July 2024

Kinds of Kindness (2024)

With the exuberant trails of Poor Things barely in rear view, my good pal Yorgos Lanthimos is back, returning to his ruthless, Dogtooth styled roots of clinical cringe and devious discomfort.

Whilst the bold maximalism of Poor Things left me swooning, Kinds of Kindness excels in portraying Yorgos' alternative spikier side of a suffocating, cling-film wrap of emotional dissonance - if you described human affection and relationships to aliens and they made a movie about it, this is pretty much what you would get. It's a malicious, funhouse-mirror of reality, with the episodic structure heightening the raw, air-tight vacuum of feeling between screen and spectator.

But perhaps I've become too accustomed to his more 'accessible' offerings: the typical sardonic Lanthimos laughs were sparse for me, unlike Poor Things' near perfect balance of hilarity as well as the squeamish. Kinds of Kindness, in contrast, is colder than cold - it's freezing. You're solidifying in the icy stew of Yorgos' brain for three hours. For some, this will be insufferable, but as a fan of the director, it was a welcome venture back into his absurd brand of wickedness.

Also seeing it in 35mm was a real treat!

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)

Whilst you were watching the Euros game, I was watching a woman have sex with a fish.

This was my first exposure to Apichatpong Weerasethakul and....um....huh....uhhhhh?? Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed my time with Uncle Boonmee. Experiencing the wavering, quiet drifts of wandering souls amongst the cacophonous chirps of crickets was a tantalizing breath of enlightenment, as they materialise to their living relatives through a comforting dream-like haze: ghosts don't haunt locations, they cling to people.

The film's kind heart is something I adored, but getting to that heart is often a strenuous task. Uncle Boonmee is slow. Molasses running down a wall would be jealous. Part of me was content just basking in the atmosphere, but as the runtime ticked, as the narrative became increasingly cryptic, and those crickets were still bloody chirping, a faint tinge of frustration was amidst, resulting in Uncle Boonmee feeling like one of the most gratingly flawed masterpieces I've recently seen. It's so, so, so close to being one of the greats, just not today.

I look forward to delving deeper into Weerasethakul's filmography, with this film remaining a perplexingly beautiful enigma to me. And yes, a woman does indeed, fuck a fish.

MaXXXine (2024)

I'm starting to think Pearl was just a fluke...

It's disappointing to see Ti West go from helming a genuinely enthralling, well- disciplined character study, to scurrying back to his Tarantino-esque fanboyisms of hollow pastiche: case in point, Maxxxine.

Admittedly, there is a hefty amount of mindless fun to be had with West's neon-coated, gore-soaked menagerie. I enjoy seeing a dude's nuts get obliterated by heels as much as the next guy, but the weightlessness of such thrills and frivolity of the 80s iconography simply felt flimsy, with a lot of the structure, momentum and narrative rhythm being swamped and butchered, replaced with a main superficial goal of incessantly 'looking cool'. The film amounts to a shallow miscellanea of 'bits' for West to play around with like toys, a lot of them pretty entertaining, but a step-down from the strict, yet creatively satisfying maturity of Pearl.

It also features probably the worst Yorkshire accent I've ever heard. Like Lily Collins, c'mon man...

I Saw the TV Glow (2024)

I've been trying to compose my thoughts for four days now - the films of Jane Schoenbrun seem to possess this uncanny ability to hone in on the ultra-specific, capturing the hauntingly familiar with an almost eerie comprehension: I Saw the TV Glow shook me. It confronted me with the repressed, yet sincere reflection of evacuating into media and film to escape the hostilities of reality, when a favourite show was a non-judgemental, neutral haven - a place that transcends the feeling of 'living'; an outer-body experience

Much discussion and rightful celebration has been hailed at TV Glow’s transgender allegory, clearly something deeply autobiographical to Schoenbrun themself. However, I'd like to offer an alternate reading, one through a lens of neurodivergent experience. As someone on the spectrum, the world isn't really built for me: it's loud and confusing and scary, but engaging with a special interest is one of the few moments I feel 'right' - a place where you make sense. Schoenbrun expertly observes both the comfort and isolation within that notion; it's painful and beautiful simultaneously, in addition to an absolutely brutal meltdown scene (portrayed excellently by Justice Smith), conveying a gut-punch of autistic-coded distress.

Much like how The Pink Opaque feels "more real than real life" for our protagonists, I can see TV Glow having a similar effect on many, many viewers. This is an incredibly special piece of work that I'm so glad exists.