In ‘Lingui, The Sacred Bonds’, is an empowering drama about a Muslim woman who desperately tries to help her daughter get an abortion when it is legally and morally forbidden.
‘Violet’ uses a mix of audio and visual elements to convey a woman’s inner turmoil as she wrestles with feelings of not being good enough and the desire to be who she wants.
The Father puts viewers in the shoes of Anthony (Sir Anthony Hopkins), an affluent retiree entering the late stages of dementia. Unwilling to admit he needs assistance, he’s rudely run-off several caregivers hired by his daughter, Anne (Olivia Colman). In the meantime, Anthony wanders around in his pyjamas more frequently, fails to recognize his family or his surroundings, and loses track in the midst of basic tasks.
In Ammonite, two women are reborn via their love for each other, even though their affair begins with an expiry date. Mary Anning (Kate Winslet) was a skilled, 19th century paleontologist. However, due to her gender, she was not accepted by her peers. One day a young man arrives with his mourning wife, Charlotte (Saoirse Ronan), and asks Mary to spend time with her during her convalescence. After a rocky start, the pair embark on an intense relationship that significantly changes both of their lives.
Based on historical circumstances, groups of people are pigeonholed into certain types of narratives. That’s not to say those stories aren’t true, but there’s also an argument to be made that other tales are equally true. For Indigenous people, movies often focus on the difficulties of maintaining their traditions, injustices perpetrated by the government, the impact of residential schools, the disproportionate rates of addiction and suicide, and other “problems.” But they’re also just people with jobs, families, relationships, dreams and regular stories to tell. In Kuessipan, two young women from the same Quebec Innu community find they have less in common the older they become.
Knowing you have a gift and not being able to use it to its full potential is one of the most frustrating feelings. Add to that the exasperation of being a teenager with few choices, the vexation of not fitting in or being cool, and the annoyance of being relatively poor, and there really is nowhere to go but up… and then possibly back down again really fast and hard. The key is to eventually find the niche that complements the real you and not some version created for dramatic effect. In How to Build a Girl, a young woman finds someone else before finally finding herself.
Being a famous child actor is a difficult gig as you’re constantly in demand and living any semblance of a normal life may be out of the question with shoots and promotional tours filling your calendar. It was even worse before the rules protecting kids, regulating their work hours and mandating school work, were put into place. Before that, young actors were pushed to their limits with long work days, uncaring handlers and mismanaged careers. Judy Garland was America’s sweetheart, but it didn’t do her any favours in life. The biopic, Judy, is adapted from the stage play, “End of the Rainbow,” and portrays her final residence at a London nightclub in 1968.
It’s not a secret that mainstream Western films, particularly those produced by the Hollywood machine, follow a generic set of rules that dictate character development, storytelling style, visual specs and cast types. These formulas are being increasingly challenged, but they’re not going anywhere any time soon. Therefore, one of the best ways to have a different film experience is to seek out movies from other countries — particularly those establishing their film industry and culture within the constraints of their country’s resources. Crazy World is a Ugandan action movie made in their unique style with a pre-recorded “video joker” commentary.
Trickle down systems are a hierarchal structure in which something — typically information and/or money — begins at the top and is passed through to the bottom, usually reaching its final destination in a vastly reduced state, if at all. Obviously, those above a certain threshold benefit from this arrangement, while those below are keenly aware of its negatives. The goal, of course, is to climb above the line and be one of the advantageous, which can create a cutthroat environment and a by-any-mean-necessary mentality. The Platform takes this construction, but applies it to a month’s food supply in a dystopian future.
Love is a tricky emotion because even though you love something or someone, you don’t necessarily have to like them too — at least not all of the time. But it’s in those moments of dislike that love is most important because it keeps you tethered, for better or worse. This happens often between family members and on a similar level, professional athletes. The time to worry is when the scales are weighing more heavily on the negative side. In Jungleland, adult siblings cling to their love for each other and boxing, but the ties that bind them aren’t as strong as they used to be.
It’s not as difficult to gain a following in the genre community as enthusiasts appreciate filmmakers who can think out of the box and offer fresh concepts in a market saturated by recycled ideas. It starts with the one breakout film that only a small portion of the community saw, but made a significant impression. Then their next movie gets some more buzz and the next a little more, until people are watching a movie simply because their name is attached. This was to some extent the case for directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead whose latest feature is Synchronic.
In the age of the internet and social media, there is a permanent record of almost everything. But there was once a time when the sins of your past could be buried and the only chance of it resurfacing was someone spilling the beans or inadvertently coming across evidence. For those who eventually rose to positions of power or found legitimate success, this is a danger that constantly lurks on the horizon and threatens to potentially destroy everything they built. Unfortunately, leaving the past in the past isn’t always a unanimous decision. In Spider, the third point of a triangle returns and his former partners do everything they can to silence him.
