No.

96 NOV/DEC ’22 £8

TRUTH & MOVIES

 ★★★★★
“A father-and-daughter drama
★★★★
“A beautiful performance from
that will stop you in your tracks” Paul Mescal… One of the
Time Out
most gifted actors of his generation”
The Telegraph
“An exquisite revelation”
The Wrap
★★★★★
“What a pleasure… Ripples and
“One of the best British debuts
in recent memory” shimmers like a swimming pool
AnOther Mag of mystery”
The Guardian

aftersun
Written & directed by

Charlotte Wells
Starring

Paul Mescal
&

Frankie Corio
 ★★★★★
“Astounding”
CineVue

★★★★★
Financial Times

★★★★★
HeyUGuys

★★★★★
Loud & Clear

IN CINEMAS
NOVEMBER 18 mubi.com/aftersun
INFREQUENT STRONG LANGUAGE, MODERATE
SEX REFERENCES, UPSETTING SCENES
ISSUE 96

F E AT U R E C O N T E N T S

P. 0 8 P. 2 2 P. 3 8

Lead Review: Glass The Artisans In Search of Simenon

Onion: A Knives Four below-the-line artists delve Jeff Billington embarked on a
into the secrets of working with Georges Simenon odyssey and lived
Out Mystery Rian Johnson and the craft of to tell the tail.
David Jenkins has the ride Glass Onion.
of a lifetime on Rian
P. 4 2
Johnson’s politically trenchant
P. 2 8
whodunit marvel. To Kill for Love is
The LWLies Short Film Such a Thrill
P. 1 2 Detective Agency Kyle Turner on the intersections
Back in the Game A team of cine-sleuths look between musical-theatre godhead
back at the first flirtations with Stephen Sondheim, and the time-
Adam Woodword has a long and
moviemaking of a host honoured murder mystery.
winding chat with writer/director
of directorial legends.
Rian Johnson on his inspirations
behind the continuing saga of P. 4 6
Benoit Blanc. P. 3 6
Across the Universe
A Page Ripped From Michael Leader explores how the
P. 1 8 Beatles have influenced movies
the LWLies Gazette
Blanc Check beyond their music.
Classified ads. Movie
The world needed an iconic super detectives A-Z.
sleuth, and Daniel Craig delivered
in Benoit Blanc. Hannah Strong
meets him to talk fits, parties and
his pivot to comedy.
08 LEAD REVIEW
Directed by RIAN JOHNSON
Starring DANIEL CRAIG, JANELLE MONÁE,
EDWARD NORTON
Released 23 NOVEMBER

Glass Onion:
A Knives Out Mystery

Benoit Blanc enters the canon of iconic movie characters with

Rian Johnson’s second foray into whodunit (nu-dunit?) territory.

T
here was a time when being called a “disruptor” the sixth feature film by Rian Johnson, offers a clear-eyed and
was not a nice thing. If you talked too much in class, devastating take-down of vapid modern disruptor culture, taking
played your music too loud, or drunkenly tipped dead-aim at the perpetrators, but also making sure that the
over cows while they slept, this was old school blindly-subservient acolytes receive a dressing down too.
disruption of the unequivocally malign variety. Around the turn
of the millennium, the term evolved into a beloved corporate As an extension of this thesis, Johnson also runs with the idea
buzzword and its core definition changed. Suddenly, it was no that every sane person on the planet is clutching a smoking
longer about simply making other people uncomfortable, it was revolver when it comes to the question of who would murder
about harnessing discomfort as a weapon, and shaking people a celebrity tech billionaire… if the opportunity arose. It was
out of stale habits – whether they liked it or not. Disruption perhaps David Fincher’s 2008 film chronicling the inception of
became about enforced change, and was not only beneficial, Facebook, The Social Network, which acted as the first toppling
but apparently a vital tenet in the apparatus of capitalism. domino in cinema’s subsequent obsession with writing
overconfident, independently wealthy oiks with this yen for
Yet, if we look back at the modern “disruptor” personalities – “disruption” as a modern and relatable breed of Bond villain.
you all know who they are, the windbag political populists; the That they tend to sit outside (or, in most cases, openly reject)
tech scions playing hacky sack; the say-anything-for-a-dollar the precepts of the conventional political spectrum offers a
media personalities – it’s clear that their creed was hollow, their narratively handy form of equal opportunities loathing.
intentions were (still) malign, and the only thing they were selling
was home-brewed snake oil (or, in this case, rhino horn sex pills) The film picks up on the continuing adventures of the world’s
packaged up in a fancy bottle. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, foremost gentleman sleuth, Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), a dapper

09
Southern dandy first seen in 2017’s delicious Knives Out. It is a
film which is very much at home within the Johnson cinematic
corpus, as it descends from a template the director initially
wrought for his thundering, and possibly still underrated 2005 “With his ill-fitting tee and five-
debut, Brick. It offers a showcase for the idea that plot is a puzzle
that the writer must solve in order for the director’s work to make o-clock shadow, Miles Bron self-
sense. Glass Onion adopts the sturdy structural underpinnings of
the Agatha Christie-like whodunit, and presents them with an
consciously presents himself as
ingenious mix of postmodern irony and bona fide awe.
a dishevelled utopian hippy.”
One touchstone here is the 1973 Herbert Ross film, The Last of
Sheila, co-written by Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim,
which introduces the Matryoshka doll-like idea of the murder murder mystery high jinx. Bron is CEO of Alpha, a tech giant
mystery party that itself nests inside a murder mystery. Glass which appears to be modelled after Elon Musk’s Tesla, in that
Onion’s blend of acerbic wit and deathly thrills see its bloodline no-one’s quite sure exactly what it's famous for and how it
traced back to the WS Van Dyke’s 1934 screwball, The Thin Man, makes money. With his ill-fitting tee and five-o-clock shadow,
and the horrendously droll Nick and Nora detective cycle. There he self-consciously presents himself as a dishevelled utopian
are various allusions to Jacques Tati, from Blanc’s pointy bucket hippy. In a telling flashback, we see a young Miles dressed
hat to his various stressful interactions with modern technology. in exactly the same threads (red shirt, leather waistcoat,
Finally, there’s Guy Hamilton’s 1982 adaptation of Christie’s ‘Evil top-knot) as one of modern cinema’s pre-eminent snake-oil
Under the Sun’, in which Peter Ustinov’s Hercule Poirot sports an salesmen, Tom Cruise’s Frank TJ Mackey from Paul Thomas
array of natty fits on an unnamed holiday island in the Adriatic, Anderson’s 1999 film Magnolia, so we know who this guy is.
and there’s even the mechanism of a loud alarm noise (here a
cannon shot, in Glass Onion an ear-splitting ‘bong!’ composed Party guests include Kathryn Hahn’s Claire Debella, a plain-
by Philip Glass) to help Blanc set his investigations to the clock. talking and “real” west coast senatorial candidate whose
campaign is being financially underwritten by Bron. Then
In the film, five friends receive an invitation to join Miles Bron there’s Kate Hudson’s on-the-wain model/influencer Birdie
(Edward Norton) on his private island for a weekend of boozy Jay who specialises in unforced errors when it comes to making

010 LEAD REVIEW

racial faux pas in public. Dave Bautista, proving again to be the total destruction of the system. Eliding the many twists,
physical answer to the question, “What if The Rock was a really turns and inversions of Johnson’s devilishly ingenious plot,
good actor?”, moseys up as Duke Cody, an ex-streamer who has the film ultimately ends on a live demonstration of Bron’s
pivoted to servicing an adoring (but diminishing) legion of online jumbled ideological gambit. All this begs the question, is
alt-right followers. There’s Leslie Odom Jr’s. Lionel Toussaint, Rian Johnson himself a disruptor? Here’s a filmmaker
the melancholic science whizz powering Bron’s dreams (which that fuses modern ideas to antiquated narrative forms.
drop daily via fax). All of them have accepted the uncomfortable A filmmaker who creates huge blockbuster films from
reality that they are Bron’s push-around guys, and that his original IP. A filmmaker who works within beloved existing
generous funding streams are the only thing keeping them going. IP and thrillingly makes the material his own. It’s tempting
to see Benoit Blanc as the closest thing Johnson has given
Finally comes the one fly in the ointment: Janelle Monáe’s Andi us to an on-screen avatar: an avuncular brainiac trapped
Brand, the brains behind Bron who was ousted in a vicious legal between worlds and traditions, but always coming out on
manoeuvre by Mr Chill himself. Where Craig’s Blanc brings top. What he and Blanc teach us is that, perhaps, a little
home the comic intensity and effortlessly whips up the drama disruption when enacted for the public good can go a long
(and Craig is just phenomenally good), Monáe brings the film its way. DAVID JENKINS
beating heart, and she delivers her most nuanced and complex
performance to date. Her character is the only person with the
guts to say no to the man who has everything, and everything ANTICIPATION.
includes a sprawling, Escher-like island complex modelled after What could be more exciting than a sunny
a shuttered dive bar called Glass Onion in which the friends first sojourn with Benoit Blanc?
met, which boasts an atrium festooned with paintings by all the
great masters of history. He has a Degas’ ‘The Absinthe Drinker’ ENJOYMENT.
hanging in his lavatory. He has world famous celebrities at his Insane, off-the-chart levels of fun combined
beck and call. One waits patiently on a video screen with her with oodles of prescient political commentary.
copy of ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ until she is called upon.
IN RETROSPECT.
Taking the bait from Blanc in an early scene, Bron offers When pop cinema is powered by ruthless intelligence,
his own tawdry definition of “disruption” as ending in the it’s good for everyone.

011
 THE WRITER

Adam Woodward
REPRESENTING THE PERIODICAL LITTLE WHITE LIES
IS PROUD TO PRESENT AN INTERVIEW
WITH THE EXCEPTIONAL MAKER OF
AMERICAN FILMS,

RIAN
JOHNSON!

FOR A PIECE ENTITLED

“
BACK IN
THE GAME"
WHICH REFERS TO THE NEW CINEMA SPECTACLE,

GLASS ONION:
A KNIVES OUT
MYSTERY.
THE ILLUSTRATED PORTRAIT IS PROVIDED BY MELINA GHADIMI
I
t’s approaching two decades since Rian Johnson out Blanc’s character more, giving us a glimpse into his
announced himself as one of genre cinema’s most private life.
intriguing young talents. His debut feature, Brick,
a high-stakes high school noir with a clockwork plot Y’know, it’s fun to tease, to give little hints here and there…
and killer script, set the tone for what was to come Christie did that with Poirot and Miss Marple. But I think
– not least its opening shot of a dead body lying face a little goes a long way. The last thing I want to do is start
down in the dirt. Aside from a sojourn in a galaxy far, building up some deep backstory about Benoit Blanc.
far away, Johnson’s film career has remained grounded The point of these movies is the mystery behind each story.
in murder and mystery ever since, from the swizzling I’m not trying to figure out ways to keep it fresh by introducing
exploits of The Brothers Bloom, to the time-skipping his father… blah, blah, blah. The way I approach it, you can
thrills of Looper, to the yarn-spinning larks of Knives truly have every story be driven by completely fresh winds, and
Out. Never one to repeat the same trick twice, Johnson Blanc can play his role in the mystery in his own unique way.
is back with Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,
another slickly constructed whodunit that expands He’s always going to be the detective.
the world of his previous film while reacquainting us
with Cajun crime solver extraordinaire, Benoit Blanc. Yes, but oddly enough, the detective is not the protagonist of
the murder mystery. It’s important to remember that. That’s
the potential trap, because obviously he anchors the mystery
in the same way Poirot anchors it in Christie’s novels, but
from a screenwriting perspective if you start thinking of
Blanc as the protagonist then you’re kinda dead in the water.
LWLies: Glass Onion is not a direct continuation of
Knives Out. You have Daniel Craig returning as Benoit In Knives Out, Ana de Armas’ Marta becomes Blanc’s
Blanc, but it’s a new story, new cast. Was it always the reluctant partner in solving the case. You do something
idea not to do a direct sequel? similar here by having him pair up with someone
unexpectedly.
Johnson: Yeah, that was always the intention, even before we
knew we were going to keep making these movies. The notion And also, just in technical terms, the audience knows there’s
was, if we can make more, then they should be like mystery never going to be a true threat against Blanc. They know the
novels. Each one should have a new cast of characters, its detective is not going to die; the detective is not going to get
own setting, its own unique tone, and most importantly its arrested; the detective is not going to make bad life choices.
own reason for being. It’s the way Agatha Christie would So, they need somebody who they care about, who they can
do it. become invested in, who’s not Blanc. I hope we can find a way
to keep doing that going forward.
And what about Daniel? He’s become almost like your
Poirot figure. You’ve said that Knives Out was written on and off over
a 10-year period. What was the time frame for this one?
I’ve been lucky to have had good relationships with a bunch
of different actors over the years. But it’s rare that you end up It wasn’t 10 years, let me tell you. It was very quick. I started
being in the same lifeboat as someone like Daniel Craig. Thank it from scratch after the success of the first one, because even
god we like each other, because this could turn into a Hitchcock though in the abstract I thought it would be fun to do more of
lifeboat very fast if we didn’t. But we get along very well, and these, I did not have a drawer full of ideas. It’s the same right now,
we’re both excited by the notion of each of these movies taking I’m starting to gather ideas for the third one. Obviously time is a
us by surprise and hopefully taking the audience by surprise. nice luxury to have, but one advantage of writing over a shorter
So for many, many reasons, I’m happy I’m in this boat with him. period is that, if you’re setting it in the here and now, it allows you
to write about whatever is going on. With Knives Out, that came
Daniel had this long stint playing James Bond, and he towards the end. But it’s still a nerve-racking process. Actually
was the only actor afforded the freedom to flesh out the it’s fucking terrifying. Especially with this one, because people
character’s backstory. It’s not quite the same thing in liked the first one, so the expectations are higher. You’ve just got
Glass Onion, but it definitely feels like you’re building to get stuck into it and try to do your best.

014 The Glass Onion Issue

 “SONDHEIM'S MY GUY. I'M A
BIG MUSICAL THEATRE FAN,
AND HIS WORK HAS MEANT
A LOT TO ME OVER THE
YEARS.”
The smoking gun of this film is a cocktail napkin with a For sure. Again, just for the glamour of it, the fun of it… The
billion dollar idea scribbled on it. Do you have something Last of Sheila has the most ’70s cast of all time. I love it so
similar at the start of the writing process? much. Dyan Cannon in that movie, oh my god.

I do! Years ago, I started working in these little Moleskine Speaking of The Last of Sheila, there’s a Stephen Sondheim
books [Johnson holds one up to the camera; it’s filled with text connection there too. He co-wrote the film with Anthony
and annotated sketches]. Ninety per cent of the process is just Perkins, and he was well-known in theatre circles for his
in these things. It’s mostly coming up with the structure of love of games and puzzles. And in Knives Out there’s the
the movie and how it’s gonna tick. But that happens alongside scene where Blanc is singing ‘Losing My Mind’ in his car.
what is almost an entirely separate process, which is thinking Could you talk about Sondheim’s influence on your work?
in terms of characters and themes and the emotion driving it.
There’s almost like two tracks running parallel to each other that Sondheim’s my guy. I’m a big musical theatre fan, and his
interlock at some point. work has meant a lot to me over the years. But yes, he’s
someone who crosses over into the murder mystery world
as well. I don’t know if this is apocryphal or not, but there’s
a story that the main character in Anthony Shaffer’s play
‘Sleuth’ was modelled on Sondheim, and the working title
was apparently ‘Who’s Afraid of Stephen Sondheim?’.
You’ve opted for a more exotic location this time. Was In my movie there are some cameos which I’d prefer to
that always the plan? You said you started writing during keep a secret for your readers, but we do have Sondheim in
lockdown… I can see the appeal of a Greek island. a scene briefly. He had seen Knives Out and had appreciated
the little nod, so we just took a swing and somehow we
We all wanted to be on a Greek island, right? It was a managed to get him on a Zoom call for 15 minutes, and I got
combination of things, but I definitely wanted to give the to meet one of my heroes. He was very game in recording his
audience clear road signs that this was going to be its own thing. little cameo.
So thinking of a setting that was as different as possible from
Knives Out seemed like a good idea. Y’know, Knives Out was Sondheim was famous for holding his own murder mystery
this cosy family drama, which is what people often associate parties for his friends. Who would you invite to your dream
Christie’s novels with, but when I was a kid and started getting murder mystery party?
into this genre, it was stuff like Evil Under the Sun and Death on
the Nile, these big glamorous vacation movies. Ah, jeez. Sondheim, obviously [laughs]. I’ll tell you a story: When
we were making the movie, we shot the first half in Greece and
Herbert Ross’ 1973 film The Last of Sheila is clearly a big the second half in Belgrade. That’s where all of our stage work
influence on Glass Onion. and all of our sets were. It was at the height of the Delta wave, so

015
we were in our production bubble, and we were staying in a very Yeah, and it’s something that’s interesting to talk about for
nice hotel, but we were going a little stir crazy. So on weekends a lot of reasons. Part of the game of writing movies is building
we would rent out the rooftop bar and the whole cast would get something that is a piece of pop entertainment that can work
together for our own murder mystery parties. Janelle [Monáe] entirely on that level. That’s its own form of craftsmanship.
would show up in full costume – literally a Sherlock Holmes Then there’s this aspect of trying to layer in all these things
cape and pipe, false moustache, the works – and she would have that I’m angry about. I’m not in the business of making message
created a whole character with a backstory and she would stay movies, so any social commentary has to work in the context of
in character all night. Which is all to say that I would definitely delivering a big, fun movie.
invite Janelle. And I would invite Dave Bautista, because he was
uniquely terrible at it. I know I could beat him [laughs].

In the film there’s this literal ‘glass onion’ which is

described as infinitely complex but with a clear centre. I’m
aware you borrowed the title from the Beatles’ song, which
is famously self-satirising; it’s John Lennon poking fun Glass Onion definitely feels more overtly political than
at himself and people who would overanalyse the band’s Knives Out, in terms of the types of people you’re satirising.
lyrics. Does the title have multiple meanings for you?
The first one was very much about a family; about the
It absolutely does. Most of them are laid bare in the movie. It’s arguments you’d have over the dinner table with relatives.
what you said but also in relation to The Beatles, it’s that thing of With this one… it’s hard to not go big with it because every
people thinking they were playing 3D chess when, in reality, they time you turn on the news or open Twitter, you’re confronted
were in the studio making shit up and seeing how it would sound, with this terrible, carnivalesque reality, to the point where it
which plays into the movie as well. And also, y’know, the song is seems like there’s not a small subtle way to reference it. If you
just a complete banger. want to talk about this stuff, you have to raise your voice.

There’s also a lovely moment, which is ultimately played The Edward Norton character is fascinating. He’s this
for laughs, where Edward Norton’s character strums incredibly self-serving, self-mythologising tech billionaire
‘Blackbird’. Do you have a favourite off ‘The White Album’? who wants to change the world. There’s a running joke
that no one can quite figure out whether he’s a genius or
‘Glass Onion’ is definitely up there. To me, ‘Dear Prudence’ is an idiot.
the best song ever written. But ‘Glass Onion’ has always been
a personal favourite, too. It’s so interesting, because when I Yeah, well, there are so many specific examples of that in the real
started showing the script to friends, I didn’t think the concept world. But when writing the character, I very quickly found the
of a Beatles deep cut existed, but I was amazed by how many more specific I was, the more boring it became. The Elon Musk
people didn’t recognise the song or didn’t know it. I guess it’s one jokes didn’t seem very fun or interesting. Sometimes you have to
of the more obscure ones in their catalogue. It’s not ‘Let It Be’. take a step back and look at the overall structure and the systems
that allow these people to exist. And why we look up at these
Maybe the film will have a Stranger Things-Kate Bush people on pedestals.
effect and people will start to catch on. The current moment certainly feels like fertile ground for
writing a character-driven satire, which is partly what
That’d be nice. We’re really gonna put those Beatles on the map! Glass Onion is.
[Laughs]
Yeah, absolutely. I guess this one is a bit more Strangelove in
Looking at your own back catalogue, there’s a line in The tone than what came before it, and probably what will come
Brothers Bloom I like where Adrien Brody says, somewhat after it. But it goes back to this idea of trying to get into what
sneeringly, “My brother writes his cons the way dead Christie was doing in her day. She was never political per se,
Russians write novels, with thematic hooks and embedded but she always engaged with the culture at the time. I think
symbolism”. It feels quite pointedly self-analytical. it’s something that’s kind of been lost from the genre. When

016 The Glass Onion Issue

we see contemporary period pieces that are adaptations Would watch.
of Christie’s work, they often feel overly lavish and quaint.
But when you read Christie now, it still feels fresh. Y’know, Shit, don’t tell me that. Don’t tell Netflix that!
she was dealing with class and gender dynamics in a really
interesting way. There’s this perception of her work that it’s Sorry, Netflix. By the way, I very much enjoyed seeing Noah
like the cover of a game of Clue. It’s stuffy British society, it’s Segan pop up in this.
the body in the library… Which Christie herself lampooned
in her books. She was very aware of that and was constantly [Laughs] I like the idea of him being a bit like Patrick McGoohan
subverting the genre, which I think has helped to prolong in Columbo. He just turns up wearing a different beard each time.
her legacy. But y’know, we’re best friends, and having him hang out on set is
always a blast. We’ll always figure out something for him to do.
In terms of your own career, you’ve directed a sequel before,
but this is the first time you’ve made a follow-up to one of Has he read ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ yet?
your own movies. Does that bring its own added pressure?
Noah? No… No one has! [Laughs]. I gave him a copy and I think
With The Last Jedi and this, I’d say the pressure was kind of he got like a hundred pages into it.
different, but there’s still the same clickity clack of riding the
rollercoaster. The instant you’re at the top, that’s when the What were you reading while you were making Glass Onion?
nerves set in. With Star Wars it’s a whole set of massive pressures,
whereas the success of Knives Out created a good problem for me I’m all about audiobooks, they’re kind of my obsession. Typically
to solve. That said, a successful movie can quickly turn into this non-fiction. It was 2020 and we were in lockdown, so I was
gilded object that is somehow outside of you – even though you probably busy making sourdough starter or something. When
made it, it suddenly seems beyond your reach. I’ve never really I’m writing I don’t generally read Agatha Christie books, just
faced that before in terms of writing something as a follow-up. because it feels too close to what I’m doing. Right now I’m
It was pretty terrifying and I’m sure it will be the same doing the reading the Sherlock Holmes short stories and novels for the
third one. first time, which Daniel suggested to me. They’re very good.

When does number three start?

I don’t know. I’m just starting to think about ideas for it, but I
think I’m probably going to make it as my next film. We’ll see
how quickly we can get it together. Let me put this one out there
first. Just give me a minute [laughs]. And what about music?

We’ve touched on the political and satirical side of the film I have a Glass Onion playlist that I’ve been building since I started
but, as with Knives Out, it’s telling that you once again end writing it. ‘Long Black Limousine’, the Elvis Presley version, was
things on a positive note: truth will out in the end. one that I listened to over and over. Also, the George Harrison
song ‘Gone Troppo’ off his weird album [of the same name]. Oh,
As I see it, that’s an essential part of the whodunit. A lot and also Nino Rota’s main theme from [1978’s] Death on the Nile.
of academic writers have characterised the genre as being That was a big influence on Nathan [Johnson]’s score.
essentially Conservative: a crime is committed; chaos
is created; the paternal detective swoops in and solves the You and Nathan recorded the Knives Out score at Abbey
case, restoring order to society. I see it much more in terms Road. Did you get to go back for this one?
of moral order being restored. So when you step out of the
theatre, you’re satisfied that things have been set right in I didn’t get to go sadly; I was busy shooting my TV show [Poker
the end. But now that you mention it, maybe I should do Face]. It was magical being there for Knives Out though. The fact
a bummer ending for the next one. The killer gets away we got the opportunity again to record Glass Onion there, with
with it… the whole Beatles connection, that was pretty special

017
 THE WRITER

HANNAH STRONG
IS GIFTED A ONE-ON-ONE AUDIENCE WITH
THE MAESTRO HIMSELF

DANIEL
CRAIG
IN AN INTERVIEW THAT WE ARE CALLING

“ B l a n c
C h e c k "
AN AMUSING PUN RELATING TO THE ICONIC DETECTIVE HE PLAYS IN

Glass Onion:
A Knives Out
Mystery DANIEL’S ILLUSTRATED LIKENESS IS C/O MELINA GHADAMI
 the cast, who are worth the price of admission alone, but also

D
aniel Craig is no stranger to playing a super sleuth.
Before Knives Out, he got to the heart of a chilling watching the audience, and seeing how everyone is reacting,
Scandi story in David Fincher’s The Girl with the that they're laughing and gasping and getting the jokes.
Dragon Tattoo, and even his tenure as 007 saw plenty That’s very emotional and rewarding. You can work on a film
of mysteries solved by Bond and his crack cadre of and think you’re producing comedy gold, think, ‘Gosh, aren’t
intelligence operatives. Yet his collaboration with Rian we amazing’? Of course, I’ve never done a film like that…
Johnson on Knives Out is widely considered the first
occasion that Craig – generally known for his taciturn, You’ve spoken before about how much fun you had
intense roles – was able to truly flex his comedic acting making Knives Out. Was making Glass Onion a similarly
muscles. His turn as the gentleman detective Benoit joyous experience, even shooting during Covid?
Blanc was widely praised, and proved enjoyable enough
that Craig and Johnson quickly reteamed for a sequel. We were lucky enough to go and shoot in Greece, so we were
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery continues Blanc’s outside in hot weather, but it was 180 degrees and the whole
adventures, as he jets off to Greece to muscle in on an crew was masked up. There were restrictions, but right off
eccentric tech billionaire’s murder mystery party. We the bat, we’d been there a week and I just said, ‘I’m having
also get a tiny glimpse into Blanc’s homelife, and see a party next Thursday,’ and Ram [Bergman] the producer,
his magnificent summer wardrobe. But does Craig share God bless him, was like, ‘No you’re not.’ I said, ‘Yes I am!’ His
his character's appetite for unravelling a good mystery? argument was that if one person gets Covid then obviously
we would have to shut everything down. And god knows, I
LWLies: Rian has said that you recommended the wouldn’t want to do the finances on it, but it would have cost
Sherlock Holmes stories to him. When did you develop so much money. But I just said, ‘We have to’ and I convinced
an interest in detective fiction? Rian. We parked an ambulance at the end of the road as our
testing station, and everyone was cleared, so we had the
Craig: I’ve read a lot of Agatha Christie and I read a lot of party, we had a drink, and started socialising, mixing, having
crime novels generally just because they’re fun to read and fun. Working out what was funny and such. That bled into
easy. But I’d never read any Sherlock Holmes and I don’t know the set.
why. What was incredible was that, when I started reading
them, I realised that all of the tropes of Agatha Christie, and There’s a chemistry between all the actors in the film
all of the murder mystery tropes more widely, come from that you can't manufacture.
there. But also I was amazed at how socially-minded they
are – someone compared them to Dickens, and Arthur Conan There is. But I will say, there’s a lot of hard work behind it on
Doyle was always writing about the underbelly of life. There Rian’s part and on the part of the actors. There’s the intricacy
are some very, very un-PC bits, but he’s talking about the of Rian’s script, which was, off the bat, funny – like, I was
underdog most of the time, and the poor and the hard done laughing out loud as I was reading it. If we’d shot that alone
by, which is very progressive for his day. with no improvisation, that would have been a funny movie.
When you add to that script someone like Kathryn Hahn
That’s one of things I admire about Rian’s writing – both – such incredible improvisation came out of it. The other
Knives Out and Glass Onion champion the underdog, as brilliant thing is how complicated each of those characters
well as operating as entertaining detective stories. is, and you get a glimpse of everybody. What Kate Hudson’s
doing – she’s a genius. It’s so complicated and layered and
Yes, and I don't want to say, ‘Please watch this movie twice,’ sort of sickening, and in a way you love her character, but
because I feel like I’m trying too hard. But genuinely watch she’s terrible. The worst! Or maybe not the worst one there,
it a second time. As Rian has said, it’s a very generous movie. but she’s one of them.
I just had so much fun watching it, and then watching what
everybody’s doing when I watched it a second time. The film offers a small window onto Blanc’s home life.
Do you and Rian have his whole backstory mapped out?
It’s interesting you say you’ve watched it more than
once, as you get the sense that a lot of actors really hate I don’t really. Rian and I definitely have conversations
watching themselves on screen. about it, but because he’s the detective, because he’s the
cipher, I want him to be a bit of an enigma. You don’t really
I’m long over watching myself. But when you’re watching a want to know what he was like as a kid. I’m not interested
movie like this, there’s a couple of things – first of all there’s in his backstory. He’s here, he’s present, and I’m giving you

020 The Glass Onion Issue

 “I LOVE BLANC’S CURIOSITY.
I THINK THAT’S HIS KEY
WEAPON IN LIFE AS WELL
AS HIS JOB. HE’S INTERESTED
IN WHAT YOU’RE ABOUT.”

plenty of character. I don’t feel I’m shortchanging people locked up in his house for the past 18 months, going out of
with information. I feel it’s more important to know who his mind, now he’s been invited down to Greece. He’s going
the people around him are, and I love Blanc’s curiosity. I to pull up with his wardrobe. He’s looking at outfits and
think that’s his key weapon in life as well as his job. He’s just thinking, ‘That’s coming with me.’
genuinely curious, and I think that’s what allows people to
hang themselves in front of him, because he’s interested in If you were hosting your own murder mystery party, who
what you’re about. would your dream guests be?

In my experience, the more interest you show in people You know, I’m not actually very good at those sort of games.
around you, the more likely they are to spill their guts about I’ll sort of cringe when people suggest playing Charades
things. But I think the less we know the better with Benoit. at the end of the party. I like the gas that goes around it,
Rian and I, and everyone I talk with about the character, we I like the talk – we played these games when we were filming.
discuss a lot of things, but everything’s on the table. I don’t Rian loves things like Mafia, and all these games that are so
want to be rigid about it, or defer to some sort of lore. It’s all a complicated, so I just sat back and allowed everyone else to
movable feast with Benoit. put these whole things together, make up all the rules, tell
us what to do. But I have no idea. I never know what’s
It’s also fun for the audience to be able to make up their going on.
own theories about Blanc.
I would have thought as an actor it might be up your
Exactly, I want the audience to be filling in the gaps. For me alley...
when I’m watching a movie, that’s all I’m ever doing – I’m
asking, ‘What does that mean?’ all the time. I know. But it’s a bit of a busman’s holiday for me. It’s like
going down to the pub and being told, ‘Ooh you’re an actor,
I understand you were key to defining Benoit’s wardrobe act for us!’
for this film in collaboration with costume designer
Jenny Eagan. What were your references? If Benoit Blanc had to go up against any other detective
in a battle of wits, who do you think would give him the
Jacques Tati was a huge reference, and then I’m a long way toughest time?
off this, but Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief was very much
another thing I had in my mind. I see it as, Blanc’s been Miss Marple. She’d run rings around him

021
 Bob Ducsay has been Rian Rick Heinrichs is one of Hollywood’s
Johnson’s editor on every film premiere production designers, and
since 2012’s Looper. He has been though his CV mainly revolves around
instrumental in bringing logic and fantasy cinema, he has transposed
momentum to Johnson’s kinetic, his gifts and eye to the challenge of
twist-heavy films. building the Glass Onion.

Jenny Eagan is one of the Steve Yedlin is one of Rian

rising stars of costume design, Johnson’s oldest and most
and has been instrumental in trusted collaborators, a
creating the specific, old/new cinematographer with a
look on both Knives Out and stripped-back style and an
Glass Onion. eye for crisp clarity.

1 . T H E E A R LY Y E A R S actually help them. And his idea was probably better than what
they actually ended up doing.
Steve Yedlin: I was a senior in high school, and he
[Rian Johnson] was a freshman in college. We were both Rick Heinrichs: I first met Rian and [his longtime producer]
volunteering on USC student films, which for us was all about Ram Bergman together for The Last Jedi. What I was most
learning how sets work. You see a film camera and there are impressed with was it was very low-key and it just felt like we were
departments and, even if they’re not doing everything right, chatting. And before you know it, you’re just instantly friends
it’s a chance to see how it all works. Those films were shot because they were such lovely people. But Rian, he seemed to
on the weekends, so even though it wasn’t a lot of days in have that story in his head. He was able to almost summon the
total, they happened over a large timespan. And so I would narrative from his subconscious. And he did the same thing with
see him on these weekends and we didn’t really get to know Glass Onion as well. He is a writer/director, but for me he’s really a
each other. I was doing stuff like loading the camera and he writer who also directs beautifully. He is a unique and rare entity
was helping with other things. Actually, they had him sitting in that he has such a command over both of those spheres.
on C-stands when they ran out of sandbags, and he would be
there reading his Agatha Christie books. 2 . O N R I A N J O H N S O N
And then I just remember there was just one weekend
where there was a slightly complicated semi-action violent
A N D H I S C I N E M A
scene. The director and cinematographer were stultified and
overwhelmed – they couldn’t figure it out. And then this guy Jenny Eagan: First and foremost, it’s the pleasure that I get
who had just been quietly sitting on this stand jumps up and from working with Rian. If you haven’t met him, he is just a
starts talking. He had the whole scene figured out, how to cover wonderful human being. There’s a joy in the sense of knowing
it, all the angles. He’s like, ‘You got this and then you cut to the that, on a daily basis, it’s going to be a positive experience; it’s
other thing, and then you see the shadow on the wall…’ And… gonna be fun. And he’s so well organised. His vision comes
they were into it. I don’t remember exactly the details of how from his brain, and you see it all on the page. For me, his sets
it got integrated. But it wasn’t like, ‘Who the hell is this kid?’ I are a comfortable place – it feels as if you can be that much
do think because he wasn’t actually the director, they ended up more creative. It gives you a sense of free… it’s not freedom, it’s
doing a watered-down version of what he proposed. But he did relaxation. You can always go to him and be open and creative.

023
 “I THINK IT’S GREAT WHEN A
DIRECTOR IS KNOWLEDGEABLE
ABOUT THE WORK THAT HIS
COLLABORATORS DO.”
Steve Yeldin: Oh, man, I don’t know how to answer that which is you’re constantly having to reinvent yourself in
briefly. Yeah, I mean, it’s absolute magic, because both the some respects, or reinvent the way you’ve been looking at
process and the product are just so important to me. I think something. I just love the fact that there’s a certain humility
his stuff would be some of my favourite films, if I was just a there as well, which isn’t to say that he doesn’t absolutely go
film goer and didn’t know him or have anything to do with for the critical, big picture, most important things, it’s that
the making. And then, the process that he creates – he’s he is able to prioritise what the key things are. He knows
just the kindest person. And from the smallest, scrappiest what he can go slow, and then let loose a little bit. Just simply
productions to the biggest, he always makes it feel like family because of the process of filmmaking where you’ve got to
and like home. He really cares about everybody and treats be very game for the stuff that comes up while you’re
everybody with such kindness and thoughtfulness. shooting. He can come up with solves that are very character
and script driven.
Bob Ducsay: One of the things that I’ve really enjoyed about
working with Rian is that he really prefers simplicity. But he Steve Yeldin: Something that Rian and I both don’t do is make
feels this way with everything. And I think that’s a really good any kind of photographic rules when we’re working together.
goal. And we work really hard to make the editorial style of The style comes more out of just really trying to figure out the
the films as simple as it can possibly be. I personally love absolute best, most visually exciting way to tell the story at
this point of view. From the beginning, back when I started hand. And when you do that, all of the challenges that have to
in film school, you’re asked to really think about why you be solved present themselves, and then you reach the point
are cutting. where you have to kind of have to roll up your sleeves and
actually solve them.
3 . O N C O L L A B O R A T I O N
Rick Heinrichs: He’s extremely collaborative. And, like the
best directors, he always has an answer, because what we
Bob Ducsay: I think it’s great when a director is need are answers to be able to function and move forward.
knowledgeable about the work that his collaborators do. And he’s right most of the time, you know – nobody’s right all
And Rian knows a lot about editing – he edited Brick and the time. Rian is a real super nice guy, but he’s certainly not
The Brothers Bloom himself. We have the ability to speak a someone who, in any way, shape or form, wants to suffer. He’s
common language. got an expression that he uses for things that he thinks aren’t
quite up to snuff, which is ‘fugly’. And you don’t take offence
Rick Heinrichs: You have to fall in love with things in order at that, it’s just a way of communicating what we’re trying to
to get excited about them and do them. And then, at the same do and get to the same place on the film.
time, you have to be able to fall out of love with some things,
because it’s absolutely necessary for the practicalities of what Jenny Eagan: I’m in consistent conversation with Rian and
you’re doing. And Rian is just so grown up about all of that. the set department. I was prepping in LA for a film in Greece
He does the same thing that we do in the art department, so I had to get some sense of what the sets would look like.

024 The Glass Onion Issue

LEGO and the LEGO logo are trademarks of the LEGO Group. ©2022 The LEGO Group.
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ONE BRICK AT A TIME.

Let Sue help you find your flow.

or wherever you get your podcasts.

FEEL THE WEIGHT OF THE DAY SLOWLY FADE AWAY,
CLICK. FLOW. REPEAT.

Listen to At Your Leisure with Sue Perkins on Spotify,

 “FOR ME, IT’S SO FUN TO BUILD
THAT CHARACTER.. FOR DANIEL
TOO. THE QUESTION, THOUGH, IS:
WHO IS HE GOING TO BE NEXT?”

4 . O N T H E S T Y L E 5 . O N T H E S C R E E N P L A Y
O F G L A S S O N I O N

Bob Ducsay: You can think of filmmakers whose films are Bob Ducsay: I see the two screenplays for Knives Out and
really rapid fire. There’s a lot of what I’d call ‘extra cutting’, Glass Onion as these Swiss watches, because that’s exactly
because it’s interesting as a style. Ultimately, though, the what they are. If you have a great screenplay, and you have
movie tells you what you’re supposed to do. And that’s always great actors, chances are you’re going to at least have a good
our North Star. Everything we do, if we’re doing it right, is movie. Because those are the very hardest things to do. My job
about the movie, and it’s about making the movie as good as is improved greatly by a good screenplay. If your movie has
it can possibly be. problems when you watch the first cut of the movie, it's very
often those problems are directly related to the screenplay.
Jenny Eagan: I remember when Kate Hudson walked in
and I said, ‘We’re making everything,’ and she screamed.
She was so excited. Somebody’s going to see the film and
6 . O N D A N I E L C R A I G
say, ‘Wow, where’d you get that dress? I want that dress.’
And our answer is, well, yes, you can have it, but you have Jenny Eagan: I had a conversation with Daniel before we
to make it first. So that’s what's fun for me. It’s hard when started the process, and where are we going with Benoit Blanc
you just go shopping and everybody wants that thing. You this time. He’s been to these places before, he knows these
want them to want it, but you also want everybody to start people. He’s a chameleon. He sets himself into the situation
sewing again. that he's in and packs that bag for that trip he’s taking. There’s
still elements of Benoit in there from the first one: the floral
Rick Heinrichs: Originally, I had a different idea for ties; the floral socks; the handkerchiefs. This time we have the
how I wanted the atrium of the Glass Onion – the main bold colours. The idea for us is that he can assimilate with the
set of the film – to look. How Rian imagined it was people he’s around. He’d actually been doing his own little
very much a projection of that character, Miles Bron, research before we met and he sent me some photos. There
and it was a different way of projecting the character is that comic edge to him. It’s not all serious. He sent me
than I originally proposed. And to some degree, these images of Jacques Tati, specifically his little, so with Benoit
things are all subjective. But his response was so clear – we have this little play on the Tati bucket hat to protect him
I was literally able to pivot to what he wanted within a couple from the sun. Glass Onion does offer a little nod to that genre.
of days. And as a result, you know, that’s the set that you see – For me, it’s so fun to build that character. For Daniel too.
the atrium with all the paintings and everything. The question, though, is: who is he going to be next?

026 The Glass Onion Issue

 welcome to the
Lit tle White Lies

SHORT
FILM
INVESTIGATION UNIT

FIRST
FIRST FIRST
FILMS! FILMS! FILMS!

FAMOUS DIRECTORS!
028 The Glass Onion Issue
U N D E R T H E M I C R O S C O P E
LOOKING FOR CLUES AS TO WHERE THESE GREAT
AUTEURS WENT NEXT. WITH CONTRIBUTIONS
FROM A G AG G L E OF G R E AT S . :

CHARLES SARAH
BRAMESCO CREARY ILLUSTRATED
PHIL
BY
DAVID
CONCANNON JENKINS NICK
LILLIAN NICK
CRAWFORD
NEWMAN
TAYLOR

Rian Johnson is a filmmaker clutch of famous filmmakers –

whose career adhered to the Lars von Trier, Barry Jenkins,
classic arc: film school; shorts; Claire Denis, Guillermo del Toro –
indie features; Star Wars. to see if we could guess where
To focus on the shorts for a they were going to head. Has
moment, it’s fascinating to Richard Linklater always been
look back on some of Johnson’s interested in time, nostalgia
formative doodles and being able and cultural artifacts? Did
to see the creative primordial Edgar Wright always have a
ooze of a man who now has knack for moving the camera?
Hollywood in the palm of his Has David Lynch always been
hand. With the assistance of drawn to the weird and arcane?
various, popular online streaming The text that follows is the
platforms, we went in search of product of the LWLies Short
some early short films from a Film Investigation Unit.

029
1990

1
NINJA KO: THE ORIGAMI MASTER
R I A N J O H N S O N 1990

Imagine the scene: your parents’ have a home camcorder wacky physical comedy into its three minute run time.
that they whip out for holidays, birthdays and the odd track Johnson is credited as director and co-writer, and the
meet, resulting in a shelf full of boring tapes that are used as film offers obscure but vital evidence of his skills as a fond
drinks coasters. Then, your pals all come around, get hopped parodist as our hero deals with a variety of domestic tasks
up on Cool Original Doritos and Apple Jacks, watch an ’80s with the aid of his expert Origami skills. The film plays as
Kung-fu quickie on TV and all start wondering, “Hey, we a fake trailer for an apocryphal feature, so we must fast-
could do that!” This is probably not an accurate inception forward to Johnson’s 1996 short, Evil Demon Golfball from
story for Rian Johnson’s plucky 1990 short, Ninja Ko: The Hell!!!, to view the first instances of his skills as a constructor
Origami Master, but it does represent the kernel of a creative of complex narratives, but also as a director with rare
impulse discovered by so many greats on such a whim – dynamism and visual elan – someone who fully embraces all
hell, Steven Spielberg has just made an entire movie on this the sensory possibilities of the medium. Perhaps the only
very subject. thing we don’t see in these early films is the way Johnson, in
Ninja Ko itself offers a scratchy ode to the hyperbolic films such as Brick and Knives Out!, uses the fuel of classical
machismo of direct-to-video martial arts movies, and genre to run a vehicle of sincere emotion with a modern
manages to pack in all manner of in-camera trickery and political outlook. DJ

030 The Glass Onion Issue

 DOÑA LUPE L I C K T H E S TA R
2 G U I L L E R M O D E L T O R O 3 S O F I A C O P P O L A
1985 1998
Doña Lupe was not Guillermo Del Toro’s first short – he Sofia Coppola’s debut short film was made just a year before
made eight films before it – but it’s the earliest work that he her debut feature, and it’s easy to see how one may have led
has released to the public. Made when he was 20 years old, to the other. Like The Virgin Suicides, Lick the Star describes
the film exhibits some immaturity in its broad and sloppy the pangs and ennui of suburban girlhood with candour and
storytelling, but there are hints of a cinematic sensibility specificity. Stylistically, it’s a more blunt work than what
that would subsequently blossom. would follow, but its riot grrl swagger belies some depth of
When we think of Del Toro’s style we think of fantastical feeling; a latent tension between flippancy and sincerity that
creatures and uniquely nightmarish visions, and there would, in part, come to define the Coppola style.
is little of that here given the meagre budget that he was Lick the Star follows seventh grader Kate as she returns to
working with. However, Doña Lupe proves to be thematically school nursing a broken foot only to discover that her friends
consistent with the director’s work, as for all the strange have hatched a devious plan during her weeklong absence.
and threatening creatures he has given us, Del Toro’s films They want to slowly poison the packed lunches of the school’s
constantly remind us that man is the true monster. In Doña boy population, leaving them dependent on the girls for an
Lupe, the title character is a meek widow struggling to make antidote. Here a key theme in Coppola’s work – the gulf
ends meet who turns the tables on two corrupt cops, in a thin between male and female worlds – can be seen to emerge, as
plot that has some echoes of The Ladykillers. can her preoccupation with isolation in a crowd. These girls
Even at this formative stage of his career, Del Toro has an have each other, yes, but this is shown to be a highly precarious
eye for dramatic images, and he utilises noirish shadows to situation, one where nobody is safe from ostracisation.
striking effect. The use of a buzzing fly and a small windup Though it has its dramatically compelling aspects, Lick
knick-knack are welcome idiosyncratic touches too. It would the Star is predominantly an exercise in style. Shot in grainy
be interesting to see Doña Lupe as he originally envisioned B/W 16mm by recurring Coppola collaborator Lance Acord,
it – a lab error meant his elaborate climactic set-piece had to the film has a pleasingly punk aesthetic, one complimented
be entirely re-shot on a tight deadline – but it’s obvious that by its prodigious needle drops from The Go-Go’s et al. It
this is a budding filmmaker with big ideas. His style would would seem Coppola had cinematic cool down from day one,
become more solidified in his next short Geometria, before though a greater parity between content and form was still to
feature debut Cronos set his career in motion. PC be achieved. SC

WOODSHOCK Linklater has never been a director who has gone in for much

4 R I C H A R D L I N K L AT E R
visual experimentation, but in Woodshock he layers his 8mm
images on top of each other and runs some of the footage
1985 backwards, creating a blurry montage that plays under a
discordant electric guitar riff.
When asked about the short films he made in the 1980s, Before indulging in that avant-garde interlude, Linklater
Richard Linklater has described them as his film school. appears much more assured when he is simply wandering
He tackled each project as an editing exercise or a lighting around the festival chatting to random attendees, including
exercise, testing his limitations and playing with different a young Daniel Johnson, who introduces himself as a
styles as he tried to find his artistic voice. That sense of McDonald’s employee and tries to interest Linklater in a
freewheeling experimentation is summed up by the fact cassette of his ‘Hi, How Are You’ album. The laid-back style
that he and his longtime cinematographer Lee Daniel label and the instinct for intriguing characters is suggestive of
their short 1985 documentary about the Woodshock Music later films like Slacker, Dazed and Confused and Everybody
Festival as a “Film Attempt” in the closing credits. Wants Some!!. Throughout his career, Richard Linklater’s
So perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that Woodshock greatest attribute has been his ability to effortlessly evoke
doesn’t look much like a Richard Linklater film. Aside from a mood and capture a moment, and that quality is evident in
his rotoscoped features Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, even this rough-hewn early effort. PC

031
 S T R A N G U L AT I O N SIX MEN GETTING SICK
5 BLUES
6 (SIX TIMES)
L E O S C A R A X D A V I D LY N C H
1980 1967

The films of Leos Carax are incendiary towards cinematic models. The narrative of David Lynch as the art student who went
His debut short, Strangulation Blues, is a blackly comic send up of on to remake cinema in his own grotesque, Cubist-jumbled
the French Nouvelle Vague, particularly of Jean-Luc Godard. The image is known to anyone familiar with his work, but his first
film is set up much like the domestic scenes of Godard’s 1960 film, student film provides a point of reference to show just how little
À bout de souffle, with Anne Petit-Lagrange imitating Jean Seberg he’s compromised over more than five decades. To the audio
with her striped t-shirt and pixie cut. The film is a clear precursor accompaniment of an undulating siren, the plotless short loops
to Carax’s debut feature, Boy Meets Girl (1984), as a monochrome a one-minute painting-animation of abstracted vomiting figures
dissection of traditional romance, and parodying the masculine four times. The title is a misnomer, or perhaps an inscrutable joke
need to have a female muse to inspire cinematic work. – a mini-sample of the Lynchian propensity for confounding. In
The absurdist core of the film, its intense darkness and what looks now like an early precursor of the .gif, Lynch presages
moments of sudden violence, combined with the use of pastiche, the disorienting methods of his first feature Eraserhead, already
are distinctive to Carax as a filmmaker, such as his play with conversant in the language of symbols and atmosphere he would
genre in 2012’s Holy Motors and Hollywood musicals and opera in continue to develop for the rest of his life.
2021’s Annette. Here the problem for the protagonist Paul, played Perhaps the most edifying aspect of all is the grotty,
by Éric Frey, is that his partner Colette does not produce clear handmade 2-D flatness, for how it introduces and spotlights the
images for him, so he fantasises about strangling her in the night. mixed-media ethic that Lynch never abandoned. He’s an artist
Carax pokes fun the devices such as intertitles and stream- first and a filmmaker as a sub-occupation within that role. But
of-consciousness voiceover, ending with a card that reads “Fin even in his films, there’s a palpable desire to break free of the
de tout” in imitation of the “Fin de cinèma” title which ends corporeal materials making up live-action, from the stop-motion
Godard’s Weekend (1967). It announces a bold new voice, who has rabbits of Inland Empire to the chroma key kookiness opening
continued to play with the conventions of heterosexual romance Mulholland Dr. As Lynch has dipped in and out of approval,
in films such as Mauvais Sang (1986), Les amants du Pont-Neuf his first experiment with a camera serves as a reminder that he
(1991), and Pola X (1999). Carax is saying that he can do better. LC himself hasn’t changed, but rather he’s changed our tastes. CB

LE 15 MAI No tunes from Tindersticks, no tactile

7 C L A I R E D E N I S images of human skin, and grounded in

an uncharacteristically chaste marriage
1969 to further discombobulate us auteurists.
Yet, when a late-in-the-game
Completed around the time Claire Denis confrontation between our increasingly
turned 23 and (notwithstanding a short of paranoid protagonist and the woman
which I can find scant note) preceding her controlling his reality grows ugly, my
next directorial effort by 19 years, Le 15 mind could only turn to any number of
Mai does more to suggest roads not taken, Denis’ men exerting brute force in points
a career that might’ve been. (We’re lucky of crisis. Even at a young age did she have
to have this much: the film was effectively some rough-minded belief of what the
missing until someone shared it on a relationship between sexes will inevitably
private network in August.) The scant become. And as one who can’t help but
information available alleges Le 15 Mai was think High Life is just about her worst
inspired by Philip K. Dick, but to these eyes feature, I’d welcome anything that expands
it recalls Rod Serling or Fritz Lang in its Le 15 Mai’s impression of endless genre
dystopian nightmare logic and (imagine possibilities on matrimony. Too much to
my surprise) beat Groundhog Day to the ask how Both Sides of the Blade might play
time-loop conceit by a quarter-century. with clones and cryogenic freezing? NN

032 The Glass Onion Issue

 DEAD RIGHT Shot on VHS when Wright was 18, the film nominally
8 E D G A R W R I G H T
tells the story of a hotshot cop (“Dirty Barry”) on the trail
of a vicious serial killer. But any semblance of narrative is
1993 entirely beside the point: Wright is clearly aiming for the
gag-a-second pace of Airplane!, though his hit rate is a little
Edgar Wright’s Dead Right begins with a faux BBFC lower. Any time he relies on his amateur cast’s comic timing,
disclaimer, warning viewers of the film’s “bad jokes, the joke invariably lands with a thud. However, he does fare
bad production values and frequently painful acting”. better with his sight-gags, managing to deliver a handful of
Somewhere between endearing self-effacement and an inventive moments of cartoon logic.
insufficient excuse, it’s a good primer for what follows: Many of Wright’s now instantly-recognisable directorial
teenagers mucking around with plastic guns and doing silly flourishes appear in Dead Right: whip-pans; quick cutting; visual
voices. If you haven’t seen Dead Right, you will have seen puns. But without a clearly delineated juxtaposition between the
backyard films like it. You may have even made backyard mundane and the hyper-cinematic, his sensibilities soon become
films like it. But what separates this film from our own tiresome – as was the case with his debut 1995 feature, A Fistful of
adolescent camcorder cop spoofs is Wright’s nascent Fingers. These early works demonstrate a sense of style, but not
visual style – and there’s a fair bit of it on display here. yet a sense of purpose. Thankfully, Spaced wasn’t too far off. SC

MY JOSEPHINE
9 B A R R Y J E N K I N S

2003

At a laundromat in America’s tense post-9/11 period, a pair of

married Muslim immigrants perform patriotism by offering
to clean flags for free, a process that husband Aadid relates in
the hushed Wong Kar-wai voiceover Jenkins would return to
through the ’10s. He explains that the fabric must be hand-
scrubbed with the gentlest possible touch and dried in individual
machines set on delicate – practically a statement of purpose
coming from a director known for handling his characters with
care. His career-long mission of empathy for quiet, soulful
members of demographics marginalised by a hegemonic society
starts here, with the patience and attention exemplified in the
stilled wide shot bookending the eight sparse minutes.
Keen-eyed viewers will notice at least two moves deployed
here (a moment of emotional reckoning above a sink, and a zoom
in on overhead tube lights to suggest drifting into the aether)
that Jenkins would repurpose for his name-making Moonlight,
but the real indicator for his future lies in the stance of earnest,
quavering awe for the nourishing potential of love and devotion.
In his all-Arabic narration, Aadid likens his beloved Adela to
the first wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, wedded out of clean-
burning attraction rather than the power-consolidation of the
conqueror’s second union. In an environment no less hostile
to them than New York was to the young couple of If Beale
Street Could Talk, the couple takes solace in one another and
the consistent routine they share, a gesture of fidelity that stops
short of the tearjerking highs Jenkins would hit in his prime. CB

033
 S M A L L D E AT H S
10 LY N N E R A M S AY
1996

Small Deaths is a triptych on the loss of innocence. Lynne Ramsay

completed the film as her graduation project from the National
Film and Television School, and won the 1996 Cannes Prix de Jury.
Made three years before the release of her debut feature Ratcatcher
(1999), Ramsay sowed the seeds for that biting examination of
working-class life in suburban Scotland here. The first of the film’s
three segments introduces Anne Marie, played by Lynne Ramsay
Junior, as she plays in the house while her mother prepares her
father’s hair before he leaves. It introduces Ramsay’s signature
obscurity, shifting between foregrounds and backgrounds only
revealing what her focal characters know while gesturing towards
something darker going on in the adult world at large.
The second part moves out into the countryside, two girls
playing along without adult supervision, before coming across a
dying cow. The extreme close-ups of her injuries ending with the
cow’s eye fading over into death, is harrowing and reveals Ramsay’s
willingness not to shy from violence seen through her filmography
to We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) and You Were Never Really
Here (2017). Ramsay’s use of animal emotion and death to teach
her child characters about mortality is central to Ratcatcher, which
feels like an extension on the themes of this vignette. Finally,
Anne Marie is older, dealing with the abuses of young adult life
and relationships explored most keenly in Ramsay’s 2002 drama
Morvern Callar. It wraps up Small Deaths as a prelude to life and
the lessons Ramsay has learned. LC

WHITE MAN with the practicalities of doing a job; the sadistic sense of humour.
11 (BAEKSEKIN)
(Our unnamed man briefly considers murdering his goldfish by
putting a cigarette out on its face, then thinks better of it.)
B O N G J O O N H O If Bong finds this all embarrassing today, it’s probably due
to the comparative lack of technical intricacy rather than
1994
any immaturity in what have turned out to be steadfast
philosophies. Working on 16mm film, there’s a perceptible
“Please don’t see it,” director Bong Joon-ho said of his debut effort at conservation in his loosened editing schemes, which
short in an interview with New York Magazine, lest we forget that leave longer, more open takes than in his spry, spring-loaded
great artists are often wrong about their own work. “It’s a super- later work. With Snowpiercer, Okja, and Parasite, his camera
stupid, fucking boring film. It’s just terrible.” All due respect, prowled down corridors and around corners like an apex
but there’s not so much separating his oeuvre at large from this predator, in marked contrast with the young Bong’s relatively
20-minute look into the life of an office drone who happens upon static cinematography broken up by the occasional, brief dolly.
a severed finger. He wouldn’t direct his first feature for another With the awareness of all that awaited this restless student,
six years, but every piece of his signature style is right there for the we’re able to see a burgeoning talent straining at the limits a
studying: the bone-deep resentment of authority; the fascination lack of resources placed upon him. CB

034 The Glass Onion Issue

 THE TRIP TO
12 SQUASH LAND
L A R S V O N T R I E R

1967

What insights can we gleam from truly juvenile work by a now

major filmmaker? In the case of The Trip to Squash Land, made
in 1967 by a then 11-year-old Lars von Trier, not all that many.
This charming cutout animation features dancing bunnies, a
flying whale and a superhero sausage, but not even the faintest
trace of the darkness we would eventually come to know little
Lars for. What is evident, however, is that von Trier cared deeply
about his craft, even then. If you squint, it could almost be a
forgotten children’s television programme of the period.
At age 14, von Trier completed Why Try to Escape from That
Which You Know You Can’t Escape From? Because You Are
a Coward. A far cry from Squash Land, this live action short is
shot through with a sense of pessimism and cruelty that is
recognisably von Trier. First, we see a boy get hit by truck, then
watch as another boy flees the scene, only for the first boy to rise
from the dead as a vengeful, bandaged spectre and relentlessly
pursue Boy #2. It’s true that many adolescent filmmakers often
turn to morbid subject matter, but what’s especially striking
about Coward is that it doesn’t appear to have been inspired by
any contemporaneous horror cinema – it has more in common
with a nightmare than a Hammer production. Indeed, it appears
to be the work of an enquiring young mind discovering for
himself cinema’s capacity to disquiet and disturb. SC

UNE FEMME sex work. Its man-on-the-street cinematography (handled,

like all other tasks, by Godard himself ) looks positively
COQUETTE
13 J E A N - L U C G O D A R D
primitive against the achievements of Breathless five
years later, though it’s fun to pretend his passing cameo
is the same character who’d eventually rat on Belmondo.
1955 And there’s only shades of the tragedy and humiliation visited
upon Anna Karina in Vivre Sa Vie or Isabelle Huppert in
In 1981, visiting the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis to Every Man…. (Those are invariables of their lifestyle, not this
discuss 1980’s Every Man for Himself, Jean-Luc Godard was woman’s passing experiment.) But it gets awfully close in just
asked how he might claim knowledge of a female prostitute’s nine minutes’ time, and Une Femme Coquette’s most energic
life. The answer was met with an apparently stunned sequence – following our hero as she’s chased by a sex-crazed
silence: “Every time I hire a prostitute, I ask her about her man given one moment’s attention – vibrates with Godard’s
experiences.” Thus, I’d argue Une Femme Coquette located a comic and dramatic concepts of male-female relations. It’s
perpetual interest in sex work, if not quite how it’d be seen – fair not for nothing that the fresh-faced filmmaker’s first attempt
qualification for one of the longest, densest careers cinema’s at narrative adapted Guy de Maupassant, who’d loosely
ever known. Une Femme Coquette/lacks intertitles, jump inspire Masculin Féminin one decade hence. A precedent?
cuts or declarations about the philosophical ramifications of Not totally. But some shades do emerge. NN

035
 L W L i e s
G a z e t t e

C l as s i f i e d a d s Detectives For Hire

Bakshi, Det. Byomkesh (aka Atul Chandra Mitra) Lavardin, Inspecteur Jean Rawlins, Easy
Master of Observation, Forensic Science Willing to bend the rules to nab my suspect, Vintage duds, ex-military, former aircraft
and Logical Reason. Four decades on especially in the French countryside. assembler (good with hands). Desperately needs
the job. Can’t stand drugs and murder. Occasional work with Claude Chabrol. money for mortgage payments, and happy to
Calcutta based (and environs). PO Box 673 Friendly, but sometimes unorthodox. trail that Devil in a Blue Dress. LA, PO Box 3530
Minitel: 764-COPAUVIN
Rouletabille, Joseph
Chan, Charlie Lupin, Arsene
Name literally means “roll your marble”. France
Honolulu-based Buddhist, happy to work Ex-con, mentored by Sherlock Holmes, I know is my base, but happy to travel the globe in
globally. Semi-retired since ’81, but still on the secret of the fountain of youth, and I own search of a case. NB, I only work as a detective
the prowl for juicy cases. Recognised me a frickin’ God Stone. Master of disguise also. by night, as during working hours I’m also a
by my goatee, suit and top hat. PO Box 63 Come thru if you’re looking for: chauffeur, journalist. So best of both worlds. Once saved
detective, bookmaker, Russian physician, Paris from German bombs. NBD. Minitel: 66383
Clouseau, Insp. Jacques Spanish bullfighter, commercial traveller,
robust youth, decrepit old man. Minitel: 36783
Spade, Sam
The Greatest Detective in France. Works a lot with
Blake Edwards. Keeper of a fine ’tache, definitely Maigret, Commissaire Jules
OG Private Eye, hard-boiled and no messing.
not clumsy, speaker of perfect English. Can be Semi-retired since 1977. Proficient in weaponless
found across the French Sûreté. Minitel 93773 No muss, no fuss, cases solved simply, quickly,
brutally. Due to the current smoking ban, will combat (like to use my dukes) Located in San
now only take on cases outside. If you don’t Francisco. Happy to work for anyone, but
Dee, Det. Renjie also looking to avenge my partner, lmk if you
like trilby hats and a brusque manner, then
please pick another detective. Paris, PO Box 74 have any links. CALL ME: 555-FISTICUFFS
China-based, ex-politico across the Tang and
Wu Zhou dynasties. Worked as a judge, so vast
breadth of experience. Was a real person circa Marlowe, Philip Sportello, Larry “Doc”
year 700, but have been appropriated as a fictional
detective. Happy to take case, esp those linked to Cat is my priority so cannot promise promptness. Work out of a hut in Gordita Beach, Los
high level government corruption. Snail mail only. LA and outskirts. Comfortable with the rough Angeles County. Likes to party. Master of
stuff (goons, molls, etc). I can light a cigarette off disguise (and work very cheaply). Will not
Doyle, Det. Jimmy “Popeye” any surface. Address: The High Tower Apartments, have any associations with the Golden Fang.
2178 High Tower Drive, LA, California (if not Have been known to work in tandem with
Come and pick your feet in Poughkeepsie with here, then probably somewhere in Mexico). Bigfoot Bjornsen. NO PHONE (broken)
NY’s most committed detective on the beat. Ace
car driver. Likely to be found in the bars of South Marple, Jane Takabe, Detective Kenichi
Street, Manhattan. Occasional racist and womaniser.
Don’t always get my man. Contact via NYPD. Looks like: small, defenceless, elderly lady. Always looking for the “Cure” to gruesome
In reality: veteran detective with links murders. Japan-based. Influenced by the
Drew, Nancy to the Met Police. Apropos of nothing, I Great American Detectives. PO Box XXXX
have a BA in Fine Art. Address: Danemead
Will not work outside of River Heights, Illinois, Cottage, Old Pasture Lane, St Mary Mead, Tracy, Dick
where I am a local case-cracker extraordinaire. have teapot will travel. Call: 635-DOILY
Amateur, but will work for tips (too busy crime Outwitting criminals since 1931. Loves: Tess
fighting to get my credentials!). PO Box 83 Moto, I.A. (aka Mr Moto) Trueheart. Hates: The Mob. Soon to catch
Alphonse “Big Boy” Caprice. CAUTION: Do not be
Gittes, Jake J Not the smartest detective on the scene, but a hard alarmed, may be in 2D. I know Madonna. Box 676
worker. Old pals with Charlie Chan. Born in Japan
Keen to get close with the subjects of my (I was Emperor Hirohito’s servant!), now based Wens, Mr (aka Wenceslas Vorobeitchik)
investigations: too close if necessary. Discrete in the US. Will always turn out smart for a case
(although nursing unsightly slash mark – evening attire minimum standard. 555-7292 France-based, ironic and discreet. Former Police
on nose). Based LA and area. Water Board Nationale. Appreciated throughout industry
corruption of particular interest. Will no in France and Belgium. Strengths: Strong chin.
longer take work in Chinatown. PO Box 22 Poirot, Hercule Weaknesses: Receding hairline. Slavic charm,
impeccably dressed. Hit me up. Minitel: 675489
Holmes, Sherlock Belgian (not French!) master detective, fond
of solving mysteries associated with luxury Wong, Mr James Lee
Clients must be comfortable with my deerstalker travel. Very prolific. Works on clues rather
(and occasional opium habit). From noble than logic. I will use my little grey cells (with Chinese-American detective, friend of the
stock. Based 221b Baker Street, so feel free order and method!) to get you the results you author Hugh Wiley. Based in San Francisco. 6ft,
to knock. Also contactable through assistant, crave. Staunch Catholic. Contact me through Yale educated, also worked for the US Treasury
Watson, on [email protected]. If I am not my holding company, Trojan Insurance PLC. Department (1934-1940). I am well respected
free, cases can be taken by my sister Enola. for my international espionage skills. BOX863
 THIS IS A FEATURE CALLED

"IN SEARCH OF

J
SIMENON"
E F F
BILLINGTON
BY THE WRITER

THE SUGGESTED ALTERNATE TITLE IS

“MAIGRET,
SIMENON AND ME"
IT IS THE STORY OF A MAN WHO DECIDED TO READ ALL OF

GEORGE SIMENON’S
MAIGRET DETECTIVE
NOVELS.
 ILLUSTRATIONS BY
THOMAS ROUZIÈRE

have found, over the last few years, that my

I ability to read has declined. Not, I should

explain, my ability to understand text,
but my capacity to follow a narrative thread,
exacerbated by non-sleeping infants, post-
Covid brain fog. In addition to unconventional
working hours, all of this ability has degraded
to the extent that I would put a novel down, not
manage to pick it up again for a week, and then
have no knowledge of what I’d previously read.
In the search of something my fried brain
could still enjoy, I picked up a slim paperback
from a pile of Oxfam finds: a novel by the Belgian
writer Georges Simenon, featuring Parisian
detective Jules Maigret. Opening it, a leaflet
fluttered to the ground, featuring a checklist of
all 75 Maigret novels... and just like that, an idea
formed to tackle my reading malaise. Simenon’s
novels average 150 pages of terse prose, books
which can be read in a couple of hours, even if
those hours were spread out over a week or so
of fitful moments. And so, in the brace of half-
hearted target setting that accompanies the
start of a new year, January 2021 saw the launch
of The Maigret Challenge: to read all 75 novels
over a three-year period, picking them up as I found them in of absence during an investigation – the childless couple, one
charity shops and second-hand bookshops. of the most idealised marriages in fiction, barely exchange
To immerse oneself in an artist’s work in this way, to a word: ‘What was the point, since both felt that, in many
spend all that time inside an author’s head, becomes a hunt ways, they were one person?’ (‘Maigret and the Ghost’, 1963).
for clues, a search for motive… a kind of detective work, Maigret does not ‘develop’ as a character. There is no dark
in other words. And so, around 40 books into the Maigret secret or trauma which he is trying to resolve through his
Challenge, what kind of profiles can I piece together about work. He has no eccentricities; beyond a small clandestine
Inspector Maigret? What have I learnt about Georges stove he uses to heat his cramped office in the Quai des
Simenon… or about myself? Orfèvres. He has no unusual passions: faced with ‘a night as
Who, first of all, is Maigret? There are a few things we a bachelor’ whilst his wife is away, the best he can manage
can discern within the evidence presented by a single novel. is a plate of escargots before falling asleep in a basement
He is a gruff, heavy-set man, in permanent middle age, who cinema. He takes his work seriously, but he does not enjoy
smokes a pipe, and wears a hat and crumpled raincoat. He’s it, noting that his ‘success’ accompanies death and tragedy.
devoted to his wife, who stoically tolerates his long periods His life, for the most part, is one long melancholy sigh.

039
 “SIMENON WAS A RELENTLESS
TRAVELLER, AN INVETERATE
WOMANISER, A GLEEFUL SELF-
PROMOTER AND A LOVER OF
THE LUXURY HIS BEST-SELLERS
AFFORDED HIM.”
So far, so what? A grumpy old man in a in society. We have to ask, who
trench coat; unusual domestic situation; would create such an unusual,
monomaniacal tendencies; traces of self- obtuse detective?
loathing. He’s pretty much the platonic ideal It is tempting to see a
of a fictional detective. But the reason I (and writer’s creation as an avatar
many others) keep returning to Maigret is through which they speak.
that the books do not serve the classic function Georges Simenon, however, was
of a crime novel, in which the reader tries to stay not Maigret, even if he did endow
ahead of the sleuth in unmasking the killer. Whether him with his own uniform of pipe,
Maigret is on a case in Paris, where he spends hours hat, and trench coat. Simenon was
pounding the pavement punctuated by trays of beer a relentless traveller, an inveterate womaniser, a gleeful
and sandwiches in the office, or is called away to a small self-promoter and a lover of the great luxury his best-
provincial town, where the case is almost a distraction sellers had afforded him. The essential difference between
from his time spent in a café sampling the regional tipple, Maigret and his contemporaries, however, can come to us
the novels are not particularly concerned with whodunit. through a little investigation into the details of Simenon’s
Instead, each case is a spartan, almost philosophical life. The young Georges began his career as a reporter at the
meditation on why it was done, and what effect the crime had age of 15, becoming fully immersed in the inter-war demi-
on the world around us. monde of pushers and prostitutes, anarchists and artists,
There is nothing mystical or modern about Maigret’s madames and murderers. Young Simenon developed a deep
techniques of detection, and it is often enough for him to understanding of the entire spectrum of human existence,
plonk himself down in the corner of a room and with the result that he – and therefore Maigret –
observe as suspects collapse under the weight understands that any one of us is a couple of bad
of their own guilt. He understands that not decisions away from committing a terrible act: “It is
everyone gets a fair deal in life. Noting demoralising in a criminal case to be confronted
the resignation of a recently widowed only with normal people, because you wonder
seamstress, he reasons that, “the poor are why and how they have become mixed up in
used to stifling any expression of their a tragedy.” (‘Maigret and the Ghost,’ 1963).
despair, because they must get on with Maigret inherits Simenon’s complex moral
life, with work, with the demands made of code. He almost always feels a degree of compassion
them day after day, hour after hour.” (‘The for the killers – who, we must remember, face the guillotine
Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien,’ 1931). He has a healthy disdain – and on occasion, he even allows people to get away
for the haute bourgeoisie, and a grudging respect for the with murder.
criminal class, a ‘there but for the grace of god’ recognition We must also acknowledge that the novels feature a
that their circumstances are not for him to judge. The certain Gallic je ne sais quoi – though we know full well quoi –
portrait we build of Maigret is not that of a simple enforcer it’s sex, or at least a frankness about it, which doubtless aided
of the law, but a complex moral figure, adrift, as we all are, the series’ huge success in post-war Britain. Maigret doesn’t

040 The Glass Onion Issue

bat an eyelid when he has to to consult a doctor before
speak to a murdered rich man’s beginning a new book,
wife, as well as his mistress, such was the strain he
and the belles at the local put himself under. Faced
‘house’, a scandal which might with this additional
have hospitalised Miss Marple. evidence, perhaps I
Simenon’s characterisation should be a little more
of Maigret is asexual, but the like Maigret, and be less
author frequently pops up to judgemental about my
give women a leering once over. own work? As I type this,
We cannot avoid addressing I can imagine the man
Simenon’s infamous claim himself grumbling away
to have had sex with 10,000 at such nonsense.
women, forcing us briefly to It’s clear that further
imagine a hybrid of Monsieur investigation is required.
Hulot and Rocco Siffredi, until With around a year left on
we learn that he also admitted the Maigret Challenge,
that he never took longer than
two minutes about it, and
refused to undress beyond unzipping his trousers. Might I’m enjoying it too much to part company with either
Simenon have created Maigret as a foil for this apparently writer or creator. So,
compulsive and joyless sex addiction? Such attempts to look
at the parallels between Maigret and Simenon simply raise what next?
further questions about the author, with his biographers
often framing their work as an investigation. Well, there’s a hundred or so of the standalone novels
And what, as the perpetrator of this quixotic endeavour, Simenon termed romans durs,
has spending this time with Maigret revealed about me? As
I gaze at the draft of this piece on my screen, an explosion of literally ‘tough novels’, claustrophobic
half-finished paragraphs struggling to achieve coherence, I Dostoyevskian micro- epics of psychological and
think of Simenon’s output – some 192 novels under his own
name, alongside several hundred pseudonymous early works.
Between 1931 (the year of the first ten Maigret novels) and
his 1973 retirement, Simenon boasted of bashing out seventy existential
pages a day, taking just ten consecutive days to progress from
blank page to publishable manuscript. Uniquely for a writer
so prolific, his books earnt acclaim from contemporary torment.
literary titans such as Celine, André Gide, Henry Miller,
Albert Camus and Colette, once his editor, who advised
him to pare down his style by cutting anything ‘literary’ or They should keep me going
‘beautiful’, resulting in a distinctive minimalist style (which
would omit around half the words I’ve used in this piece).
Simenon, then, seems to exemplify the ideal of writer as
unpretentious grafter, putting my own indiscipline, as I spend for a few
twenty minutes choosing an LP to put on between edits, to
shame. But let’s delve a little deeper... Simenon also found
the pressure of writing so intense that he would collapse in
a vomiting mess upon reaching his daily day’s quota, and had more years

041
 KYLE TURNER PRESENTS

“TO KILL FOR LOVE IS

SUCH A THRILL”
A PIECE ON THE LATE, VERY GREAT

STEPHEN
SONDHEIM
relating to his fondness
for the time-honoured

m u r d e r
mystery
 he bittersweet flavour at the bottom of the pies in into making a real killing with his sole

T Stephen Sondheim’s 1979 musical, ‘Sweeney Todd:

The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’, is human. Literally
of course, but also in the way that its mastermind composer
feature screenplay credit. There’s something
delightfully nasty about the ending of
Herbert Ross’s 1973 whodunit feature,
lyricist made a gambit of by borrowing elements from a genre The Last of Sheila. When the game is over
he adored: the murder mystery. He loved its codes, schemes – it always starts with a game, doesn’t it?
and strategies. He put them into the grinder to produce – everything comes down to what’s at the
sophisticated delicacies of modern musical theatre. His interest core of its all-too-human characters who are
in murder mysteries placed one thing he understood (games, mostly Hollywood industry types whose souls have been
puzzles) and one thing he did not (people, human relationships) bankrupted by their work and life.
in conversation with one another. It was as if the structures of It makes sense that the film would want to mix brash genre
the genre facilitated a push and pull between the cleanliness pleasures with a peculiar substantiveness. It treats its movie
of a game with established rules and the chaos of human spirit. producer (James Coburn), actress (Raquel Welch), film
While his devotion to the whodunit is suffused throughout director (James Mason), screenwriter (Richard Benjamin)
his theatre work in more abstract ways, Sondheim ventured and dowager wife (Joan Hackett), plus two talent agents
(Dyan Cannon and Ian McShane), who have all
been brought together on a yacht under the guise
of an elaborate scavenger hunt that turns fatal,
with a level of seriousness. And only when the
murderer has been revealed does the ball for
screenplay potential start rolling, even before
most of the blood has dried. But, nasty is not the
same as glib, and despite its razor tongued wit,
The Last of Sheila still finds it worth burrowing
into these characters’ heads.
For the composer and lyricist of musicals
such as ‘Company’ (1970), ‘Follies’ (1971), and
‘Into the Woods’ (1986), there were few delights
quite like a puzzle. Puzzles have solutions, and,
as Isaac Butler implies in his Sondheim obituary
for Slate, “solace.” He fostered his adoration
for them to such an extent that he and Perkins
would throw complicated and intricately crafted
murder mystery parties, and out of this love
was born The Last of Sheila, which was released
shortly after ’A Little Night Music’ – his take on
Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night –
would premiere on Broadway. Aside from this
literal manifestation of Sondheim’s kink for

043
 “MURDER HAS AN
ARTFULNESS TO IT. THERE
ARE ENOUGH MYSTERY
NOVELS TO SUGGEST AS
SUCH. BUT SONDHEIM’S
WORK SHOWS THAT IT
WAS THE ‘WHY’ THAT
WAS THE ART.”
puzzles, there were clues elsewhere to be seen by those who It’s less that Sondheim was drawn to explicitly writing
were looking hard enough. these types of stories than he was intrigued at borrowing their
‘Follies’ is a Robert Altman-meets-David Lynch fever principles and tenets. A constellation of characters who orbit
dream in which the ghosts of past lives and the resurrection of one person as a way to betray everyone else’s neuroses stains
painful regrets, all set at the reunion party for a bunch of New Company, whose splintered and nonlinear structure, revolving
York dancers in the theatre they once performed in the night around a perpetual bachelor named Bobby and his group of
before it’s demolished. It also began life as a murder mystery married friends, makes each character like a sliding block within
called ‘The Girls Upstairs’. Written with book writer James its protagonist’s psyche, fitting into his idea of marriage.
Goldman, ‘Follies’ moved away from its original premise, To quote his eternal toe-tapper, ‘The Little Things You Do
where act one would leave the audience with each of the Together’: “It’s not so hard to be married/it’s much the
four leads’ motives and act two would be the cleanest of crimes.”
ticking time bomb for – as director Hal Prince The reckless scheming of a vengeful, razor-
called it in the New York Times – a “who’ll do wielding barber and his pastry chef lover
it?”, to its (mostly) present state (Goldman pushes past Grand Guignol and makes a
rewrote the book several times). But, for spectacle of a whydunit? in ‘Sweeney Todd’.
Sondheim, a mystery remained: its two It’s a place where murder is obviously on
main couples (Sally and Buddy, Phyllis and the menu, but so too are motives. Here,
Ben) want so much from each other and the murder mystery, with a book by Hugh
from the world, that they are left wondering Wheeler, is inverted: the audience knows the
why their lives, which the characters see as empty, murderer and who he’s going to murder, it’s a
happened to them. matter of then spending time suffocating its audience with
‘Follies’ is doused in a cynicism that only ever present the “why”. (Todd himself sneers, “What happens then/well
small glimmers of light, and they are mostly present in the that’s the play/and he wouldn’t want us to give it away”.)
bombast and artifice of its showmanship. Yet, paired with Back to Sheila: it’s diabolical to write about other people,
Sondheim’s ornate writing and clever structuring (in ‘Losing figure out how they work and play around with them like
My Mind’, “I dim the lights and think about you,” fractures dolls. That’s what the game everyone plays is, and then, too,
into, “Spend sleepless night to think about you”), the film that starts gestating in the minds of killer and
the composer-lyricist makes the world in these catcher. It’s like a kind of, forgive me, ontological
characters inhabit a old dark house of soul. It’s a violence. Yet writing about other people is as human
place that makes their heartbeat and helps to break as it is sadistic.
the mystery. Murder has an artfulness to it. There are enough mystery
That element of mystery has always resided at the centre novels to suggest as such. But Sondheim’s work shows that it
of Sondheim’s work, and while the only other straight murder was the “why” that was the art. The why – fickle and fuzzy
mystery he’d write would be the flop play ‘Getting Away with and hard to explain– is what audiences care about. Sondheim
Murder’ with George Furth in 1996, he understood the most makes a nesting doll out of the human condition: it’s packed
important lesson from murder mysteries could also be an within the claws of gilded rhymes and vine-like melodies. What
essential component for his musicals. The best of their kind if Sondheim was a murderer in a way? Deconstruction as the
are whydunit?s masquerading as whodunit?s, panoramas of weapon. Taking a form he loved and stripping its flesh, skinning
unpredictable human behaviour made legible through song. it to get at the heart?

045
 INTREPID EXPLORER AND ARMCHAIR MUSICOLOGIST

MICHAEL
LE ADER
T R A V E L S

“ACROSS THE
UNIVERSE”
IN

t
SEARCH

h e
OF HOW THE
MUSIC AND ICONOGR APHY OF

B e at l e s INFILTRATED AND INFLUENCED CINEMA.

 lass Onion’, the third track you covered with the 2009 Lennon origin

‘G on the Beatles’ 1968 double

LP (commonly called ‘The White
Album’) is a puckish exercise in self-mythology.
story Nowhere Boy. How about the Beatles-
that-weren’t? Simply track down Iain Softley’s 1994 film
Backbeat, which dramatises the tragic story of the band’s
“I told you about Strawberry Fields / you know the place first bassist, Stuart Sutcliffe (Stephen Dorff ). There’s even
where nothing is real,” hisses John Lennon at the start of the 1979 oddity Birth of the Beatles, which was guided to the
song, “well here’s another place you can go, where everything screen with help from ‘technical advisor’ Pete Best, the
flows.” The lyrics combine confounding, red-herring drummer booted from the group to make way for Ringo.
references to Beatle tunes ranging from ‘I am the Walrus’ to Moving a little way through the documentary looking
‘Lady Madonna’, while its refrain, “looking through a glass glass and we have fan-fiction docudrama Two of Us, directed
onion,” suggests a kaleidoscopic epiphany that, ultimately, by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, which homes in on a single
isn’t there. It’s Lennon’s jab at the fans who obsessively evening in 1976 that has held considerable fascination
search for hidden meaning in their music. Conversely, for Beatle die-hards: the night where Paul (Aidan Quinn)
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Rian Johnson’s murder- paid a surprise visit to John (Jared Harris), and reportedly
mystery thriller, has a couple of oblique references to the considered reforming the band for a spontaneous
Fab Four, including the titular bop played over
the closing credits, but looking through it reveals
the entire constellation of the BCU (Beatles
Cinematic Universe).
The reign of John, Paul, George and Ringo
was as much an on-screen phenomenon as
an on-record one. After all, Beatlemania was
spurred on by uproarious televised appearances
at the 1963 Royal Variety Performance and, a
year later, on The Ed Sullivan Show. And the
Beatles’ evolution as artists and personalities
was captured across four feature films: A Hard
Day’s Night; Help!; Magical Mystery Tour; Yellow
Submarine; and one documentary (Let it Be),
released during the band’s lifetime. And that
didn’t stop when they broke up: the supernova of
their pop-cultural moment scattered the Beatles
throughout cinema, birthing biopics, rock docs,
jukebox musicals, cameo appearances, vanity
projects, spoofs and everything in between.
The more prosaic of these are exercises in
fleshing out the established biography. Want to
know about John’s emotional baggage before
he formed the band? Sam Taylor-Johnson has

047
appearance on Saturday Night Live. “This fictional The distinction of the Beatles,
film is not endorsed by any person depicted herein though, is that they are more
and neither such persons nor their families, heirs than their story, and more, even,
or related parties have participated in the making than their songs. ABBA may have
of this film,” the opening crawl makes clear. “Rather, Mamma Mia, and Elton may have
it is a work of fiction in appreciation of two blokes from Rocketman and Gnomeo and Juliet,
Liverpool, and the gifts they gave us.” but the Beatles on screen aren’t just
But what about the songs, man? The Beatles’ catalogue confined to films specifically about – or
has been shoehorned into several soundtracks’ worth of soundtracked by – themselves. Their legacy
musicals, sometimes in defiance of narrative sense and passes between generations, and their famous fans in film
good taste. Oscar-bait drama I Am Sam, from 2001, netted and television have helped keep them relevant for decades.
Sean Penn a Best Actor nomination for his performance as It was the baby-boomer filmmakers, the generation that
an intellectually disabled man whose love for his daughter were once the screaming kids clutching Beatles lunch boxes
(named, naturally, Lucy) is only matched by his love of in the 1960s, who first carried the torch. The Beatlemania
the Beatles, with their songs and worldview informing his comedy I Wanna Hold Your Hand, a Spielberg-produced 1978
gruelling battle for parental custody. There’s a Lucy, too, debut from director Robert Zemeckis and screenwriter Bob
in Julie Taymor’s vivid but vapid 2007 musical Across the Gale, told the story of the Beatles’ legendary arrival on US
Universe; there’s also a Jude, Max, Sadie, Jo-Jo, Doctor shores from the perspective of an ensemble of hyperactive
Robert and Mr Kite filling out the Beatle-reference bingo fans, desperately trying to claw through the mob to get
card. But those films pale in comparison to the garish, closer to their idols. It’s telling that a decade-and-a-half
misconceived 1978 rock opera, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts later in 1994’s Forrest Gump, Zemeckis and his VFX teams
Club Band. Released in the wake of Saturday Night Fever, marshalled cutting-edge technology to make it so that their
the film tried to turn the already-iconic album into a musical fictional Boomer Everyman met John Lennon.
motion picture fantasia on the scale of Ken Russell’s Tommy, For all his associations with soundtracks packed with New
albeit with the responsibility of out-Beatling the Beatles Wave bangers, writer-director-tastemaker John Hughes
falling due to some woeful casting choices, which included was a Beatles fan at heart. In 1985’s The Breakfast Club,
Peter Frampton and the flippin’ Bee Gees. Carl the Janitor may speak for the filmmaker himself when
he whimsically remembers that, as a kid, he wanted to be
Lennon. Yet, as a teen-movie auteur, Hughes put the Beatles
into the mouths of his characters. Anthony Michael Hall
sings ‘Birthday’ (another ‘White Album’ deep cut) to Molly
Ringwald in 1984’s Sixteen Candles, while Ferris Bueller, a
rare Hughes lead with rock-star charisma, literally stops
traffic in downtown Chicago to lead a crowd of bystanders
through a rousing rendition of ‘Twist and Shout’.
They’re all there, hiding in plain sight. When Whoopi
Goldberg’s club singer in 1992’s Sister Act declares in a
childhood flashback that the four apostles were “John, Paul,
George and Ringo”, that’s not just a simple joke: Goldberg was
one of the 55,000 fans in the crowd at the Beatles’ historic
Shea Stadium gig in August 1965 – taken, as she fondly recalls
in Ron Howard’s 2018 documentary The Beatles: Eight Days
A Week, by her mother. Similarly, when Mike Myers drops
Beatles gags into almost all of his films, from the ‘Shitty
Beatles’ of Wayne’s World, through to the Hard Day’s Night-
esque opening sequence of Austin Powers, to the Maharishi-
aping misfire of The Love Guru, there’s a personal connection

048 The Glass Onion Issue

 “BEAT FOR BEAT, THE BEATLES’
STORY, ITS MAIN PLAYERS
AND KEY SET PIECES, SEEM
TO BE CARVED INTO THE
COLLECTIVE MEMORY ”
HOUSEHOLD-NAME FAME..”
underneath it all, with Myers being the Rutles: All You Need is Cash, yet another
Canadian son of two Liverpudlian expats. 1978 release, renamed and reworked
That emotional underpinning is in full the Beatle myth for laughs, and came
effect in Richard Linklater’s 2014 opus, complete with a sublime set of tunes by
Boyhood, when Ethan Hawke’s divorcee pop-satirist Neil Innes: a faux best-of
dad, Mason Sr., presents his teenage son stuffed with pitch-perfect pastiches that
with a mixtape titled ‘The Black Album’, a play like old favourites reflected in a funhouse mirror.
thought experiment that culls choice tracks from At the other extreme, the 2007 mock-rock-doc
Beatle solo efforts, to dream of where the band could Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story has its protagonist
have gone next. “Basically, I put the band back together for meet the Beatles during their storied sojourn in India.
you,” Mason Sr. explains. “Whenever you listen to too much Not only is the scene a sharp spoofing of the biopic genre’s
of the solo stuff, it kind of becomes a drag, you know? But tendency for clanging namedrops, it also has fun with
you put ’em next to each other, and they start to elevate each some wildly incongruous casting – Paul Rudd, Jack Black,
other…” The divorce parallels couldn’t be more pronounced, Justin Long and Jason Schwartzman as John, Paul, George
especially considering the compilation’s roots in real life: and Ringo, respectively, with barely a convincing accent
Hawke first put the playlist together for his daughter, Maya, between them.
following his separation from her mother, Uma Thurman. The Beatles are omnipresent, but reassuringly so. The
Of course, not everyone finds meaning in the music of associated facts and figures, trivia and titles serve as a
the Beatles, yet even they must recognise the sea change constant as times change. It’s fitting, perhaps, that amid
the band represented. When Terence Davies revisited the the home-invasion suspense of David Fincher’s 2002 film
postwar Liverpool of his youth in the 2008 archive-doc essay Panic Room, Kristen Stewart’s besieged teenager calms
film Of Time and the City, he recounted how all he valued her nerves by reciting the band’s US Capitol discography,
in popular culture was “screamed away on a tide of Mersey album by album. There will always be Beatles in this world,
Beat”. Davies venomously whines “yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah” which is why the likes of Richard Curtis and Danny Boyle
over Beatles footage, before delivering a withering parting can hang an entire film around the concept of imagining one
shot when he describes the mop tops as being “not so much without him.
a musical phenomenon,” but instead resembling, “a firm of That film’s title, Yesterday, nods to how the Beatles
provincial solicitors.” have reached the level of a cultural lexicon, a shorthand
And yet there they are. Totemic, historic, unavoidable where simple words and phrases can spark recognition and
Beatles. A symbol of an era, a brand of quality, a byword for meaning. Drive My Car and Norwegian Wood, two screen
globe-conquering, household-name fame. Beat for beat, adaptations from the work of Beatles nut novelist Haruki
the band’s story, its main players and key set pieces, seem Murakami, likewise borrow titles for their associations –
to be carved into the collective memory, to the point where much like Glass Onion. If the last 60 years of pop culture
parodies can range from the hyper-specific to the knowingly history is a mystery, the four lads from Liverpool hold the
off-brand. Eric Idle and Gary Weis’ mockumentary The key. The Beatles are all you need

049
 LW L i e s x European Film Ac ademy presents…

Ex pl ori ng
the
Eur ope a n
Film
Ac a de m y
Looking at many ways this organisation celebrates film and creativity.

he European Film Academy is a body that provides filmmakers via the Month of European Film, culminating in

T tools for the promotion of and education about

European filmmaking across 52 countries throughout
the continent. Most may know the Academy for its annual
the annual awards ceremony. After an entirely virtual affair
in 2020 and a hybrid event in 2021, the 35th European Film
Awards ceremony will take place as an in-person celebration
award ceremony which celebrates the cream of filmmaking of filmmaking in Reykjavík, Iceland, with nominated titles
in Europe, but it is currently expanding its scope of work: the being announced on 8 November 2022, with the event itself
new “Month of European Film” is part of a more expansive going down on 10 December.
project to spread a passion for European film as far and wide
as possible. Here are just a few examples of the vital work the
Academy is doing…
2
1 Bringing the best European
cinema to the people
Hosting Europe’s most spectacular This year, the Academy has partnered with flagship cinemas
movie award ceremony and venues across 35 countries – from Iceland to Greece,
Portugal to Romania, Latvia to the UK – to celebrate an
This is the big one. A group of 40 pioneering European eclectic and diverse selection of European films throughout
filmmakers, spearheaded by the Swedish maestro Ingmar the Month of European Film. Instead of presenting a
Bergman, formed the European Film Academy in 1988, at uniform catalogue across all regions, each participating
the first ever presentation of the European Film Awards. venue has had the freedom to explore and curate their
Their objective: bridging the gap between cinematic artistry own unique programme, combining screenings, talks,
and the film industry by taking a love for a wide range of seminars, workshops and dedicated retrospectives. The
European cinema and opening it up to the public, while also celebration runs between 13 November and 10 December,
making sure that European films don’t disappear in cinemas. and details of all titles and venues can be found at
This year, the Academy is honouring films and monthofeuropeanfilm.eu

050 The Glass Onion Issue

3 4
Building cinematic monuments Paying homage to the masters
The Academy’s pan-European film heritage network has The great Palestinian auteur Elia Suleiman (Introduction to the
been steadily connecting film archives, cinematheques and End of an Argument, Divine Intervention, It Must Be Heaven)
institutions across the continent in order to increase public will be presented with the European Achievement in World
access to culturally diverse film histories and make them Cinema Award for his outstanding and subversive and body of
widely available to new audiences. On the occasion of the 35th work. Suleiman – whose absurdist sensibilities draw frequent
Awards ceremony, 22 additional heritage locations have been comparisons to Jacques Tati – has built a body of work that is
unveiled, bringing the total number of Film Culture Treasure distinctively and irrevocably charged with a Palestinian political
locations up to 35. Sites such as the Parisian Café des Deux fervour, and often displays the complexities that lie at the
Moulins (AKA Amélie’s café), the marble-paved street of intersection of cultural politics and aesthetics.
Stradun in Dubrovnik and The Notting Hill Bookshop join A Lifetime Achievement Award will be awarded to
an ever-growing list of symbolic spaces including the Moulin the revered filmmaker and central figure of New German
d’Andé (a temple of Nouvelle Vague artistic creation), the Cinema, Margarethe von Trotta (The Second Awakening of
Tabernas Desert (home turf of the Spaghetti Western) and the Christa Klages, Marianne and Julianne, Rosa Luxemburg).
infamous Odessa steps, where Sergei Eisenstein’s pioneering Foregrounding female subjectivities and a nuanced political
use of dialectical montage left its indelible mark. agency, von Trotta’s work as a filmmaker refracts history
through fiction, and is imbued with poeticism, compassion,
and incisive feminism. Italian master Marco Bellocchio will
also be honoured for his groundbreaking work and receive
the award for Innovative Storytelling, for his drama series
Exterior Night. These awards will be presented during the
ceremony in Reykjavik and all awardees will be present

To explore further, head to europeanfilmacademy.org

051
052 REVIEW
REVIEW CONTENTS

P. 5 4 P. 8 2
P. 6 8 The Silent Twins
Interview: Don Cheadle
Interview: Ruben Östlund
P. 5 8 P. 8 3
White Noise P. 7 0 Bardo
The Wonder
P. 5 9 P. 8 4
Lady Chatterly’s Lover P. 7 1 Tori and Lokita
Aftersun
P. 6 0 P. 8 6
Return to Dust P. 7 2 No Bears
Interview: Charlotte Wells
P. 6 1 P. 8 7
Armageddon Time P. 7 3 The Menu
Three Minutes: A Lengthening /
P. 6 2 Call Jane P. 8 8
Interview: James Gray Corsage
P. 7 5
P. 6 4 Clara Sola / Cette Maison P. 8 9
What Do We See When We Look Interview: Vicky Krieps
at the Sky? P. 7 6
She Said P. 9 0
P. 6 6 Home Ents
Living P. 7 8
Lynch/Oz
P. 6 7
Pinocchio P. 7 9
Bones and All
P. 6 8
Triangle of Sadness P. 8 0
Interview: Luca Guadagnino

REVIEW 053
In conversation Interview by L EI L A L AT I F Illustration by ST ÉPHANI E SERGEANT

Don Cheadle The esteemed American character

actor on music, activism, and why
his role in White Noise may have
him stockpiling AK-47s.

D
on Cheadle’s career has an unpredictability and I always had a counterintuitive thing with me and The
idiosyncrasy that befits his foundation in jazz music. Business. I was following things that I had a passion for, but
In his 40 years as a performer, he’s done everything conversely, that meant always wondering if you’re on the
from award-winning biopics, to socially conscious right career path. It’s only until very recently that I’ve been,
documentaries, to playing Marvel superheroes. Throughout like, ‘I’m probably gonna be okay.’
it all he grounds his performances in an old-school gravitas
and uses his platform to speak about his values, be it stopping Do the blockbusters facilitate passion projects like
African genocides or protecting trans children. In Noah starring and directing in the Miles Davis film, Miles
Baumbach’s White Noise, he plays Professor Murray Siskind, Ahead? There’s an idea of ‘one for them, one for me.’
who faces an “Airborne Toxic Event” while hoping to become But it’s still about, ‘does this speak to me or not? And will
the world’s foremost authority on Elvis. We spoke to him it come together?’ The first day of Hotel Rwanda my agent
about imposter syndrome, the business of Hollywood and called me at lunch and goes, ‘I just want to let you know
vital doomsday prep. there’s no money in escrow for this movie so I can send you
a ticket home.’ But I was in South Africa and my kids are in
LWLies: When you started out did you have a picture school and we’d moved into a house. The producer floated
of the career you wanted to have? Cheadle: No. In high the movie on credit cards for two weeks until the money
school I spent extracurricular time doing theatre, and I was started again. So even when you think it’s happening, it may
pretty heavily into the jazz band – I played and I sang in a not be happening.
city-wide band. When I graduated, it was kind of a toss-up
between pursuing theatre and pursuing jazz. And I made a Hotel Rwanda aside, there’s a clear thread of social
weather choice and moved in with California. But it was also conscience in your work. Where do you view the role
about what I thought I was going to really commit to and be of activism in art? I think we’re very privileged to have
able to do at a higher level, and music at that time was just a the opportunity for people, like in this interview, to be asked
little too far out of my reach. what we think. The job that we do requires us to promote and
talk to the press and media and garner a certain amount of
From that point, were there roles that you look back on attention based on what we’re doing, so I want to use that in
as being pivotal? It just always feels like a house built on accordance with my values.
sand. I never felt like I ‘made it’. Some people would say it
would be Devil in a Blue Dress. Some people would say it was I found myself thinking about Hotel Rwanda during
Hotel Rwanda, or the Ocean’s movies or the Marvel franchise. White Noise – there’s a similar question of in a crisis,
But the experience from the inside is there’s always this would you become the hero, or would you flail? I think
feeling of needing to hustle a little bit. I’m not trying to be you do both, right? You flail and you see sometimes that
coy or falsely modest or anything, but it’s a neurotic business you’ve got that hero in you. In Hotel Rwanda Paul wasn’t
and I don’t always play the game. When I graduated, I would thinking of trying to be a hero. I love that in the beginning
leave and go do theatre during pilot season because I’d get to he’s just trying to keep his job. It was very personal, and
do Shakespeare or Fugard. then it became something bigger. And who is a hero in White
But it didn’t make any sense for the business because Noise? The same person who saves their family might also
you’re supposed to hang around and try to get a pilot. So, try to kill somebody.

INTERVIEW 055
 “I’m an American –
I’m already supposed to
have five AKs by now.”

The very specific tone of the film is set with an introduction It’s based on a 1985 book but really captured this current
which sees Murray lecturing about car crashes in near-apocalyptic atmosphere. Did that speak to how you’ve
American cinema. What did you want to come across? been feeling? Yeah, it’s cyclical, right? We had these times
Murray is telling people how to process death, misery and where we felt like we were living in the best of times. And then
violence, and I thought it was a very interesting and funny take 10 years later it feels like the last days. We’re in a cold war again
on what it is that we were about to see. He is sort of the MC and and Ukraine, climate change, Covid, mid Covid, long Covid and
I think when you listen to the words, it’s true. It’s supposed present Covid. So, we’re right back in the sweet spot of what
to be devoid of the emotion of what it’s really supposed to be that movie was dealing with. I hope when people see it that
depicting, and instead the car crash is a love letter to our ability they will feel that it’s a cool frame of reference for what they’re
to pull off spectacular things. It’s disjointed with the reality, living through.
which makes a lot of sense in a movie where everyone’s trying
to figure out their emotions. What is the impact of emotions When you’ve done something that’s so much about
when everybody’s disconnected from their feelings? confronting the fear of death, like White Noise, does that
have any impact on your future plans? Well, I’ve started my
You spoke at the beginning about the role of music in your life. bunker budget. I’ve started stockpiling weapons.
There’s a scene in the film where you and Adam Driver face
off with duelling diatribes on Hitler’s mother versus Elvis’s. Wait, you only just started stockpiling weapons?! You are
Do you think your inherent musicality was key to that scene? years behind most of us. I know I’m late to the game! I’m an
I had to trust Noah as that scene was ultimately put together American – I’m already supposed to have five AKs by now.
with what Danny Elfman did with the music: the way that it was But being serious, the piece rings that bell in a way that makes
then cut with real footage; the way that it was all the post work people introspective and thoughtful about it and come out of
that was done on it. We had no idea about how it would play the other side not thinking we gotta, like, hit the mattresses
when we were doing it. We could read the script and we knew and get ready to kill everybody. It asks you to start reflecting
there was gonna be some intercut scenes of a train wreck. But on what’s important, and not in a dissimilar way than when the
we never heard the music for it and that’s what took that scene pandemic started. You start to prioritise and really think about
to another place. The juxtaposition of those images between how you want to spend your time and what matters. Time is the
the Elvis crowds and the Nazis – that really made it scary and one commodity that you can’t buy. The movie made me think
very rich. That’s the great thing about movies: you have the about that again, but not in a different way, just as another
opportunity to direct the movie again in the editing room. additive to the idea, just another brick in the wall

056 INTERVIEW
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White Noise Directed by
Starring
NOAH BAUMBACH
ADAM DRIVER, GRETA GERWIG,
DON CHEADLE
Released 25 NOVEMBER

oah Baumbach is – at least at first glance – a curious universe. The rhythms of the film soon settle, and it becomes an

N choice to adapt the work of American author Don

DeLillo for the screen, as his stylised, complex and
idiosyncratic prose seems vastly different from the realist
offbeat, but not unwelcome, change of pace for Baumbach.
He retains the much of the anxious, wry spirit of DeLillo’s
prose, but trims down many of the side plots and asides which
dialogue that the filmmaker tends to favour in his portraits of give ‘White Noise’ such character. Purists might be offended, but
contemporary American life. But the overarching theme of it works in the favour of keeping pace. Shot during the summer of
White Noise – an anxiety around the looming spectre of death 2021, it seems inevitable that comparisons will be drawn between
– is familiar territory for for the writer/director, as is the psyche the events of this film and the Covid-19 pandemic: onlookers
of the film’s middle-aged, middle-class white protagonist. This is theorise about the causes and effects of the health crisis; masks
his most ambitious project in both scale and provenance. are worn; Jack and Babette find vastly different ways through
This does seem apparent in the film’s opening sequence. their anxieties around death. But the strength of the source
After Don Cheadle’s cheerful academic Murray Siskind delivers material (and indeed Baumbach’s execution) make White Noise
a monologue on the optimistic overtones of the car crash in one of the better examples of ‘pandemic art’ to emerge from this
American cinema, we cut to preeminent Hitler Studies professor perilous time in history.
Jack Gladney (Adam Driver) and his wife Babette (Greta Gerwig) There’s sympathy here for how fucked up everything is.
in their kitchen, surrounded by a gaggle of precocious children. Baumbach doesn’t pretend that he has the answers for what we
They move through the space with a choreographed fluidity; they do now, as we emerge blinking and yawning into a world where
speak not so much like people, but like characters in a play. we can’t afford to heat our homes. Sometimes death seems like a
There is something artificial and odd about the tableaux, better option – a bypassing of the bullshit, so to speak.
with its densely saturated colours and Gerwig’s frizzy bouffant But there are brief glimmers of a world worth sticking around
hair. But this jarring sensation doesn’t last, much in the way a for: the tenderness of love; the pleasures of parenthood. White
euphoric high after a bout of unbridled consumerism is only Noise is a story about cutting through the static and learning to
ever a fleeting reprieve from the impending heat death of the settle in silence. HANNAH STRONG

ANTICIPATION. ENJOYMENT. IN RETROSPECT.

Unsure about the wigs here… Wig fears unfounded. Best closing credits sequence
There are lots and lots of wigs. A charmingly gloomy film. of the year.

058 REVIEW
 successful adaptation of DH Lawrence’s scandal-
Lady Chatterley’s
Lover
A courting 1928 novel, ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ requires
a subtle alchemy. On paper this tale of untrammelled
libido triumphing over 20th century class barriers seems easily
achievable. The novel’s once-taboo nature – it was unpublished
for three decades before being subject to a lengthy obscenity
trial and bans around the world – has often worked against it,
and adaptations of Lawrence’s gripping drama often reduce it
Directed by LAURE DE CLERMONT-TONNERRE to bodice-ripping smut. What distinguishes Laure de Clermont-
Starring EMMA CORRIN, JACK O’CONNELL, Tonnerre’s newest interpretation from its predecessors is its
JOELY RICHARDSON deft, mature understanding of what makes both Lady Chatterley
Released 25 NOVEMBER and her lover tick.
The novel is built on the sexual tension between Lady
ANTICIPATION. Chatterley – an unhappy, newly-wed wife of a baronet – and
An interesting combo of director, stars and Oliver Mellors, the rugged gamekeeper who stalks her husband’s
source material. Could go either way. isolated country estate. De Clermont-Tonnerre has found two
excellent actors to ensure that the sexual tension is as taut
ENJOYMENT. as possible, even though it gradually slackens over the film’s
Sex in film is back, baby. two-hour shy runtime. Jack O’Connell hasn’t been given a role as
meaty as this since Yann Demange’s 2014 film ’71 and he makes
for a note-perfect Mellors. He is both physically and emotionally
IN RETROSPECT. convincing, conveying the man’s intellectual curiosity and
One of the year’s best/ horniest period dramas. virility without ever descending into caricature. The same can’t
be applied to his woodland cottage, which comes off more as a
rustic Airbnb than a functioning gamekeeper’s residence.
In their first starring role after a Golden Globe-winning, turn
as Princess Di in Netflix’ behemoth, The Crown, Emma Corrin
makes for a compelling lead – indeed, on this evidence they
have cemented their status as a complete star. Corrin’s screen
roles to date have all been 20th century heterosexual women in
dysfunctional marriages, and this is perhaps their most nuanced
performance to date. By homing in on the humanity of Lady
Chatterley, referred to here as Connie, and transcending the
stuffiness of the period setting, Corrin breathes new life into
the character. Connie is a modern woman, and this is achieved
without David Magee’s script succumbing to the desire to
awkwardly transpose contemporary feminist ideals onto her.
If the film falls short in any area, it’s in its failure to fully
embrace the novel’s deeper themes. The surge of industrialisation
plays a key role in differentiating Lord and Lady Chatterley, him
being rapt by technological advances and her being enamoured
with the beauty of nature. The director pays lip service to these
ideas without ever engaging with them as key components to
Lawrence’s narrative. And not to put too fine a point on it, but
the sex is incredible. Cinema has been deprived of eroticism
recently, on-screen sex has become a depressing rarity, and
Lady Chatterley’s Lover is restorative. It’s graphic; it’s sensual;
it’s incessant; it’s everything Lawrence wrote it to be. Two actors
going at it committedly on screen shouldn’t feel this unusual,
but this refreshing film understands that, to quote Eyes Wide
Shut, there’s something very important that we need to do as
soon as possible. PATRICK SPROULL

REVIEW 059
 raconian censorship laws in China mean that it’s rare
Return to Dust D to see films that criticise the pristine mother nation.
Li Ruijun’s Return to Dust is an intriguing case,
as it was initially deemed acceptable for cinemas, but was
eventually pulled and banned for the crime of depicting rural
life in China in a drastic and forbidding light. Acknowledging
hardscrabble poverty, it seems, is a big no-no.
It’s a sad state of affairs to have government mechanisms
Directed by LI RUIJUN in place to suppress any form of art and expression, but in
Starring WU RENLIN, HAI QING, this case it feels particularly egregious as writer/director
Li Ruijun appears to have gone to great pains to play by
Released 16 SEPTEMBER the crooked rules. His intimate, slow-burn drama opens
on a marriage of convenience, though it is not necessarily
ANTICIPATION. convenient for the two parties being bonded in matrimony,
A respectable response from when it premiered rather than it is for their families.
at the 2022 Berlin Film Festival. Guiying (Hai Qing) is a middle-aged woman deemed
to be past her reproductive prime and who suffers from
ENJOYMENT. various chronic ailments including incontinence. Youtie
Very slow and detailed, but comes together (Wu Renlin) is a taciturn farm worker who just accepts his
beautifully in the end. stale lot in life with unblinking neutrality. The pair, who are
used to surviving on the most meagre of means, develop a
IN RETROSPECT. partnership which evolves, very gradually, from passive
It’s a film which is making the right business relationship to something like almost looks like
people angry. love, though it is a love expressed through action rather than
reaction. The story takes place on the arid and unforgiving
planes situated in the Gansu region of northwestern China
– 2019 data suggests that it is officially the poorest region
in the country. As a metaphor for this burgeoning, barely-
visible romance, Youtie and Guiying pull their threadbare
socks up and decide to create a little piece of paradise for
themselves. We are then shown, in painstaking detail, the
process of building a mud hut, including the creation of each
red-brown “brick”.
The backbreaking trails of life as depicted in this film clearly
gave the censors the heebie-jeebies, and the pair’s exertions
yield only meagre rewards. And if that wasn’t enough, Youtie
is literally being bled dry by a local businessman who requires
regular transfusions of his rare blood type, though our hero
sternly rejects the gifts they attempt to force on him. Though
politics are never discussed directly, the film is implicitly
critical of a system which has no idea of how its people actually
live and what they need to survive. In one bitterly comic scene,
the couple are relocated to a newbuild apartment block, and
have trouble understanding how they’re able to cohabit with
their essential livestock, including cinematic flavour of the
month, a donkey.
Despite these subtle barbs, Return to Dust ends up as
an elegiac love story as the unlikely couple form a bond
built on a foundation of total understanding and empathy.
The pacing of the drama can sometimes test the patience,
yet its climactic chapter pays off on the laconic build-up.
DAVID JENKINS

060 REVIEW
Armageddon Directed by
Starring
JAMES GRAY
MICHAEL BANKS REPETA,
ANNE HATHAWAY, ANTHONY HOPKINS

Time Released 18 NOVEMBER

n a 1980 interview on televangelist Jim Bakker’s network, and Paul struggles to navigate the rough terrain of adolescence,

I then-presidential candidate Ronald Regan claimed, “We

may be the generation that sees Armageddon.” He was
referring to concerns over the threat of a nuclear war, but the
dreams aren’t enough to subside on. Reality is harsh, disruptive
and often cruel, and no-one feels this more than Johnny, who
lives in poverty with his frail grandmother and knows how
phrase looms large in James Gray’s Armageddon Time (named stacked against him the system is. But for a brief few moments,
for the Willie Williams’ reggae song of the same name) taking the friendship between him and Paul presents the possibility of
on meaning beyond the advent of political superpowers. For escape from everything they’re afraid of.
an 11-year-old boy growing up in New York City, armageddon It’s a melancholy study of child psychology and the way
is: conflict with a teacher; a father’s belt wielded as a weapon; in which our formative years are marked by rapid periods of
and the declining health of a beloved grandfather. The end of the learning and relearning. Paul is granted clemency and is allowed
world is constantly on the horizon when you’re a child. to make mistakes. No such grace exists for Johnny, who realises
Paul Graff (Michael Banks Repeta) is a stand-in for Gray, a the system is rigged, even if it’s nice to pretend otherwise. Johnny
sixth-grader with his head in the clouds, more interested in is ultimately betrayed at the point when it matters most, with
drawing superheroes and acting as class clown than knuckling Paul rejecting his grandfather’s advice to “be a mensch” and
down. He forms a friendship with fellow dreamer Johnny (Jaylin stand up for those that need it most. There’s no absolution for
Webb) who harbours ambitions of working for NASA and is the young child, who has to live with the guilt of what he did to his
similarly penalised by their teacher, as the only Black student friend, and the realisation that the hard thing and the right thing
in their class. Paul’s scattiness and disinterest in school causes are often the same. This element of the story is its most thorny:
tension between his parents Esther (Anne Hathaway) and Irving filmmakers have been making questionable art about their own
(Jeremy Strong) who rely on the close relationship between white guilt for decades, but the mistakes we make as children
Paul and his kindly grandfather Aaron (Anthony Hopkins) to get do have the power to echo through our lives. Gray’s honest and
through to their younger son. Aaron encourages his grandson’s intimate cine-memoir understands the past is a foreign country,
creativity and ambition, but as tensions mount within the family and not one you can live in forever. HANNAH STRONG

ANTICIPATION. ENJOYMENT. IN RETROSPECT.

A new James Gray film is Articulate, unflinching and A melancholy marvel from one
always a major event. sometimes unflattering. of our finest cine-memoirists.

REVIEW 061
In conversation Interview by HANNAH ST RONG Illustration by ST ÉPHANI E SERGEANT

James Gray
The director of Armageddon
Time on the tremendous
emotional rewards of inner
and outer reflection.

A
profoundly honest filmmaker, James Gray frequently make lists, you make an outline – I wrote down maybe 200 or
takes inspiration from his own life and his family's so scenes or episodes from my life – and then you try to find the
history to create moving portraits of contemporary ones that are the most dramatically important. The ones that
American life. In his latest drama, Armageddon Time, Gray actually change the direction.
reflects on being an 11-year-old in the late ’70s, as Ronald
Reagan's premiership loomed in the near distance and tensions At the Venice Film Festival, Paul Schrader talked about how
flared between communities in New York City. his view on the world has changed since he began making
films, and he said, “Now I never wanna leave the room without
LWLies: The close relationship you had with your grandfather saying I love you,” which I thought was a beautiful way of
very much inspired this film. Why do you think the articulating it. How has your worldview changed since you
relationship between grandparents and grandchildren can started making art? Well, I’m not at the same place of my life
be such a source of creative nurturing for children? Grey: that Paul Schrader is, and it’s very hard for me to have enough
My parents really struggled with putting food on the table, distance to be able to answer that with clarity. But do you know
particularly in 1977. They had an extremely difficult time, Hokusai, the Japanese printmaker? He had a great quote, and I’d
needed government assistance with food stamps, and they like to read it to you. [Gray asks the PR for his phone.]
were quite humiliated by that. I remember, my grandparents During the lockdown, my son would take me out to the
had retired at the most opportune moment. They didn’t backyard to look at insects. I was moved to tears almost all
make a lot of money, they were both teachers, but they had the time by it, in a way that shocked me. I was reading about
saved and so and lived frugally, so they had some money. I Hokusai, but I didn’t fully understand this quote until I was
think so much of my father and mother’s anguish was about locked down, until I spent time with my children. Until I
trying to make sure the family could function on a daily started to get older and my mortality became ever more clear
basis, the struggle to survive, and the expressions of love to me. And I’d like to read this to you: “From the age of six, I
and tenderness, empathy, sympathy – those things couldn’t had a passion for copying the form of things. And since the
really take hold when the struggle was daily, and so heavy. age of 50, I have published many drawings. Yet of all I drew
I think you get something like a do-over as a grandparent. by my 70th year, there is nothing worth taking into account.
You already know what to do. Part of what the grandparent gives At 73 years, I partly understood the structure of animals, birds,
you is love without judgement and the pressures of the daily insects and fishes, and the life of grass and plants. And so at 86,
raising of the child. When you’re a kid, you only have to have one I shall progress further. At 90, I shall even further penetrate
person who says you’re wanted and loved. That can be enough to their secret meaning and by 100 I shall perhaps truly have
save you. And for me it was him. I think grandparents, they have reached the level of the marvellous and divine. When I am 110,
the benefit of a little distance and a little experience. Each dot each line possess a life of its own.”
I guess the reason I’m reading this is because the older I
How do you choose what details to include and what get, the less I understand about the world. And the more
to omit when drawing from family history? Wasn’t it heartbreak I feel on a daily basis, and maybe it means I should
Hitchcock who said that movies are life with the boring parts take a pill or something. But The Beatles had it right. I think
cut out? I remember I asked Paul Thomas Anderson once, if it’s advancing age. It’s my father’s death. It’s the lockdowns. It’s
he did outlines and he said, ‘No, I don’t ever outline. I make my children that have been born. You lose the anger. And you
lists.’ I thought to myself, ‘What? A list is an outline.’ So you realise more the importance of achieving a feeling of love

INTERVIEW 063
What Do We See When Directed by ALEXANDRE KOBERIDZE
Starring ANI KARSELADZE
We Look at the Sky? GIORGI BOCHORISHVILI
Released 25 NOVEMBER

ome people think football is a matter of life and the film’s central characters, fall for each other at first sight

“S death,” Bill Shankly, Liverpool’s famed former

manager, once said. “I don’t like that attitude. I can
assure them it is much more serious than that.” Football has long
and are then immediately torn apart by a curse that changes
their faces overnight. Their proposed date never happens,
despite both of them waiting for the other at the elected cafe,
been a sport for dreamers and in Georgian filmmaker Alexandre because they simply don’t recognise each other. Giorgi also
Koberidze, Shankly may have found another ally. In What Do We loses his footballing ability, while Lisa can no longer practice
See When We Look at the Sky?, set in the bustling city of Kutaisi as a pharmacist. Each then seeks a new way of life, with Giorgi
on the Rioni River, the game is watched or played on every street working metres from Lisa and their fragmented romance finding
corner. Even the local stray dogs, one named Vardy no less, have a new way to repair itself. In his idyllic city symphony, Koberidze
their favourite viewing spots. celebrates the serendipity of fate and the rhythms of daily life
Koberidze’s second feature is a sweepingly romantic portrait that bring together what is meant to be.
of the Georgian city and the love – between people and for It’s hard not to be wooed by this playful film that, among other
football – that is its lifeforce. Shot on beautiful, textured 16mm things, sets a montage of children playing a scrappy game of
and scored with elegant classical music composed by the football to ‘Notti Magiche,’ the official song of Italia 90, and asks
director’s brother, the film is tightly constructed in form – shot the audience to close their eyes on screen when the curse is about
to shot, there is a ritualistic precision to the images of Kutaisi life. to take effect. The film ebbs and flows through the everyday with
Whether its shoes, glassware, football shirts or the local cheese these moments of magic peppered throughout.
bread, khachapuri, the filmmaker uses close-ups to centre the So while World Cup fever kicks off in the city and the sporting
quotidian and observe its mundane beauty. dreamers take their seats, the two lovers find their path together.
Yet in narrative terms the film is loose and floating, inviting Football is a matter of life and death, but so is walking in the park,
dreamlike lapses in concentration over its 151-minute runtime watching the river rush by or hanging the washing out to dry.
and employing a whimsical, folkloric logic to its driving love It’s everything and nothing, as easy as breathing, and in
story. Lisa (Ani Karseladze) and Giorgi (Giorgi Bochorishvili), Koberidze’s world it all makes perfect sense. CAITLIN QUINLAN

ANTICIPATION. ENJOYMENT. IN RETROSPECT.

A festival favourite from a Infectiously charming and I could bask in Koberidze’s
bright new talent. beautifully told. wonderful little world for
far longer.

064 REVIEW
IN CINEMAS NOV 4
modernfilms.com/returntodust
Living Directed by
Starring
OLIVER HERMANUS
BILL NIGHY, AIMEE LOU WOOD,
TOM BURKE
Released 4 NOVEMBER

man should never be forced to underplay the final her pleasure, standing out as one of the most beautiful details

A moments of his life. The news of sudden illness

deserves the highest level of drama and despair,
as time begins to slip through your fingers. Yet there is
in a film full of them.
Alex Sharp and Tom Burke, too, deliver fine work as
colleagues and apprentices of Williams, yet this is Nighy’s
such piercing vulnerability in the delicacy with which Bill film, and his impact is felt even when he’s nowhere to be seen.
Nighy plays Mr Williams, a Big Smoke pencil pusher forced But when he is, it’s all the more stunning, not least down to
to reckon with what life means before he draws his final breath. cinematographer Jamie D Ramsay’s striking visuals which
He’s not the first nor will he be the last man to reckon with pay homage to ’50s melodramas, with colours so vivid it feels
his mortality, and it’s a tall task to even consider retelling the like it’s too good to be true and will snap back to reality at
story first put to screen by Akira Kurosawa in 1952 with Ikiru, any moment. The design of Living adds so much love and
itself based on Leo Tolstoy’s 1886 novella ‘The Death of Ivan pain to Williams’ story, with Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch’s
Ilyich’. So Living, directed by South African filmmaker Oliver impressionistic orchestral bolstering things further as it
Hermanus and with a screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro, doesn’t offers nods to countless pioneering classical musicians.
necessarily shine by telling a peerless story – but the grace It’s in the craft where so much of the film’s beauty lies:
with which it is told and played is breathtaking. lived-in yet singular, familiar but quietly spectacular.
Nighy’s performance is so gentle and selfless that, despite The question of what it means to be alive has fascinated
the bustle of this 1950s metropolis orbiting around his life, so countless artists, with so many failing to capture the precious
much of the film spotlights the young professionals learning and often indescribable joy of those fleeting moments we’re
from his wisdom and somehow trying to understand that life all chasing after. Living, somehow, does it. Not by reinventing
ends and keeps moving at the same time. Aimee Lou Wood, the concept of mortality nor by sending someone off in a
star of Netflix comedy series Sex Education, infuses great firework or puff of smoke. By quietly taking a step back,
sensitivity into the male-heavy office as Margaret. There is taking it all in, and finding magic in every person’s being. And
wonder in her eyes as a knickerbocker glory is laid down for when it’s time – by going gracefully. ELLA KEMP

ANTICIPATION. ENJOYMENT. IN RETROSPECT.

Olivier Hermanus needs to Somehow more beautiful than Melodrama like they don’t make
do justice to two titans: Akira anything could have suggested. anymore. A poignant swan song
Kurosawa and Bill Nighy. and gorgeous celebration of life.

066 REVIEW
 ecoming a real boy isn’t something that crosses the mind
Pinocchio B of Pinocchio, in Guillermo del Toro’s new adaptation of
Carlo Collodi’s books. This Pinocchio is only concerned
with being a “good” boy. Del Toro – in his first animated
film as director – along with co-director Mark Gustafson
(animation director on Fantastic Mr Fox) and co-writer
Patrick McHale (of Over the Garden Wall fame) explore this
seemingly simple question over various adventures as Pinocchio
Directed by GUILLERMO DEL TORO, MARK GUSTAFSON wanders the country in search of the answer, and the story
Starring GREGORY MANN, EWAN MCGREGOR, is updated to Mussolini’s Italy. A number of father figures –
CATE BLANCHETT including a crooked carnival owner and a fascist Podestá – try to
Released 9 DECEMBER teach him that being “good” means blind obedience, either at the
service of creating capital or killing Italy’s enemies. To Geppetto,
ANTICIPATION. it means obedience to the spirit of his departed son Carlo, with
A long gestating passion project backed by Pinocchio’s creation occurring as an effigy made in drunken grief.
incredible craftspeople. The resulting gnarled and asymmetrical puppet design of
the wooden boy already stands apart from previous, softer
ENJOYMENT. adaptations but the rest impresses just as much: Geppetto himself
Better to be a wooden boy than a fascist. looks as though he was carved from an old tree. Del Toro and
Gustafson’s production design favours painted backdrops and
clockwork facial animation rather than face replacement and CG
IN RETROSPECT. touch-up, giving the whole film a handmade quality, which feels
As strange and macabre as it is heartfelt. apt for a story starring a carpenter. Pinocchio’s return to more
traditional techniques is a breath of fresh air, as it relishes the
slowness and tactility of the medium. The acting conducted by
the animators emphasises slip-ups and stumbles and moments
that don’t really “mean” anything other than a pause between
actions, something del Toro has credited to his love of Hayao
Miyazaki (who directed Porco Rosso, a fairy tale about bodily
transformation set against a backdrop of Italian fascism.)
Both known for their frequently disturbing spins on fairy
tales and classical storybook structure, del Toro and McHale
are a heaven-made match. Pinocchio’s journey frequently mixes
things up between the horrific creatures of del Toro’s past and the
whimsical but spooky animal people of McHale’s work. But it’s
not so strange that it sheds its humanity – if anything this might
be one of del Toro’s weepiest movies, as Pinocchio’s immortal life
brings with it significant emotional burden.
There many digressions from the famous 1940 Disney
adaptation, but also fascinating points of commonality.
Instead of being blessed with a mortal life, Pinocchio learns the
bittersweetness of how brief it is, and how that brevity shouldn’t
be wasted on trying to fit within strict categorisation from parent
and state alike. The Disney version warns of disaster and moral
degeneracy in the absence of authority. But del Toro’s film loves
disobedience. He draws lines between abusive fatherhood and
fascism, as Pinocchio meets various children also blindly trying
to please their fathers at all costs. By changing the cautionary tale
to be against assimilation and categorisation, plus its invigorating
update of traditional technique, the film carves out a space not
just as the best Pinocchio film of this year, but among the finest
films the director has made. KAMBOLE CAMPBELL

REVIEW 067
Triangle of
Sadness
Directed by RUBEN ÖSTLUND
Starring HARRIS DICKINSON, CHARLBI DEAN,
WOODY HARRELSON
Released OUT NOW

ANTICIPATION.
All aboard the good ship Östlund!

ENJOYMENT.
Stomach-churning scenes abound.

IN RETROSPECT.
A fun, but fairly smug, voyage.

T
here’s something about the idea of floating on the open sea Luckily for them, circumstance leads to an immediate
with a bunch of strangers that feels vaguely ominous, and opportunity for some gender role reversal, as they soon find
given the reputation cruises have as breeding grounds for themselves shipwrecked and discover that the only competent
stomach bugs and potential death traps, it’s surprising we don’t member of their group is Abigail (Dolly De Leon), a Filipino toilet
see more films that take place abroad them. Good news, then, for cleaner on the ship. Abigail, sick and tired of dealing with rude
anyone who ever read David Foster Wallace’s ‘A Supposedly Fun passengers, is heartily pleased to finally be the one in charge.
Thing I’ll Never Do Again’ and felt seen – Ruben Östlund shares Östlund delights in juxtaposing his big political themes with
your apprehension about ocean-based holidays. The latest brash toilet humour – the amount of vomit and faecal matter in this
provocation from the director of Force Majeure and The Square film really can’t be understated – and the three-act structure
concerns the passengers aboard a luxury cruise ship and charts leaves the film backloaded, as it is at its most enjoyable once the
the series of unfortunate events that throw them into disarray. crew and guests are shipwrecked and start to live out an off-kilter
The self-avowed Marxist captain, Thomas (Woody Harrelson), version of ‘Lord of the Flies’. Even if the storyline needs work,
is drunk, a storm is closing in, and there are some unsavoury- Östlund’s visual creativity delights in a scene where the camera
looking characters lurking on a passing boat. appears to move with the rocking of the ship on choppy waters.
Nevertheless, jobbing model Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Dickinson is superb as the idealistic but empty-headed Carl,
his influencer girlfriend Yaya (Charlbi Dean) are making the who decides the best way to survive is to find someone to provide
most of a free holiday. Their fellow passengers include a Russian for him. Dickinson offsets his indisputable handsomeness by
manure entrepreneur (Zlatko Burić) and a German woman playing up Carl’s crotchetiness – he’s an expressive performer,
who’s recently suffered a stroke rendering her unable to say and in the purse of his lips or furrow of his brow he can fill in the
anything except the words “In den Wolken”. If Carl and Yaya feel blanks between the lines of Östlund’s broad-strokes script.
out of place, this is superseded by a lingering argument about It’s certainly an enjoyable watch, though Östlund gestures
their relationship (which comprises the film’s short opening towards big questions about gender and class divisions without
chapter), in which Carl calls Yaya out for never paying for dinner making any truly bold statements. Instead, his characters
when they’re together. He expresses a desire to defy traditional noodle around inside increasingly outlandish scenarios, and the
gender roles within their relationship, though Yaya seems a little eventual ending feels rather abrupt after two hours of build-up.
sceptical about the suggestion. HANNAH STRONG

068 REVIEW
First person As told to EL L A KEMP Illustration by ST ÉPHANI E SERGEANT

Ruben Östlund
The two-time Palme d’Or winner
and director of Triangle of
Sadness holds forth on his vision
of an economic utopia.

A
rch provocateur Ruben Östlund has made a name for And now we can talk about how to really create a great society.
himself by pushing buttons and presenting audiences So if you want to read something on how we should build a better
with awkward, often paradoxical moral dilemmas. His society, I will recommend a book called ‘Utopia for Realists’
new film, Triangle of Sadness, is a film about the transitory nature by Rutger Bregman. And he is talking about basic income.
of money and fame, and also the power of sudden revolution. He explains how there was a garbage strike when he came to New
“I always want to ask people who watch my films: what is the York. They were striking for six days, and it was complete chaos.
political message? I’ve been completely uninterested in making And he is comparing that strike with a strike in Ireland that was
films that support the left-wing socialist movement only. I think with the bankers. And they were 100 per cent certain that society
there’s a lot of great things with the market economy and there would collapse.
are great things with regulated capitalism. When I was doing the But they were striking for six months and nothing happened.
film, I almost wanted to go into the world we were dealing with in People were inventing their own currencies and stuff like that.
the 1980s, when we had a Western perspective of the world and I think that all of us agree that it’s not okay to exploit other
we had an Eastern perspective of the world. people. And it’s not okay to pay them an unfair part of the profit.
The Western perspective is delivering capitalistic ideas; And if you look at Sweden during the ’80s, social democracy
and the Eastern is the socialist/communist ideas. And for me, actually managed to regulate capitalism in a quite good way, and
the captain in the film [played by Woody Harrelson] is not only we shared the responsibility of society at large.
an alcoholic, he is an idealist and a Marxist. So I thought it was But people have told me what’s going on in the UK now… I get
like these two different ideologies have been bashing their head sad when I hear that. We have not been able to regulate real estate
against each other. And I thought, haven’t we left that behind us? and housing, so young people have no place to live. And then it
becomes absurd, because the market economy is helping us in
many ways. But if it becomes unregulated, then it’s not helping
us anymore, then people get a poorer situation where they are
trying to live. And that can’t be the idea of how the economy
should be run. So there are obvious things where I feel a free
market and unregulated capitalism is not helping us. It’s simple.
Since women are always paid less money than men, women
become more concerned about how they are paid when they get
into the film industry. Many men going into the film industry
don’t have any problem working for free for a couple of years,
because they don’t have this on their shoulders that they are not
treated equally. I also think it’s a burden for women who can’t
just go in like, ‘This is a fun group of people, I really want to
spend time with them,’ without thinking about not being treated
equally. I like to explore gender expectations and the way culture
has trained us to behave, and how we’re dealing with it. #MeToo
was a great movement, but you also could do #IGotBilled,
and the men could tell the stories about when they were treated
like a wallet. But when I bring it up, the men just say: “I can’t
go there.”

INTERVIEW 069
The Wonder
Directed by SEBASTIÁN LELIO
Starring FLORENCE PUGH, NIAMH ALGAR,
KÍLA LORD CASSIDY
Released 2 NOVEMBER

T
he opening titles of The Wonder are superimposed over multi-layered gowns designed by Odile Dicks-Mireaux.
the exterior framework of a studio set. The camera pans But The Wonder is most captivating in its look – the misty
across an empty warehouse while a narrator asks us green hues of Ireland filmed beautifully by cinematographer Ari
to remember the artifice of cinema when we enter its worlds, Wegner. Her ability to capture the vastness of landscape earned
before landing on the room in which the story begins. The device her an Oscar nod for Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog (2021),
comes from Emma Donoghue’s 2016 novel of the same title, a using that scale again to capture a quietly terrifying sense of
far-cry from her 2010 claustrophobic thriller ‘Room’. isolation. It’s a shame that the terrain Wegner captures isn’t left
Here that terrain is the Irish countryside to which we venture to stand on its own, occasionally pulling back to the film’s opening
with Nurse Wright (Florence Pugh) to investigate a mysterious trickery. It is surprising that such a literary framework has been
child called Anna (Kíla Lord Cassidy) who has supposedly gone retained in the screenplay, penned by Donoghue alongside
without food for four months. The question of Anna’s health in Alice Birch, whose previous adaptations include Nikolai Leskov
spite of starvation has led a panel of village elders to canonise for William Oldroyd’s 2016 film Lady Macbeth, and director
the 11-year-old as a saint, persisting in their convictions even Sebastián Lelio. Perhaps such postmodernist questioning is
after Nurse Wright warns them the child may die. What ensues Lelio’s way of keeping one foot in his more arthouse past, which
is a battle of religiosity and secularism as old as time. earned him an Oscar for A Fantastic Woman.
The simplicity of the narrative allows those strands of We return to the studio at the end of The Wonder, now
argument to percolate effectively. In this sense, The Wonder being reminded that we must come out of the cinematic
feels akin to the desolate period dramas of Daphne du Maurier, world and return to our own. The result is jarring, leaving
especially ‘Jamaica Inn’. Pugh and Cassidy make a captivating one incapable of suspending disbelief enough to fully enter
double act in the child’s game of cat-and-mouse, well- the fabric of the screen. If that is the point, it is patronisingly
accompanied by the lurking presence of Tom Burke’s potentially obvious in a way that undermines the more compelling
devious journalist. It’s a refreshing return to naturalistic form theological questions posed by the narrative proper.
for Pugh following her recent blockbuster run, relishing in the LILLIAN CRAWFORD

ANTICIPATION. ENJOYMENT. IN RETROSPECT.

Lelio swings from high to low The du Maurier-lite narrative Devices that work in books don’t
in quality, but Florence Pugh by Emma Donoghue scintillates always translate well to film.
comes alive in period drama. in the lush Irish countryside.

070 REVIEW
 ow does one say goodbye to a memory? By unearthing
Aftersun H its immense power, typically tucked away in a fragment
of a whole, and letting the camera roll. Scottish
director Charlotte Wells locates the answer somewhere in the
expansive emotional world of Aftersun, her feature debut. The
film transforms a week into an eternity as Calum (Paul Mescal)
and his 11-year old daughter, Sophie (newcomer Frankie Corio)
reunite for their annual package holiday on the Turkish coast,
Directed by CHARLOTTE WELLS armed with a camcorder to capture it all. Between the bright
Starring PAUL MESCAL, FRANKIE CORIO, blues skies and the peachy-pink hues of sun-soaked skin, time
CELIA ROWLSON-HALL allows for so much, that we can almost see moments becoming
Released 18 NOVEMBER memories.
Eleven is the age when the distance between children and
ANTICIPATION. parents grows into a chasm, and Aftersun dwells precisely in
All we want to see is Paul Mescal in a dad role. that ever-deepening rift. Even when negotiating the process,
father and daughter seem to possess an affective synergy, a
reassurance beyond wordiness emanates from the way Sophie
ENJOYMENT. anticipates his worry and muffles “I’m fine” without even
Kleenex in hand, you’ll want to call your looking up. While their conversations could be considered
parents asap. brisk, they also fold in the silences that bookend a line of
dialogue. In fact, the film is so attentive to its tonal shifts that it
IN RETROSPECT. offers a typology of silences: caring, hesitant, embarrassed, but
An ode to cinema as a machine for never the same one twice.
remembering. There is an urge to make time last also in the way
cinematographer Gregory Oke almost always frames Sophie
together with Calum in a medium or close up shot, their
boundaries exposed now porous, then – hardening. But when
observing Calum on his own, the camera retreats, allowing only a
view that is obstructed, reflected, or from afar – as if melancholy
glues together the person and the memory. For Sophie, her
dad feels close and yet unknowable – he may dance, do tai chi,
and come up with fun activities – but his inner world remains
a mystery save for such manifestations, rendered raw through
Mescal’s performance of toppling stoicism. Aftersun gives all its
love to a past reimagined, as it punctures the present.
Throughout the film, one scene cuts through the summer
slowness repeatedly, and with an arresting beat. Fragments of a
rave appear in between the strobe lights cues, to reveal an older
woman (supposedly Sophie) dancing, her gaze wandering in
the crowd. As the sequence bleeds into the ‘past’ timeline with
a hypnotic use of ‘Under Pressure’, its liminal space – is it real?
Is it a dream? – aligns remembering with reinventing, their
superimposition a metaphor for the whole film as a play on
reimagining the other.
In a way, the whole of Aftersun plays out in reverse in its first
four minutes when we see a tape being rewound, its distortion
still recalling a family holiday. There are two films in here: one
made from home videos, the other – its repository. In line with
such proximity, Wells’ fascination with how past and present
coexist focuses on the points of eruption, the slow trickle, the
stickiness of memory like ice cream on your fingers on a hot
summer’s day. SAVINA PETKOVA

REVIEW 071
In conversation Interview by RAFA SAL ES ROSS Illustration by ST ÉPHANI E SERGEANT

Charlotte Wells
The Scottish debut director
taking the film world by storm
with Aftersun on the film’s
depiction of youth and memory.

C
inema is rooted in the exploration – and manipulation – It was always very important to me that Sophie be protected
of memory. This notion feels true of Charlotte from what’s going on with Calum, and that he succeeds, for the
Wells’ stunning directorial debut Aftersun, a quietly most part, in protecting her from his own struggles. So much of
devastating portrayal of a summer holiday shared by a young girl the film is Sophie looking back with more knowledge acquired
and her father (played beautifully by newcomer Frankie Corio about what her dad might have been going through, and trying
and rising star Paul Mescal). It is a striking work by a filmmaker to figure out if maybe there was something that she missed. But
whose name you are bound to hear again. of course, she could have never seen it because she was a trusting
kid for whom her father was just her father.
LWLies: Much of Aftersun is presented through the eyes of
11-year-old Sophie. How was it for you to get back to that Certain songs are key to the emotional gut punches of the
mindset of a child? Wells: I spent a lot of time thinking about film, particularly Queen’s ‘Under Pressure’. How did it come
the right age for Sophie. I considered younger and I considered to be a part of the film? There were many songs in the playlist
older. Ultimately, the most interesting thing about 11 is that it is I was working with, and ‘Under Pressure’ was not one of them.
the point where self-consciousness emerges – it’s a step toward It was a late night discovery while cutting the rave scene, which
adolescence that you can’t take back. It just seemed like the best I had been avoiding because it was really challenging footage to
of the best of both worlds in a certain way, being able to interact work with and because I knew it had to work and I was terrified
with the older kids while also still having that childlike innocence. to find that it did not. Music is the thing I tend to go to when
It was fun to look through photo albums and think back I’m procrastinating or warming up or both, and this version of
to memories of a really specific moment in my life. At age 11, ‘Under Pressure’ is one I sometimes listen to.
I was moving schools, it was the late ’90s, the height of the It was just one of those accidental yet beautiful discoveries
Spice Girls, and it’s a period of time I have a lot of memories that was, as somebody put to me, a capital C choice. It takes a lot
of. It’s a point of childhood where you retain quite a lot, rather of confidence to wear your heart on your sleeve in the way the
than earlier years, which are more like glimpses, the kind of song does in the film and I am really happy with it. It’s always
memories you wonder if it’s a photograph you’ve seen a hundred the moment I’m most excited to hear – when Calum falls back,
times rather than the memory itself. sees both Sophies, and the music just surges. That’s always the
moment I’m most excited to experience in the cinema.
The film is also about that pivotal point in your life when
you start figuring out your parents are people of their own. At one point, Calum says, “There’s this feeling once you leave
I think this age is perfect to explore that idea. One hundred per where you’re from, where you grew up, you don’t totally
cent. That was one of the things on the very top of my mind when belong there again, not really”. Is this the same for you? Will
I was writing. It’s that age when you start to have an awareness you always be drawn to Scotland for your films? I wrote that
of your parents as people. I think it takes until your teenage dialogue and there are many aspects of Calum that are as much
years for it to really set in, and maybe a version of Sophie who me as they are my dad, and that’s definitely one that belongs to
was 16 would’ve gone into the tension of that a lot more. I think me – and may well have belonged to my dad. It’s difficult when
11-year-olds start to see it but don’t really have the capacity to you leave where you’re from, especially when you leave relatively
understand it, so it’s just kind of specific observations that don’t young. Sometimes, when I’m expressing this, I feel like I am just
quite coalesce into a real perception yet. Adults are locked in the quoting the film, so I feel like this is one of the ways in which the
roles that they perform for kids. film stands for itself. In a way, Edinburgh will always be home

INTERVIEW 073
Three Minutes: A Call Jane
Lengthening
Directed by BIANCA STIGTER Directed by PHYLLIS NAGY
Released 2 DECEMBER Starring ELIZABETH BANKS, SIGOURNEY
WEAVER, CHRIS MESSINA
Released 4 NOVEMBER

n 2009, writer Glenn Kurtz discovered a degraded 16mm film t’s hard to predict the climate into which a long-gestated story
I in the attic of his parents’ home. It belonged to his grandfather, I will be birthed. So, this, the year that saw Roe v Wade overruled
David Kurtz, an amateur filmmaker who was born in the small by the American Supreme Court has dramatically altered the
Polish town of Nasielsk before migrating to America. Equipped lens through the film Call Jane will be viewed.
with a Kodak camera during a trip to Europe in 1938, he would It’s about the Jane Collective who, during the late ’60s and
shoot 14 minutes of black and white and Kodachrome film, three early ’70s helped women in need of safe abortions. It’s directed
of which would become one of the only known fragments of by Phyllis Nagy, best known for writing 2015’s lesbian Christmas
history left of the predominantly Jewish population in Nasielsk, movie Carol, the film tells of the collective’s heroism through
one year before the Nazi invasion of Poland. the fictional character glamorous suburban housewife Joy
Slowed down, freeze-framed and recontextualised, this (Elizabeth Banks) who discovers that her second pregnancy
fragment of found footage allows filmmaker Bianca Stigter will likely kill her. Unfortunately for Joy, the medical and legal
to attempt the titular “lengthening” through fleshing out and establishment deems that her life is a sacrifice they are willing to
delving deep into the vibrant world within the images. The result make in the name of ideology.
of exclusively repurposing this single film strip is often hypnotic She seeks help from, and then joins the group, headed up
in its immersion in colour, magnified textures and dissections by tough cookie Virginia (Sigourney Weaver) and a motley
of details embedded in clothing and shop fronts. Of the 100-plus crew of second wave feminists. The dialogue has polish and
locals that populate Kurtz’s frames, only 11 survivors have been nuance, but there is a strange levity of tone that prevents it
identified, while the identities of the indistinguishable shadows from feeling substantial enough for the subject matter. Zippy
captured by the camera remain resistant even to André Bazin’s duologues, expertly teased beehives and stunning period
analogy of cinematic mummification. Three Minutes culminates costumes may make this pro-choice message more palatable
in a contemplation of its central paradox: “The absence in the to the masses, but ultimately the film pulls its punches, never
presence”. It provides a vital memorial to the people whose lives lingering long enough on a single scene or tragedy to let
have been lost to time, revealing the significance of preserving the impact of these women’s work consume the audience.
film as much as preserving history. MARINA ASHIOTI LEILA LATIF

ANTICIPATION ANTICIPATION
An ambitious undertaking. In a post Roe v Wade world, what is a
Sundance dramedy going to contribute?

ENJOYMENT ENJOYMENT
Incredible attention to detail, but Helena Bonham Sigourney Weaver sure does know her way
Carter’s narration wears thin. around a withering put-down.

IN RETROSPECT IN RETROSPECT
Thoroughly compelling and haunting. A whisper to arms when a call was needed.

074 REVIEW
Clara Sola Cette Maison

Directed by NATHALIE ÁLVAREZ MESÉN Directed by MIRYAM CHARLES

Starring WENDY CHINCHILLA ARAYA, Starring EVE DURANCEAU, NADINE JEAN,
ANA JULIA PORRAS ESPINOZA SCHELBY JEAN-BAPTISTE
Released 18 NOVEMBER Released 4 NOVEMBER

I (Wendy Chinchilla Araya) is in arrested development. She S filmmaker Miryam Charles’ debut feature attempts a fluid
n a green, rural backwater of Costa Rica, middle-aged Clara hot in sumptuous and hazy 16mm film, Haitian-Canadian

lives in a secluded forest with her hyper-religious family, journey in time and space – across Haiti, Connecticut and Quebec
yet her burgeoning sexuality is stimulated by everything – that coalesces in an elusive reimagining of Black girlhood. Cette
from soap operas to soil. And all this is underscored by a Maison takes the death of the filmmaker’s 14-year-old cousin
hodgepodge of references to the Virgin Mary. It’s a film apt and imaginatively reconstructs her memory through personal,
for current socio-political climes, as the verdant beauty of generational and geographic remenisces.
nature is framed as a cure-all for woes, and it’s where Clara The storytelling leans into magical realism and evokes
finds solace. Nathalie Álvarez Mesén’s film remains slightly the qualities of what cultural historian Saidiya Hartman calls
distanced throughout, raking back the sand of her imagery “critical fabulation” — a blend of fact and fiction through the use
but never really digging deep. The film treats its subjects as of imagination and empathy, where past, present and future are
Clara’s family do her – at arm’s length. spatiotemporally intertwined with fantasy. Charles confidently
And yet, the feverish and feral performanced by Araya constructs a counternarrative that elaborates on the gaps and
drags the film back from operating as a wispy metaphor. conflicting details within police and autopsy reports, savouring
For Clara, every noise or voice offers an eerie reminder unknowability by way of interrogating, recovering and restoring
of her real life, and pulls her back from this waking lost potentialities within a story that is “impossible to tell”.
dream. Clara is always on the precipice of eruption; her A Brechtian dedication to artifice is immensely difficult to pull
simmering exasperation is just waiting to transform into off on screen, but Charles’ visual style is remarkably reflexive,
bubbling hellfire. This works as a metaphor for the film as imagined encounters are translated into bold and evocative
as a whole, which is always reaching towards its ideas and visual assemblages. The result is luminescent. Personal trauma,
themes but never truly grasping them. Ironically, for a violence, grief and loss are not merely confronted. They become
story about a woman who struggles to express herself, paving stones to forging a path that allows the film to travel
the film tangles itself in knots with its ill-defined ideas. through the complexities of its resonant emotional core and
FINLAY SPENCER blossom into a spectral, genre-defying enigma. MARINA ASHIOTI

ANTICIPATION ANTICIPATION
An intriguing Costa Rican character study which An imagined biography promises to cultivate a surreal
explores the human bounds of spiritual belief. account of life and death.

ENJOYMENT ENJOYMENT
An amazing central performance, but too insistent Sharp, intimate and tactful.
in the way it delivers its themes.

IN RETROSPECT IN RETROSPECT
In the end, the metaphor gets in the way of An accomplished debut signalling Miryam Charles
the emotion. as a filmmaker to look out for.

REVIEW 075
 S
he Said opens with a pale young woman with cropped hair
She Said walking along the Irish coast. To her astonishment an
18th century galleon is suddenly revealed, bustling with
navy officers in tricorn hats. She’s stumbled onto a film set. Her
awe is violently interrupted with a hard cut to her running full
pelt down a city street stricken with terror. Nothing in She Said
ever quite equals the sheer emotional power of this prologue,
but it builds towards a moving conclusion without ever feeling
Directed by MARIA SCHRADER manipulative.
Starring ZOE KAZAN, CAREY MULLIGAN, Starring Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan as real New York
SAMANTHA MORTON Times investigative reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor,
Released 25 NOVEMBER this is a classic journalism movie but one that turns its gaze to
Hollywood itself. The film is a dramatisation of Twohey and
ANTICIPATION. Kantor’s book of the same name, published in 2019 and which
Hollywood’s take on #MeToo has been patchy – details how they first broke the story of Harvey Weinstein’s
let’s hope this isn’t another Bombshell. decades of sexual abuse and the payouts that silenced his
survivors. With compassion and determination, the pair pursue
ENJOYMENT. a whisper network of actresses and former staff who are either
Pedestrian in style but compelling and deeply bound by non-disclosure agreements or simply too traumatised
moving at times. to speak publicly. The film is largely comprised of conversations
between these women, with Samantha Morton as the grimly
IN RETROSPECT. matter-of-fact former Miramax employee Zelda Perkins and a
May not stand the test of time but engaging and wonderful Jennifer Ehle as Laura Madden, an older incarnation
never sensational. of the young woman in the prologue.
Kitty Green’s wonderful The Assistant from 2019 named
no names but was clearly about a young woman working for
Weinstein, but director Maria Schrader and screenwriter
Rebecca Lenkiewicz are concerned with being explicit with
the real details of the investigation. Real audio recordings of
Weinstein are played, and even key figures such as Ashley Judd
play themselves. This gambit is sometimes effective but can be
distracting – Schrader asks her audience to forget that Mulligan
and Kazan are stars themselves while including these elements
of realism, highlighting the artifice more than anything else.
There’s plenty of the nitty-gritty detail of what it takes to publish
such a momentous story, and it’s also intriguing just to see the
cavernous interior of the New York Times office – a feature film has
never been shot there before. But what makes She Said different
to other journalism films is simple but significant: Twohey and
Kantor are working mothers who can’t drop everything to chase
a lead, and real life is happening alongside their work.
Dozens of films have been described as “#MeToo movies” but
only a handful have directly engaged with those events. As much
as there is a Hollywood sheen to She Said in its victory-against-
all-odds narrative and in the shallow decision to age-down the
characters to fit Mulligan and Kazan, it’s a solid recounting of
the investigation that would irrevocably shake the film industry.
The conclusion is perhaps guilty of implying that bringing down
Weinstein meant bringing down misogyny itself, but it’s hard
not to be moved when Kantor collapses into Twohey’s arms,
overwhelmed by the knowledge that the survivors they met will
finally have their voices heard. LAURA VENNING

076 REVIEW
on Blu-ray and
digital from “Finds great offbeat humor in the
November 7 banal, the boring, and the repetitive”
ELENA LAZIC, THE PLAYLIST

Streaming exclusively
from November 7 at “A film with something of
Charlie Kaufman or Spike Jonze”
arrow-player.com PETER BRADSHAW, THE GUARDIAN
Lynch/Oz Directed by
Released
ALEXANDRE O PHILIPPE
2 DECEMBER

he spectre of Victor Fleming’s 1939 The Wizard of Oz, in By transposing the video essay format to a feature-length

T all its Technicolor glory, ceaselessly haunts the collective

American psyche. Distilled into a pair of sequined red
pumps, this staggeringly permanent cultural touchstone has
affair, Philippe attempts a union of theory (criticism) and
practice (documentary filmmaking), and so the very ontology of
Lynch/Oz becomes a subject of fascination in its own right. The
become “public real estate”, and like a recurring hallucination, question that hangs over the film, however, is: does this episodic
has left an indelible mark on David Lynch’s filmmaking, warping endeavour benefit from a feature-length approach?
the porous veil between reality and imagination. Using ominous gusts of wind, dissociative fugues and a woman
Alexandre O. Philippe’s Lynch/Oz sees a cohort of six named Judy as entry points, each perspective adds a different
distinct and illuminating essays (each written and voiced by dimension to the work of a filmmaker whose aversion to attach
film critic Amy Nicholson, camp auteur John Waters, director meaning to his work is famously unwavering. Such prolonged
duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, and filmmakers encounters with Lynch’s filmography seen through the lens
Karyn Kusama, Rodney Ascher and David Lowery) guiding us of his biggest influence – treatises that go beyond the magical
through the yellow brick road as they examine the how Oz’s realism of Wild at Heart, which is so explicitly filtered through Oz
influence and cultural vernacular is thoroughly embedded iconography – bring about an extended and affectively charged
into the very core of Lynch’s cinematic oeuvre. The video essay engagement with the stylistic and cultural complexities of both
format reigns supreme as the most popular form of online film Lynch’s oeuvre, as well as the magic of Oz.
criticism, largely due to the insight that can be gleaned from a Karyn Kusama’s section perfectly straddles the line between
thesis-driven approach that’s supplemented by moving image personable and insightful. She recalls attending a NYFF
and enhanced with sound. As well as being a wholly accessible, screening of Mulholland Dr. As he is wont to do, Lynch spoke
democratic and DIY pursuit, this relatively young form of about the film quite elliptically, and was then asked by an
analysis has carved a new and exciting space between criticism audience member to talk about his relationship to The Wizard
and digital media-making, and has become an increasingly of Oz. His response: “There is not a day that goes by that I don’t
valuable part of our digital ecosystem. think about The Wizard of Oz”. MARINA ASHIOTI

ANTICIPATION. ENJOYMENT.
Down the proverbial rabbit hole Varied, compelling and IN RETROSPECT.
we go… evocative explorations of Ultimately less than the sum of
Lynch’s craft and though its parts.
processes.

078 REVIEW
Bones and All Directed by
Starring
LUCA GUADAGNINO
TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET, TAYLOR HOLLAND,
MARK RYLANCE
Released 25 NOVEMBER

A
t the end of Maurice Sendak’s 1963 children’s book, Terrence Malick’s Badlands – another film about young outcasts
‘Where the Wild Things Are’, when Max must return on the lam. The affliction Maren and Lee share has manifested
home, the wild things cry out, “Please don’t go – we’ll eat differently in each of them: she is bookish and gentle; he is all
you up – we love you so!” It’s an ominous threat, but what could sinewy muscle and sharp edges.
be more romantic than someone – quite literally – becoming a It’s a familiar dynamic, but Russell and Chalamet are
part of you? This line of prose comes to mind after watching Luca charming enough to breathe new life into it. He melts around
Guadagnino’s Bones and All, in which a pair of teenage cannibals her, learning to open up about past traumas, and in turn teaches
find love in a hopeless place (rural Indiana) and set off on a road Maren how to survive in a cruel world – one in which they seem
trip across the United States in search of belonging. to be both predator and prey. It’s a shame that some of the most
Adapted by Guadagnino’s regular collaborator David interesting scenes from DeAngelis’ novel end up on the cutting
Kajganich from Camille DeAngelis’ 2015 novel of the same room floor, and the setting of Reagan’s America is established
name, it’s a love story with teeth that sees sheltered Maren but not interrogated. Instead, this is a film about light among
(Taylor Russell) forced to strike out on her own after her father the darkness, and for every tendon ripped out with teeth there’s
(Andre Holland) abandons her, sickened by his daughter’s a gentle caress, a shy smile. Chalamet is particularly charming
peculiar appetites. After a disturbing encounter with fellow when it comes to carefully unravelling Lee’s past transgressions.
‘Eater’ Sully (a suitably creepy Mark Rylance) Maren crosses After the silliness of his Suspiria remake, it’s good to see
paths with Lee (Timothée Chalamet), a wiry punk with little Guadagnino focussing on one of his greatest strengths: showing
interest in making friends. Despite his initial aloofness, Maren how we lust after and love one another. Bones and All gets at the
gets under his skin, and a bond between them forms as they fragility and futility of human existence. It’s an imperfect but
set off to Minnesota in search of the mother she has never met. enervating film, one that feels lived-in (shout out to the eclectic
Guadagnino sticks to small towns and backroads, and soundtrack and Giulia Piersanti’s’ expressive costume design)
cinematographer Arseni Khachaturan’s shots of breathtaking and speaks to the human desire to love and be loved, in spite of
open country and eerie liminal spaces are reminiscent of our flaws. HANNAH STRONG

ANTICIPATION. ENJOYMENT. IN RETROSPECT.

Always keen to catch up A sweet and sticky summer A sumptuous horror of a film.
with Luca Guadagnino. romance.

REVIEW 079
In conversation Interview by HANNAH ST RONG Illustration by ST ÉPHANI E SERGEANT

Luca Guadagnino
The mercurial Italian director on
being coaxed into making Bones
and All and tag-teaming with his
old friend Timothée Chalamet.

I
talian chronicler of desire Luca Guadagnino takes a road trip you are friends with actors you cannot approach them directly
across Ronald Reagan’s America in Bones and All, adapted with the proposal. But I have also the privilege of being friends
from a young adult novel about a pair of cannibals who fall with him. So I said ‘Brian what do you think about this?’ ‘Oh, I
in love while trying to find themselves. Combining the horror love it’. ‘Should I give it to Timothée?’ ‘Sure’. So we gave it to him.
of Suspiria with the delicate romance of Call Me by Your Name, He was in Rome, I was in Milan, so I went to Rome. We had a
his latest film is a tender, tragic, timeless love story that sees him beautiful conversation that led to another conversation a few
reunite with Timothée Chalamet. After a rapturous premiere days afterwards, that led to another conversation and gave me,
at the Venice Film Festival, audiences are set to fall in love with David and Timothée the beautiful chance to spend time together,
Taylor Russell, who plays recently abandoned teenager Maren, elaborating on these ideas, and turning David’s script into the
as she sets out to find the mother she’s never met. We caught up script we eventually shot.
with one of the busiest men in Hollywood as he works on the final
cut of his next film, tennis drama Challengers. What did Timothée contribute to Lee’s character? I can
give you an example – he didn’t think that Lee had to feel
LWLies: We understand you were initially a little hesitant protective in the life of Maren, the way it was coming across
to take on the script for Bones and All, even though you’ve in the first draft. He thought that Maren and Lee, both of
worked with David Kajganich a few times now. Why did them had to feel lost and fragile. A beautiful idea. That’s a real
you change your mind? Guadagnino: I was hesitant because Chalamet touch.
I was busy and I had so many things on my plate, as they say.
I felt that in reading the script and giving a false promise to Were there any films or cultural reference points you gave
David about being interested, I could make him lose time, and to Timothée and Taylor? I gave them Sans Toit Ni Loi, by
I didn’t want that at all. Because I love him. He insisted, and my Agnès Varda, which is Vagabond in English, Germany Year Zero,
school of thought is when someone asks you more than once by Roberto Rossellini. Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman,
to do something, then you have to surrender and say yes. So I Bresson's A Man Escaped. I like the Akerman because this
said, ‘Okay, I’ll read it,’ but with a caveat that I was reading it character she doesn’t do anything. Akerman is almost clinical
because I want to read something written by him, not because in following this woman’s routines. I think that is an amazing
I was going to consider it. Of course, once I started reading performance, both in terms of how the director understands the
it, I felt so powerfully pulled into this world of drifters, of the performance and the character, and the actress understands the
disenfranchised, in this fable of America, which reminded me character and performance. It was important to me that Taylor
of the Brothers Grimm stories about Europe. The characters knew I wasn’t looking for the drama. I hate drama.
were so beautifully fleshed out, so precise, the vernacular was so
inspiring… and the opportunity that the script gave me to think Really? I hate when you see actors acting. I don’t believe in
of Timothée as my partner for this. All of these elements made acting, as much as I believe in performance.
me completely surrender and say yes.
What would you say the difference is between the two?
How did you approach Timothée about the opportunity – Performance is in everything and becoming and behaviour –
did you have to sell it to him, or did he jump at the chance acting is resorting to the toolbox that you might have learnt in
to reunite? I don’t have to sell anything to him. I just called my some theatrical acting school or what you think is the way you
friend Brian Swardstrom, his agent, because my rule is even if think an actor should act

INTERVIEW 081
The Silent Directed by
Starring
AGNIESZKA SMOCZYŃSKA
LETITIA WRIGHT, JODHI MAY,

Twins
MICHAEL SMILEY
Released 9 DECEMBER

J
ennifer and June Gibbons were identical twins who loved (who play the Gibbons twins as children) introduce the cast.
writing, art and had vivid imaginations which enabled It’s a charming scene that suggests a levity the film is keen to
them to create fantastical stories. They also refused thread through the story, as Jennifer and June’s shared language
to speak to anyone except each other, which earned them the and imagination provide an escape from a world that continually
moniker ‘The Silent Twins’ and resulted in ostracisation and refuses to understand them. This is contrasted against a stark
bullying. After attempts to separate the girls resulted in them reality full of sour-faced bureaucrats and kindly but concerned
becoming catatonic, they were allowed to remain together, onlookers who consistently reinforce the idea that the twins’
but later bouts of drug use and petty crime resulted in them strong bond is detrimental to their health.
being detained in Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, where they This is where the film falters. Growing up in the 1980s,
remained for 11 years. In 1993, when they were moved to a less especially as a Black child with a perceived mental illness,
restrictive clinic in Wales, Jennifer died during transit. The cause would likely have come with a great deal more stigma, racism
of her death has never been fully determined. and hardship than Smoczyńska and Siegel depict. It also fails to
This context is important for understanding Agnieszka convey that Broadmoor was one of the most notorious psychiatric
Smoczyńska’s adaptation of Marjorie Wallace’s book about the facilities in the country – a place where ‘patients’ included Peter
twins, which boasts a fierce imagination and utilises various Sutcliffe and Ronnie Kray – and abuse was rampant.
creative techniques in an attempt to celebrate the life of two The Gibbons family has spoken about how the twins’ health
women who were repeatedly failed by society. Despite its noble declined as a result of being held against their will for 11 years,
intentions, The Silent Twins is a broad-brush depiction of the but this film does not do a great deal to condemn the draconian
Gibbons sisters’ lives, one that fails to represent the institutional structures that purported to protect the twins but, in reality, only
racism and discrimination which had a profoundly damaging served to harm them. Despite a strong ensemble, the story stops
effect on them and quite possibly led to Jennifer’s death. short of condemning the cruelty of the system, which feels crucial
The film opens with an animated fourth wall breaking credit to why they might have retreated so much into themselves and
sequence as Eva-Ariana Baxter and Leah Mondesir Simmons the imaginary worlds they created together. HANNAH STRONG

ANTICIPATION. ENJOYMENT. IN RETROSPECT.

A fascinating, tragic subject Expressive but underwritten. Only scratches the surface of
for a film. a grave injustice.

082 REVIEW
Bardo, False Chronicle
“M
y homeland has many palm trees and the
thrush-song fills its air; no bird here can sing

of a Handful of Truths as well as the birds sing over there” Brazilian

poet Antônio Gonçalves Dias famously uttered in ‘Exile Song’,
a poem written in 1983 during his time as a student in Portugal.
The words are simple yet fitly communicate the burning ache
that is homesickness – the romantic conviction that no feeling
can ever be felt as deeply as when at home, no food can ever
Directed by ALEJANDRO G. IÑÁRRITU taste as good, and no music can ever be played as beautifully.
Starring DANIEL GIMÉNEZ CACHO, GRISELDA Dias’ approach to displacement echoes heavily throughout
SICILIANI, XIMENA LAMADRID Alejandro G Iñárritu’s Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of
Released 18 NOVEMBER Truths, which follows Mexican journalist and documentary
filmmaker Silverio Gama (Daniel Giménez Cacho) in the
ANTICIPATION. lead-up to the ceremony that will see him take home the
A new film by Iñárritu always warrants fictitious Alethea Award for Journalism Ethics, an honour
attention. given by the American Journalism Society. Being the first
Mexican – and Latin American – journalist awarded the
ENJOYMENT. prestigious laurel bears a heavy weight on Gama’s shoulder
The balanced mesh of melancholia goes on a little and attenuates a cultural and geographic disconnect that has
too long, but merits the indulgent runtime. plagued the man since he made the decision to move his family
from his home country to the shiny hills of Los Angeles.
IN RETROSPECT. Yes, the blatantly autobiographical Bardo is acrimoniously
A confidently realised examination self-indulgent. But it needs to be. The pained ache of diaspora
of cultural displacement. can only be soothed by unbeatable arrogance, boastfulness
a way of thinking of oneself as above origins, to become an
island when the craving for the closeness of Pangea is all-
consuming. To settle the wistful longing for one’s country, one
needs to become their own, entirely detached from all sense
of belonging – bigger and bigger until all that doesn’t pertain
to the self feels futile. Otherwise, the what-could-have-beens
become unbearable.
Vital to Iñárritu’s musing on diaspora is the overbearing
guilt experienced by the colonised when assimilating the
cultural and social traits of the coloniser. Felt as if an act
of treason, assimilation has intergenerational ripples,
accentuated by the trauma carried for decades on end
through the potency of bloodlines. Here, guilt is turned into
a spectacle, as flamboyantly and self-importantly depicted as
all else, Silverio at once Judas and Jesus, traitor and saviour.
Bodies line up the cobbled streets of Mexico City, conquerors
hovering over public plazas, the rooted sorrow of lands usurped
through bloodbaths given lavish tangibility through the eyes
of cinematographer Darius Khondji.
Bardo deviates from your run-of-the-mill ode to home
in the sense that it is not as much an ode as it is an elegy – a
work that carries a doleful sense of finality. Iñárritu places
himself at the shore, watching as the last boat leaves the
dock, forever stranded. It is an exercise in self-punishment
disguised as self-aggrandisement, by a director powered
by confident resignation and – for those unlucky enough to
have experienced the gaping hole of yearning for home – it is
entirely worth the self-indulgence. RAFA SALES ROSS

REVIEW 083
 ean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have spent their career
Tori and Lokita J telling stories about characters living on the margins of
Belgian society, and their 10th feature Tori and Lokita
takes us back to the territory of their debut La Promesse, as it
explores the exploitation of undocumented African immigrants.
That 1996 film was told through a white Belgian protagonist –
with Jérémie Renier’s Igor being the first Dardennes lead to find
himself at a moral crossroads – but the brothers have shifted
Directed by JEAN-PIERRE AND LUC DARDENNE their perspective here to follow two children from Cameroon
Starring PABLO SCHILS, MBUNDU JOELY, MARC and Benin. They may be the most vulnerable characters these
ZINGA filmmakers have yet given us.
Released 2 DECEMBER Tori (Pablo Schils) and Lokita (Mbundu Joely) met on the
boat when they were smuggled into Europe, but Lokita poses as
ANTICIPATION. Tori’s older sister to aid her application for a work permit, and to
The Dardennes are among the most reliable ensure the pair can stay together. She is forced to substantiate
filmmakers around. that fiction in a series of harsh interrogations by the authorities
that often leave her panic-stricken and in tears, but while the
ENJOYMENT. familial bond may be false, these marvellous young actors
Another beautifully observed drama that make us fully believe in it. Lokita is another quietly resolute
occasionally grips like a vice. Dardennes heroine in the tradition of Rosetta or The Silence of
Lorna, while the more tenacious Tori reminds us of The Kid with
IN RETROSPECT. a Bike as he runs and cycles determinedly across town. At one
Humane and heart-breaking. point, his impulsive decision to race across the road unwisely
draws the attention of the police, an unnerving reminder of how
precarious their legal status is.
Things get even more dangerous for Tori and Lokita when
they spend their Friday nights selling drugs for a dealer who
operates out of the kitchen in an Italian restaurant. This is their
only means of making money to send to Lokita’s family, but in
doing so she is subjected to the dealer’s sexual impositions, and
the pair must avoid the smuggler (a briefly chilling Marc Zinga)
who demands whatever cash they are carrying to repay their
debt. In this film there are vultures everywhere and all these
kids have in the world is each other, so when they are separated
the tension instantly ramps up. Nobody does tension quite like
the Dardenne brothers. As in so many of their films, there’s a
moment in Tori and Lokita when a character makes a fateful
decision and the narrative suddenly snaps into focus, creating
stretches of the drama when you’re holding your breath and
feeling a roiling sense of anxiety in the pit of your stomach.
It’s only at this point that you realise how deeply invested
you have become in the fate of these children, and how
powerfully the Dardennes generate empathy by creating
authentic characters with simple desires and inviting us to
live in their world for a brief time. The Dardennes’ style has
barely evolved since their debut feature, but it’s so potent it
doesn’t need to. What does need to evolve is the way we treat
the kind of people they make films about. More than 25 years
after La Promesse, the Dardennes have had to make another
film about the way immigrants in Europe are abandoned by the
state to be exploited, abused and dehumanised. Plus ça change.
PHIL CONCANNON

084 REVIEW
 Limited Edition 10 x Blu-ray box set

See full details and buy direct from powerhousefilms.co.uk

No Bears Directed by
Starring
JAFAR PANAHI
JAFAR PANAHI, REZA HEYDARI,
MINA KAVANI
Released 11 NOVEMBER

M
ere weeks separated the world premiere of Jafar his real-life sound designer Reza Heydari), a simply put yet
Panahi’s latest film No Bears from his latest arrest beautifully layered encapsulation of this particular kind of
over accusations of propaganda against the Iranian claustrophobic despair.
state. The filmmaker – first imprisoned in 2010 on the same No Bears often echoes Abbas Kiarostami’s forlorn 1997
charges – has been banned from making movies, writing film Taste of Cherry, with a car recklessly driving through the
screenplays and speaking with any Iranian or foreign media for arid lands of the Iranian desert to carry out a nihilistic desire
the last 10 years, with another 10 outstanding on his sentence. to flirt with self-destruction. Yet, Panahi – who started his
This has not stopped him in that time for he has produced a career under Kiarostami’s wing – bypasses the melancholia
whopping five features, including 2011’s seminal This Is Not a often employed by his mentor in favour of tapping into a seam
Film and the 2015 Golden Bear-winner Taxi Tehran. of humour that permeates most of his films. Life, as they say,
Panahi’s literal and metaphorical entrapment feeds into the goes on, and No Bears observes people toiling away at existing
metatextuality of No Bears. Here, the filmmaker plays himself, while Panahi wrestles with matters existential.
but all else around him is a mixture of fact and fiction, with There are no bears in No Bears. The animal stands in
two sets of lovers placed against the political structures that for the way in which control is often established in society
have forced the Iranian master into a stateless exile. The first through the perpetuation of Machiavellian myths. “Stories
pair comprises a contemporary Romeo and Juliet kept apart are made up to scare us. Our fear empowers others,” a
by the outdated rituals of the small community that acts as the man tensely whispers to Panahi as they near the heavily-
director’s refuge; the second is a pair of long-term partners policed Iranian borders. The same ground that once
whose relationship runs parallel to their fight against Iran’s bore the sturdy foundation of a loving home now stands
authoritarian regime. eternally scarred by the searing cuts of imaginary lines, an
Diaspora is defined by Panahi by this very sense of irreparable fissure that – in Panahi’s heartfelt visual diary –
statelessness: “He feels trapped, with no future, no freedom cruelly severs the frail umbilical cord to the motherland.
and no job,” the director tells his fictional assistant (played by RAFA SALES ROSS

ANTICIPATION. ENJOYMENT. IN RETROSPECT.

A new one from the incarcerated An inspired exercise in This is Panahian social
Iranian director Jafar Panahi. autofiction that is as commentary at its finest.
Need we say more? illuminating as it is witty

086 REVIEW
The Menu Directed by
Starring
MARK MYLOD
RALPH FIENNES, ANYA TAYLOR-JOY,
NICOLAS HOULT
Released 18 NOVEMBER

F
or Ralph Fiennes’ character chef Slowik in Mark The film can be summed up as, what if one of the bad
Mylod’s The Menu, revenge is a dish best served on a Saw sequels took place in a restaurant not dissimilar to
crescent of edible puce foam and with an air-fried Copenhagen’s conceptually-enlightened Noma? Slowik, for
chicory wafer balancing on top. We are bussed directly reasons that are never made clear, rolls out a tasting menu he
into a minimalist lifestyle world of elite fine dining where a considers to be his pièce de résistance, and rather than provide
gesticulating gaggle of one-dimensional nasties have managed his punters with the simple enjoyment that comes from
to secure a table at the world-famous seat of experimental sustenance, he is more interested in prodding the metaphorical
gastronomy – Hawthorne. Slowik acts as master of ceremonies sores of their private backgrounds and humiliating them for
for a sense-challenging, multi-course cavalcade of disruption petty moral infractions where the punishment far outweighs
and discord, as his fiendish concoctions come with built-in the crime. Perhaps unintentionally, The Menu is a film that
moral lessons and are intended to challenge any and all assumes a conservative political stance in asking us to cheer on
preconceptions we have about food. the ritual torture of sundry tech bros, food critics, a man who
Unlike Slowik, whose murderous fixation with subtle flavour has committed infidelity, an over-the-hill film actor, and an
combinations has driven him to creative frenzy, Mylod, along extreme foodie played by Nicolas Hoult who just doesn’t seem
with screenwriters Seth Reiss and Will Tracy, are very keen to be of this planet.
to show the dull simplicity of their working early on. It’s clear Our one locus of respite within this gang of deplorables is
from the opening preamble that some twisted shit is about Anya Taylor-Joy’s Margot, who was invited by Hoult’s character
to go down, as Hong Chau’s maître is openly aggressive and on a whim and is not part of chef Slowik’s grand scheme. The
patronising towards the guests before they’ve even had a chance pungent whiff of designer cynicism pervades every scene, so not
to take a seat. In the aggressively polite world of dining – fine only is it difficult to understand why these diners aren’t taking
or otherwise – this rings a very false note, and it’s one that is their business elsewhere (which they absolutely would do if
repeated throughout a film in which the makers don’t really they’re the capitalist scum we’re told they are), but it’s difficult
have any answer for why the diners remain in place to be abused. to give two hoots as to whether they stay or go. DAVID JENKINS

ANTICIPATION. ENJOYMENT. IN RETROSPECT.

Fiennes, food and fiendishness… Oof. Undercooked, rotten Horribly cynical, conceptually
what could possibly go wrong? ingredients, and just never looks overwrought, leaves a very bad
particularly appetising. taste. Shall not be returning.

REVIEW 087
Corsage Directed by
Starring
MARIE KREUTZER
VICKY KRIEPS, COLIN MORGAN,
FINNEGAN OLDFIELD
Released 30 DECEMBER

W
hat starts with a bathtub ends with the sea in former lovers once taught her to ride horses and embrace her
Corsage, the latest from Austrian filmmaker Marie liberty. She poses for portraits dressed in ball gowns with white
Kreutzer. Is it breathing techniques Empress fur trim and red jewels, smoking lilac Sobranies – a vision in
Elisabeth of Austria is practising in the film’s opening scene, kitsch. Cinematographer Judith Kaufmann’s camera is rarely
making her maids count how long she can spend under her static, speaking to Elisabeth’s desire to roam, while the rich
bath water, or a dalliance with death? Is she looking for a way grain of 35mm adds a satisfying and beautiful texture to the film.
to end her life, or to save it? There is an intriguing sense of interior geography inside
Kreutzer’s costume-drama is an invigorating take on the the palace that represents Elisabeth’s home and prison. In
period piece, a vibrant film that rejects the staid conformity between the lavishly decorated bedrooms and dining halls
of the genre and finds its intimate angles. Ostensibly a film are blank and bare hallways that look as though they are made
about a royal woman in crisis, not dissimilar to Pablo Larraín’s from concrete. Servants linger, waiting for commands, but the
Spencer or Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, Corsage revels in director’s choice to return to these spaces gives them as much
the personality and conviction of Empress Elisabeth – played value as anywhere else. They become a sort of backstage area,
with wit and verve by the brilliant Vicky Krieps. Nearing her the link between the theatres of Elisabeth’s life.
40th birthday, the monarch is well aware of how the public will While markedly different from Kreutzer’s previous film,
look upon her as an older woman. She must both entertain and the excellent subdued psychological thriller The Ground
dismiss this – when she faints at a royal engagement there is an Beneath My Feet, Corsage is another example of the director’s
assumption that her expertly tightened corset (demanded by knack for astute depictions of women unravelling, searching
herself ) must have cut off her oxygen supply, but a subsequent for a sense of self. With her troupe of ladies-in-waiting by her
scene reveals her teaching a cousin how she faked the collapse. side, the Empress relaxes into a specifically feminine sphere of
Elisabeth toys with avoidance tactics and schemes to loyalty and support that guides her forward. Kreutzer crafts an
get herself out of the daily royal performance. On a quest for elegant portrait that grants this historical figure a new lease of
personal freedom, she travels to England and Bavaria where agency and autonomy. CAITLIN QUINLAN

ANTICIPATION. ENJOYMENT. IN RETROSPECT.

Kreutzer’s last feature was a A brilliantly crafted portrait of A lilting, heartfelt exploration
festival highlight and Vicky a woman on the brink. of family, memory and what it
Krieps is an undeniable star. means to be alive.

088 REVIEW
In conversation Interview by MARI NA ASHI OT I Illustration by ST ÉPHANI E SERGEANT

Vicky Krieps
Refashioning the quaint image of
the princess was not an easy task
finds the star of Marie Kruezer’s
regal satire, Corsage.

A
t the centre of Marie Kreuzer’s Corsage lies a spellbinding is very difficult to ride on a ladies’ saddle! It’s just bloody stupid.
performance by Vicky Krieps as the Empress Elisabeth of I loved the fencing, but I had to learn to do it with high shoes and
Austria, who, upon turning 40, begins to unravel and rebel a corset which, again, is bloody stupid. You can’t move. I could’ve
against her royal duties. The film marks a stunning run for the screamed all through the shoot because every single thing was
actor, following Phantom Thread and Bergman Island. annoying and made me feel trapped. When I wore the corset I
couldn’t eat solid foods, so I had to make smoothies and soups
LWLies: What were your first encounters with Empress and I could only eat at night. I knew probably every single thing
Elisabeth? Krieps: I knew her from the movies with Romy about her you can imagine. I was full of a million different things,
Schneider, which I was not allowed to watch at my house but once I was on set, I let it all go. In German we say ‘scheiß
because my mum was very emancipated. We didn’t have any drauf’, like I really didn’t give a shit, because she wouldn’t have
princess stuff, but my neighbours did, so I would watch the given a shit – and that’s what made her suffocate.
movies there. They also had the biography, and I read it. As I
got to the end of the book something started to feel very dark That definitely comes across in the ways you channel Sissi’s
and sad, and I remember just staying with this mystery. I could melancholy through mischief, which brought this dark
just sense there was something wrong, but I was too young to comedic element to the film. Sometimes when I needed
understand. There seemed to be a difference between what I strength – because it was very, very hard to make this movie
read and what I had seen in the Ernst Marischka movies. – I would close my eyes and hold Sissi on my right hand and
Romy Schneider on my left, and I would say: Okay, now we
What were the physical preparations you had to do? Everything go to the playground. I wanted to give this gift to them; the
[Laughs]. There was the horse riding on the ladies’ saddle, and it possibility to play, and misbehave, and make mistakes and
not be perfect. I wanted to break the image of the perfect
beautiful princess, of the perfect beautiful actress that Romy
Schneider had been trapped in. Both had suffered from the
same thing. There was no makeup on my face, and I know
that was such an important part of both their lives, trapped
in being beautiful and having to live up to that beauty. What
a terror, really!

I want to know what it was like to work with those beautiful

dogs. Oh, I love them… but to work with them was a pain in the
ass! This breed of dog isn’t made to be trained like that. They are
known to be almost like cats – very independent. But looking
back, I love that they were misbehaving. My dress was always full
of sausage for the dogs to follow me, but they still wouldn’t follow!
The costume designer had a fit because the dresses had grease
stains on them from the sausage. There’s a scene when Florian
Teichtmeister comes in the room while I’m naked in the bed, and
I think the dogs could feel something in his energy because they
started defending me

INTERVIEW 089
 1998 1 9 81

Croupier Son of the White Mare

Directed by MIKE HODGES Directed by MARCELL JANKOVICS

Starring CLIVE OWEN, ALEX KINGSTON, Starring GYÖRGY CSERHALMI, VERA PAP,
GINA MCKEE MARI SZEMES

Blu-ray/DVD Released 5 DECEMBER Blu-ray/DVD Released 3 JAN 2020

A lmost 30 years after his seminal Get Carter, Mike

Hodges returned to the crime genre with Croupier, a
slick, entertaining film about a writer who takes on work as
L ong understood to be one of the most significant works
of international animation, Marcell Jankovics’ The Son
of the White Mare has not been easy to see in the 40 years
a casino croupier in order to source material for a novel. It since its completion. Now restored to 4K, its availability has
is set within various dingy casinos, hotels, and after-hours been improved and it's clear to see why it has such a hallowed
clubs, the film’s depiction of a seedy, squalid sort of London reputation. Telling the folkloric story of a magical horse that
is frank and unglamorous, and its plot revolves around gives birth to three sons who, in turn, become tasked with
various petty acts of deception, an extra-marital affair and defending the planet from three rival multi-headed, hell-born
a low-level robbery. The stakes feel high enough to make the dragons, the film is a visually resplendent showcase for the
film feel narratively propulsive without ever becoming so Hungarian animator’s striking style of hand painted animation.
overdramatic as to seem unrealistic. Each new scene seems to outdo the psychedelic intensity of the
The slippery figure at the film’s centre, Jack (played by one that preceded it.
a young, suave Clive Owen), makes for an intriguing lead With eye-catching character designs and richly realised
character. Intended as a sort-of James Bond figure for the lad landscapes throughout, the film unfolds as a cascade of bold,
mag and Lock, Stock era, he instead comes off as privileged and bright colours and fluid geometric patterns. As the three sons
vaguely embarrassing, commenting on everything he observes see to their respective foes, learning more about themselves
in a dry, sometimes hammy interior monologue while moving and their developing powers, the film maintains its energy with
through the motions without any clear motivation beyond the aid of István Vajda’s bouncy symphonic score. No moment
a general self-destructive impulse. The film works best as a that is included seems superfluous. Each offers some kind of
documentary-like portrait of an underworld habituated by entertainment value or symbolic function. Four decades since
down-and-outs, drunks and small-time gangsters. Even those its making, Jankovics’ singular film hasn’t aged at all, still
who think they know how to beat the game end up coming out proving to be an original psychedelic experience and a one-of-
as losers. MATT TURNER a-kind creative and technical accomplishment. MATT TURNER

090 REVIEW
 1940 1991

Remember the Night Mississippi Masala

Directed by MITCHELL LEISEN Directed by MIRA NAIR

Starring BARBARA STANWYCK, FRED MACMURRAY, Starring DENZEL WASHINGTON, ROSHAN SETH,
BEULAH BONDI SARITA CHOUDHURY

Blu-ray/DVD Released 5 DECEMBER Blu-ray/DVD Released 12 DECEMBER

ow long have you been swiping?” John (Fred ira Nair’s Mississippi Masala starts with a nervy setup
“H MacMurray) asks Lee (Barbara Stanwyck), shortly
after she is caught shoplifting. “Always,” she replies with a smile,
M that suggests a different sort of film to the one that
follows. It opens in Kampala as young Mina (Sahira Nair) is in
unafraid of being judged for her life of indiscretions. John, danger, fleeing the country with her mother Kinnu (Sharmila
who she describes as a “straight shooter,” is supposed to be Tagore) and father Jay (Roshan Seth) that, as Ugandan Indians,
acting against her as a prosecutor for the state. Instead, he sees they had always called home. We then flash forward 17 years,
something in her and, after causing a delay in her sentencing, and Mina (played brilliantly as an adult by Sarita Choudhury),
ends up covering her bail in order to keep her out of jail. now 24, is living with her wider family in Mississippi. This initial
In what is a clear breach of his legal duties, he then takes scene-setting proves shows how the trauma the family faced
this fallen woman home with him from New York to Indiana, through their displacement travels with them across continents,
where they spread Christmas and New Year together with his causing repercussions that ripple through the generations.
family, a traditional, tight-knit unit who welcome her warmly Mina starts a slow-developing but passionate secret romance
despite her apparently unsavoury background. While there, with Demetrius (Denzel Washington), which is rumbled when
the pair warm to each other, undergoing a series of adventures Mina’s family catches them together on a clandestine getaway.
that show her the values of a virtuous life and teach him Mina’s parents do not approve of the relationship, particularly
to lighten up a little. In doing this, they reassess their own her father, who still harbours resentment towards Black people
understandings of life and how it should be lived, and what as a result of the persecution he faced in Uganda under Idi
exactly they want from it. When described, the film sounds Amin. As the couple try to push forward, Nair handles complex,
like standard classical Hollywood romantic fare, but it is tricky issues (including racism, colourism, culture clash and
considerably better. It is elevated by a smart and witty script displacement) with assurance, having them play out subtly in
from Preston Sturges and the unshowy turns of the two central the background of a well-told classical romantic narrative that is
performers, whose charisma and chemistry are clear from the pushed forward by two compelling, believable lead performers
film’s very first moments. MATT TURNER that it is impossible not to root for. MATT TURNER

REVIEW 091
 1 97 1

The Working Class

Goes to Heaven
1 9 97

Nil by Mouth
///
Directed by ELIO PETRI Directed by GARY OLDMAN
Starring GIAN MARIA VOLONTÉ, MARIANGELA Starring KATHY BURKE, CHARLIE CREED-MILES,
MELATO, GINO PERNICE RAY WINSTONE

Blu-ray/DVD Released 31 OCT Blu-ray/DVD Released 26 SEPT

A t the start of Elio Petri’s fiery factory drama The Working

Class Goes to Heaven, a union agitator trying to awaken
his enervated audience bellows that after just one shift in the
M any actors that turn to filmmaking show that going
behind the camera isn’t the best choice for them and that
their talents are instead best spent appearing on-screen. That
factory, “you will come out old and empty.” Instead of earning isn’t the case with Gary Oldman, whose first and, to date, only
a fair day’s wage, he argues, “you will have been robbed of eight feature, Nil by Mouth reveals him to be just as skilled a director
hours of your day.” Lulù Massa (Gian Maria Volonté), the as he is an actor, and also not the vainglorious sort who feels the
film’s lead, is initially dismissive of this rhetoric, committed need to place himself at the centre of his own creation.
to his work and proud about being one of the company’s most A grim portrait of a dysfunctional family that is punctuated
loyal and productive workers. But after a nasty workplace by moments of insight and levity, Nil by Mouth was a personal
injury which results in him losing a finger, he starts to see how film for Oldman. Set in New Cross, where Oldman grew up, the
oppressive the factory environment is. film is credited to his father, but considering it is a film about an
This angry, politically charged, but also often also funny film abusive patriarch, this dedication is not favourable. Featuring
is from an Italian director best known for the contemptuous substance abuse, brutal domestic violence, heavy drinking and
and satirical works of political cinema he made throughout near-constant heated disagreement, in Oldman’s kitchen sink
the 1960s and ’70s. Volonté gives an impassioned, committed vision of Britain, time moves slow, and life is full of suffering.
performance in which he is almost constantly shouting and Yet despite this dreariness, the film is compelling – if a
sweating, running back and forth between his home, his little baggy at the edges. The music cues are inspired, the
workplace. Petri films him in abrasive closeups, moving the cinematography is free-roaming and immersive, and all the
camera constantly to maintain the frenzied feeling of following performances are remarkable. Light on plot but full of expressive,
a man who is always about to break. Over its duration, the film expletive-heavy dialogue, it serves as a showcase for Ray
vividly shows how the system strangles its subjects, turning Winstone, Kathy Burke, Charlie Creed-Miles and Laila Morse,
the workers against each other and breaking both their bodies all of whom bring a larger-than-life intensity to their roles and
and brains. MATT TURNER yet somehow remain entirely believable. MATT TURNER

092 REVIEW
 LONDON
SURF
///////// FILM
FESTIVAL
2022
EST.
20
TH
EDITION
25 - 26 NOVEMBER 2022
RIVERSIDE STUDIOS, W6
2ND DECEMBER 2022
THE GENESIS, E1
PLUS A SERIES OF EVENTS
POPPING UP IN BETWEEN
25 PREMIERES PLUS Q&A’s,
SURF/FILM WORKSHOPS, MUSIC + MORE
ART/CULTURE ACROSS THE CAPITAL, ACROSS TWO WEEKS

London Surf / Film Festival is an Approaching Lines production

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Over.

On the cover
Jordan Andrew Carter is an artist based on
the fringe of London, mixing intricate pencil
work with lo-fi graphic shapes and mark
making to create bold, exciting imagery.

ig: jrdncrtr
Little White Lies Illustrators
Lillian Crawford is a freelance writer
Melina Ghadimi is a Tehran-based for publications including Empire, Sight
Published by TCO
Little White Lies – Huck – Sandwich illustrator and graphic designer, and is the & Sound, and BBC Culture, and is a
co-founder of Grama Studio. Contributing Writer at Girls on Tops. She
Words, pictures, thanks...
Kambole Campbell, Sarah Cleary, Lillian Crawford,
is a regular host of the Autism Through
Ella Kemp, Leila Latif, Nick Newman, Savina Petkova, Nick Taylor is an illustrator based in Cinema podcast and tweets @lillcrawf.
Caitlin Quinlan, Rafa Sales Ross, Patrick Sproull, Nottinghamshire, UK. He combines his
Kyle Turner, Matt Turner, Laura Venning.
love of drawing, collage, mark-making and Michael Leader is a film writer,
printing with digital techniques to create programmer and co-creator of the
bold, highly textured work. animation-focused podcast series
Ghibliotheque. He is co-author of the books
LWLies Publishing
Thomas Rouzière is based in Paris and ‘Ghibliotheque: The Unofficial Guide to the
Art Director Publisher graduated from EPSAA in Graphics Arts. Movies of Studio Ghibli’ and the newly-
Laurene Boglio Vince Medeiros He has since continued his career in released ‘Ghibliotheque Anime Movie
[email protected]
Special Projects illustration and comics. Guide’. Like Nic Cage’s character in The
Designer Steph Pomphrey
Emma Balebela [email protected] Rock, he is an unrepentant Beatlemaniac.
[email protected] Stéphanie Sergeant is a French
Legal
Editor Alex Wade illustrator/animator living and working in Nick Newman is Managing Editor of
David Jenkins
[email protected] Studio Manager Poland. She mostly works with watercolour The Film Stage, an American publication
Mattia Stompo
Digital Editor and animates in 2D. She likes spaghetti and devoted to international cinema. He lives in
[email protected]
Hannah Strong
General Manager
the dark, long process of animation. New York and, if you’re visiting, will gladly
[email protected]
Wendy Klerck recommend Brooklyn’s best Chinese-
Editor-at-Large
Adam Woodward The Outsiders Project
Feature writers Trinidadian restaurant.
[email protected]
Director
Editorial Assistant Phil Young Jeff Billington is a freelance film writer Kyle Turner is a queer writer based
Marina Ashioti [email protected] and editor, and booklet editor for in Brooklyn, NY. His writing on film,
[email protected]
The articles appearing in
Powerhouse Films’ Indicator series queerness, and culture has been featured
Contributing Editor
Sophie Monks Kaufman this publication reflect of Blurays. in W Magazine, The Village Voice, Slate GQ
[email protected] the opinions of their and The New York Times. He is relieved to
respective authors and
Interns Charles Bramesco is a film and TV know that he is not a golem.
not necessarily those
Jamison Kent
Finlay Spencer
of the publishers or critic living in Brooklyn. A former staff
editorial team.
writer for Rolling Stone, he has also been
TCO - Agency
TCO London 2022 (c) featured in The New York Times, New York
Managing Director Address Magazine, The Guardian, and many other
Simon Baker UNIT 2H, Zetland House fine publications. His first book, a volume
[email protected] 109-123 Clifton Street
London, EC2A 4LD on vampire movies for LWLies’ ‘Close-Ups’
Creative Director
Andrea Kurland
+44 (0) 207-729-3675 series, is on sale now, and his second book,
tcolondon.com
[email protected]
[email protected]
‘Colours of Film: The Story of Cinema in
Design Director 50 Palettes’, will be published in February
Tertia Nash LWLies is published 2023.
[email protected] five times a year.
Creative Strategy and Advertise in LWLies
Content Lead [email protected] Sarah Cleary is a freelance writer and
Sarah O’Kane filmmaker based in London. In addition
Stock LWLies
sarah.okane@
Circulation Marketing & to her creative endeavours, she’s also an
tcolondon.com
Distribution
Associate Creative Intermedia Brand
usherette at The Prince Charles Cinema, just
Director Marketing Ltd off Leicester Square.
Andrew Keresztes [email protected]
[email protected] +44 (0)1293 312110
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Phil Concannon is a London-based writer
Chloe Dyson Specialist Distribution who contributes to publications such as
[email protected] MMS Ltd
[email protected]
LWLiess, Sight & Sound and The Skinny.
TCO - Printworks +44 (0)1992 676064 He is also a member of The Badlands
Head of Books Collective, a group dedicated to
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Clive Wilson programming 35mm screenings of
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lwlies.com overlooked and undervalued films.
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