistic genius and bipolar disorder although Dalio's script and filmmaking prowess are never quite able to articulate this to the audience. The character's struggle is apparent and well acted but never is their pain or euphoria firmly felt. The result is a well meaning but artificial document of bipolar through the lens of a love story.

James White by Josh Mond - Review

Bookended as it is by a young man’s parental deaths over the course of a few short months, James White is an emotionally fraught viewing experience, yet not for the paint-by-numbers, hammy melodrama you would expect. Rather, writer-director Josh Mond, producer of the excellent Martha Marcy May Marlene, brings a similarly minimal approach here to create an unflinching character study that relies on performance over traditional narrative. The result is an immersive mood piece, which is impressive—more so in that it’s a feature debut—and also brave in its stark depiction of the ravages of terminal illness and the emotional turmoil that accompanies it.

Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words by Stig Björkman - Review

Much of Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words, directed by Swedish film critic and writer/director Stig Björkman, is footage or photos from either her or her family, which allows the film to branch off into a personal territory far away from similar docs about icons. As you can likely tell from its title, Bjorkman's film is a personal portrait of arguably the greatest actress to ever grace the screen. The film premiered at the 2015 Cannes film festival where Ingrid Bergman was being paid tribute. Using Bergman's own words from her diary, Björkman takes us on a decade spanning love letter to the daughter, mother, movie star, artist, wife, and woman that was Ingrid Bergman.

Taxi Tehran by Jafar Panahi - Review

That Taxi Tehran exists at all is a minor miracle, its production a brave act of defiance by director Jafar Panahi undertaken at considerable personal risk. Panahi was the subject of a 20-year filmmaking ban in 2010, accused by the authoritarian Iranian state of conspiring to distribute propaganda against the Islamic Republic. You can't keep a good man down, however, and Taxi Tehran, released on DVD and Blu-ray by New Wave Films on the 22nd of January, is actually the third clandestine project Panahi has completed since that sentence was passed.