Welcome to my monthly round up post. Here you will find all my writing from the previous month, plus a look at everything I watched.
I spent the first half of July at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic, so most of what I wrote last month came out of that festival, as will most of this recap newsletter. I did, however, also write a few things not related the festival, also linked out below:
Female Filmmakers In Focus: Agnieszka Holland on Green Border
65 Years Later, the Most Notorious Sci-Fi Movie Ever Made is Better Than You Remember (on Plan 9 From Outer Space)
On to this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. I had such an amazing time this year and since my workload was a little bit lighter I got to see a lot more of the films programmed (33 in total). In fact, I saw all but one of the films competing for the Crystal Globe, the festival’s top prize. Of course, the one film I missed was the big winner, but so it goes!
I meant to write a proper recap of the festival when I got back to the U.S. after the festival in mid-July, but then I found it incredibly hard to focus on, well, anything given everything that was happening here politically. So I hope you all enjoy this super-packed edition of my monthly wrap-up that doubles as a KVIFF recap.
There is a moment in Viggo Mortensen’s sophomore directorial effort, the sublime western The Dead Don’t Hurt, that has been haunting me ever since I saw the film weeks ago. Mortensen plays Holger, a Danish immigrant living in the American West, who meets and falls hard for a French-Canadian florist named Vivienne Le Coudy (Vicky Krieps). After a whirlwind romance (the chemistry between Krieps and Mortensen is absolutely off the charts), Vivienne decides to leave San Francisco and live with Holger in the remote desert town of Elk Flats, Nevada. She doesn’t want to get married, but she does want to make a life with this man. Soon after they begin building this life together in his faraway homestead, Holger finds himself drawn to fight for the Union in the American Civil War. Vivienne won’t make him stay. In fact, she’s already found herself a job in town. Things should have been fine, but the town’s worst man (Solly McLeod, a live wire) sets his eyes on Vivienne and things go decidedly bad. At the end of the war Holger returns to more than just his life with Vivienne, and after processing his feelings on the situation, he accepts their new life. After their reconciliation, the family goes horseback riding over a creek and as they cross Vivienne outstretches her hand, pulling Holger along the trail with her. It’s a beautiful, subtle, patient moment of love found and love shared. A lot more happens in this film, but I’ve left a lot of the plot out because I think the film is best watched knowing as little as possible. If you are a fan of either star, this is the up there with the best they’ve ever been. I had missed seeing this film at both TIFF and Chicago Critics Film Festival, so I am grateful I got to see the it on the big screen. But if you missed it too, it’s out now on VOD.
Payal Kapadia’s stridently feminist film All We Imagine as Light follows three women (Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, and Chhaya Kadam) as they make their way through modern life in Mumbai. As melancholic as it is hopeful, Kapadia’s film shines a light on the importance of women sticking together, the loneliness that so can so easily creep into urban life, and the many ways that societal pressures, and sometimes even policy, so often actively seek to sap independence and agency away from women. The cinematography from Ranabir Das paints the whole thing with a hazy glow, like the heat waves bouncing off the streets, making the Mumbai feel both intimate and expansive. This beautiful film will be playing the fall film festivals, so if you are attending one that is screening it definitely make it a priority.
Banned in its home country for painting it in a “bad light” (aka showcasing homsexuality), Truong Minh Quy’s fever dream of a drama Viet and Nam is one of the year’s most achingly romantic films. Phąm Thanh Hài and Đào Duy Bào Đįnh star as two gay coal miners preparing for a treacherous emigration journey, while also grappling with the lingering ghosts (both literal and manifest) of the Vietnam War. I had the privilege of speaking with Quy at KVIFF about his special film. The interview should be published in Reverse Shot sometime in the next few months, so keep an eye out for that.
I know that audiences and critics alike were really mixed on Coralie Fargeat’s art house body horror dark comedy The Substance out of its premiere at Cannes, but it hit me like a slap in the face. Demi Moore gives a fearless performance as a once famous actress who now makes a living hosting a daytime fitness show. When a network exec (a truly grotesque Dennis Quaid) throws her on the trash heap in favor of a younger host, she takes drastic measures to regain her confidence. That means ingesting the titular substance which promises to create younger, better version of herself (Margaret Qualley). Things of course quickly go awry. Ultimately, it’s a great entry in the LA Hates Itself genre and a clear-eyed, if definitely not subtle, examination of what it is to age as a woman within the Hollywood machine. The film is so viscerally upsetting at parts that by the end the entire audience was cringing and hiding their faces in their arms. There was even a woman a few seats down from me who was literally shaking and crying. I recommend viewing the film knowing very little about the plot beyond what I outlined above, but I will say that the very last shot is it the best representation of the grotesque contrast between the prestige of having your star on the Walk of Fame and what Hollywood Blvd is actually like. I’m sure its core message doesn’t work for everyone, but as I’ve aged, I have also begun to be harsher on myself than I know I should, and this film goes to the extremes to remind us that we should be kinder to both our younger selves and our older selves. For a lot of us, the fight against internalized misogyny and self-hatred caused by the ridiculous beauty standards we judge ourselves against is often a never-ending battle, but it doesn't need to be. This film is set to play TIFF’s Midnight Madness and will be out via Mubi in late September.
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, Zambian-Welsh filmmaker Rungano Nyoni’s follow up to I Am Not A Witch, takes similar aim at the various traditions of Zambian society that actively work against the freedom and independence of its women, as well as how generations of women will uphold these traditions, despite the harm they know it will cause the next generation. After finding her Uncle’s lifeless body laying on a dirt road late at night, Shula (Susan Chardy) must return home for his days-long funeral rites. While the film at first takes on the trappings of a traditional social realist drama, Nyoni slowly peals back layers of both Zambian and cinematic tradition until the film’s incredible final sequence, which defies both. A24 has set an early December awards qualifying release date for the film.
I’ve wanted to see Bruce Weber’s Chet Baker documentary Let’s Get Lost for about as long as I’ve known who Chet Baker was (aka decades), but it was always somehow not available. So when it was playing at KVIFF this year, I made it a top priority and I was not disappointed. Thankfully it is one of the few docs that is actually as interesting as its subject. Shot in Weber’s trademark luscious black and white, it’s raw and dreamy and savage all at once. What I really love about it is that it manages to be somehow both hagiographic about Baker the musician while at the same time being a brutally honest portrait of a man who, for most of his life, was truly awful to those who loved him. I hope whatever rights issues keep this in limbo get cleared up so that it can find new life on home video and streaming.
Speaking of movies that were like a big slap in the face, Lilja Ingolfsdottir’s Elskling (Loveable), which broke a festival record with its five awards, truly hit me like a ton of bricks. It’s a very honest movie about how hard it is to build a life with someone, including building a life with yourself. Helga Guren is astonishing in the lead role of Maria, a forty-year-old woman on her second marriage who is struggling to balance her work ambitions, her parenting, and her romantic relationship with her husband Sigmund (Oddgeir Thune). In an early montage we see how Maria pursued Sigmund and the early heat of their relationship, which is then contrasted with the cold and stagnant place they find themselves in just as their relationship implodes. This all happens in the first twenty minutes or so. The rest of the film follows Maria as she works on getting her life back in order — her life, not necessarily her marriage. Through extended therapy sessions we explore Maria’s interiority, her pride and her weaknesses and her trauma. Key scenes are played back for us as the therapist asks Maria to focus on certain elements like her feelings or motivations or even Sigmund’s reactions or body language. I was in awe of Ingolfsdottir’s ability to make therapy cinematic and even entertaining. I saw a lot of myself in Maria, especially her worst traits. There was also a scene in which Maria visits her mother and both women set each other on edge, knowing just how to do it, just what to say so their words prick like a scratch. Readers, I felt seen. By the end of the film it was almost like I had been through a therapy session myself, and I was better for it. I think the film is still seeking U.S. distribution, but it’s from the same producer as The Worst Person in the World, and I think would play well to audiences who enjoyed that film, so I’m sure it will find a home soon.
Rumours, the latest film from idiosyncratic Canadian auteur Guy Maddin and his recent collaborators Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson, has arrived at the perfect time. Fascism is on the rise globally. Politics, especially in the United States, are a farce. Our politicians can barely speak coherent sentences and are definitely not going to save us. A.I. and climate change are ready to swallow us all whole. Sometimes you just have to laugh at it all to keep yourself from crying your eyes out. This is set for an early October release here in the U.S., just in time for some big event in November.
One reason I was glad to have more time to watch the Crytal Globe films this year was because I wanted to see more of the Czech films. This in turn led me to the kind of sweet, little gem you hope to discover at a film festival like this. Beata Parkanová’s Světýlka (Tiny Lights) is shot almost entirely from the perspective of its wee protagonist, Amálka (newcomer Mia Bankó) over the course of one day. Her parents are going through a breakup and the girl is spending the day with her grandparents. We get glimpses of the marital strife when Amálka peaks through doors, but mostly we just follow the girl’s day as her grandparents try to shield her from the grief. But of course, kids are not stupid, and Amálka knows things are not right, even if she’s not really old enough to completely comprehend what she sees is happening or articulate how it is making her feel. Instead, she acts out in the only ways she knows how (trapping a cat in a toy box, picking a fight with another girl at the beach, destroying her neighbor’s flowers). Parkanová’s film has a light touch, but is filled to the brim with Amálka’s expansive childhood emotions. At times I almost felt like I was watching a portrait of myself as a child (down to Amálka’s relationship with her cat). Despite it’s universal themes, I don’t know if this will get distribution outside of the Czech Republic, but I sure hope it will.
Bezvetrije (Windless) from Bulgarian director Pavel G. Vesnakov was not a film I had on my radar until Robert watched it and said it was the best thing he had seen at the entire festival. His praise was not overhyped. This is a remarkable film, and another one that hit me on a very personal level. After the death of his father, Kaloyan (Ognyan Pavlov) returns from Spain to his small hometown in rural Bulgaria, where he not only confronts the lingering trauma of his childhood, but also begins to learn that there was more to his father than he ever knew. As takes the time to really know what kind of man his father was from the villagers who knew him, Kaloyan begins to feel a deep love for both his father and for his home, feelings that he never even knew existed within himself. But this awareness may have come too late, as the town is slowly being turned into a ghost town, gobbled up by capitalism and neglect. I felt this film in my bones. This is another one that I do not believe has U.S. distribution just yet.
I almost didn’t have time to see Subhadra Mahajan’s Second Chance, but I am so glad I made time for this film. It follows Nia (Dheera Johnson), who travels to her family’s summer retreat in the snow-covered Himalayas to recuperate after an abortion. There she finds community and comfort with Bhemi, the caretaker’s mother-in-law, and Sonny, the old woman’s grandson. It’s a simple, subtle, soft film. Swapnil Suhas Sonawane’s crisp black and white cinematography somehow makes everything even softer, almost soothing. It also had my favorite scene from the entire film festival, where Nia’s bottle up emotions explode out of her and literally become fireworks. The sequence is a vivid and intense contrast to the softness of the rest of the film, but works because even in moments of healing, you often need that feeling of true catharsis to complete the process. Also, there is an absolutely adorable kitten in this film. This is another one I hope becomes accessible to a wider audience because we all need to remember how both nature and a nurturing community are essential for self-care.
One of the last films I saw at the festival was Iranian directing duo Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghaddam’s latest film My Favourite Cake, which is a beautiful, bittersweet romance. Like many of the films out this year, it’s got a distinctly feminist bent as it critiques the way modern Iran curtails the freedoms of its people, most especially women its women. Lili Farhadpour plays Mahin, an older woman who has lived alone in Tehran since her husband’s death and her daughter left to live abroad. Although Mahin has her simple pleasures, she is beginning to miss intimacy and the distinct pleasure that comes from sharing your life with someone, as well as the freedom she enjoyed before the revolution. A chance meeting with a cab driver (Esmaeel Mehrabi) offers Mahin a glimpse of the life she’s do dearly missed, but fate may have other plans. I believe this film is still seeking U.S. distribution, but will likely continue playing the festival circuit.
The best film I saw at the entire festival was Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor’s No Other Land, which I wrote about in depth already. Read that review below.
After coming home from KVIFF, I saw a few other films that have stayed with me.
I found Osgood Perkins’ satanic thriller Longlegs to be deeply, deeply unsettling. I wish it didn’t over-explain itself at the end, but I absolutely love the off-kilter vibes of this film. Marc Bolan innocent.
I hope to write more in depth about Mike Cheslik’s silent slapstick wonder Hundreds of Beavers later, but for now I just want to say this film is the kind of audacious filmmaking that all indie filmmakers should be striving for.
I wrote a bit about J. Reem Salloum’s Slingshot Hip Hop in a previous newsletter and I wish it were still available streaming somewhere, but I am grateful that Le Cinema Club gave it a platform, even if it was so brief. If you’ve seen the Irish language film Kneecap, which played at Sundance and Tribeca and KVIFF and opens theatrically this week, then you know the power that hip hop had to galvanize the Northern Ireland to fight to save their language. Salloum’s film similarly shows how the art helped a generation of musicians in Palestine express their own emotions and preserve their own culture. It’s a powerful thing.
I am so glad I finally saw Lizzie Borden’s Regrouping, which had been unavailable for so long but is now streaming on the Criterion Channel. The first film in what has been dubbed Borden’s “Feminisms trilogy,” the experimental doc places Borden at the center of a women’s group in New York City on the edge of implosion. All three of Borden’s films (this, Born In Flames, and Working Girls), are essential cinema because they are willing to not just explore the importance of feminism, but also critique its inevitable shortcomings. The films are a clarion call to keep striving, keep listening, keep discussing, keep working towards a better world for us all.
P.S. - Don’t forget every week on Friday afternoons paid subscribers get my Directed By Women Viewing Guide, with picks for new releases and streaming hidden gems.