Review

Cloud

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Yoshii with a gun pointing towards the camera

What would online life be like if actions had consequences like they do in the real world? That seems to be the motivating energy behind Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cloud (Kuraudo), an overlong but fascinating thriller yanking a thread that’s visible from the start, though it takes a while to realise that it’s there. Ryôsuke Yoshii (Masaki Suda) has a traditional job in a factory making stuff. His boss likes him and wants to promote him, setting him off on a safe, decent and traditional career. But there is more to Yoshii’s life than the day job. He also has a side hustle buying distressed goods at knockdown prices and selling them online for a … Read more

100 Years of… 3 Bad Men

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The three bad men point their guns at the camera

3 Bad Men was John Ford’s last silent western, though it was obviously never billed as such (who knew, when it opened, that the silent era would end within a couple of years?). The unannounced end of an era was released in 1926 and Ford wouldn’t return to the genre until Stagecoach in 1939. It’s a Ford classic, though you can see all the key elements in this earlier film – admirably straightforward storytelling through powerful characters against stunning backdrops. For those who consider silent movies to be a lesser art form, the unsophisticated predecessor to the real deal, this could be an eye opener. It’s ironic, for a start, and that starts with … Read more

Bugonia

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Emma Stone with shaved head

A remake of Save the Green Planet!, a South Korean movie from 2003, Bugonia fiddles with details and genders but tells essentially the same story – conspiratorially minded eco-warriors kidnap a chemical industry boss convinced that there’s an alien invasion imminent and use torture to extract the vital details that will save planet Earth. Jang Joon-hwan made the original and was all lined up to direct this English-language remake but in the end Yorgos Lanthimos stepped in, bringing in his favourite actress, Emma Stone, to play one of the leads. Now the chemicals boss man is a biopharma boss lady, and the kidnappers are a boggle-eyed dude (Jesse Plemons) and his autistic cousin … Read more

The Chase

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Scotty and Lorna dancing

The Chase is an “And Peter Lorre” movie from 1946, and though he’s not in it that much, he provides a good bit of the flavour of this very odd movie about a genial nobody who winds up in the employ of a psychopath, falls for his woman and then runs off to Cuba with her. Robert Cummings is top-billed and is the everyday nobody, a down-on-his-luck war veteran who finds a wallet and, having treated himself to a decent breakfast, returns it to its owner. Impressed with the guy’s honesty – Chuck Scott fesses up to the breakfast – rich gangster Eddie Roman (Steve Cochran) offers him a job as a driver. … Read more

Reflection in a Dead Diamond

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The young John D driving a car

Arthouse discovers the rigours of genre in Reflection in a Dead Diamond (Reflet dans un diamant mort), a vogue-ing pastiche of Bond movies with a bit of Death in Venice. If you like the work of Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani, who have been doing this sort of thing for over 20 years, in films like Amer, The Strange Colour of Your Body’s Tears and Let the Corpses Tan, this will be catnip. Personally, I thought this latest feature – brilliantly assembled though it is – exposed a weak flank. They can make the richest, lushest and most referential movies possibly ever. But can they tell a good story? They would probably argue … Read more

The Life of Oharu

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Oharu as a young woman in the court

The Life of Oharu is one of the Criterion Collection, which means it’s reckoned to be up there with the very best – by one outfit at least. The great director Lucile Hadžihalilović also rates it highly – it’s her favourite film by Kenji Mizoguchi and, she says, “the most poignant film I have ever seen about the life of a woman.” If you know Hadžihalilović’s films (like Innocence or The Ice Tower) watching The Life of Oharu is a real ah-haa experience. So this is where Hadžihalilović got so much of what she’s about. Talent borrows, genius steals, as someone famous once said (Oscar Wilde, Pablo Picasso or TS Eliot are all … Read more

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

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Close up of Linda

Rose Byrne has been acting since she was 15, but it wasn’t until If I Had Legs I’d Kick You that some people started noticing how good she is – no matter how much money movies like Bridesmaids or Insidious make, it takes a “serious” movie to unlock some people’s critical reward system. But she is good in this. And she has to be, because this entire exercise in performative neurosis revolves around her. In fact the camera is on her so much that almost no one else features, and we only get to see her daughter – a bone of some contention throughout – right at the end. Which is how (once … Read more

Suspense

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Belita and Barry Sullivan stare into each other's eyes in a publicity shot

Film noir on ice! Suspense is a bit of a mess and the critics didn’t like it much when it came out in 1946. But the years have added a touch of fairy dust and there’s enough in here to entertain and delight, plus some decent performances, fine noirish lighting and a sense of paranoia towards the end so intense it’s almost as if Franz Kafka had a hand in things. In short it’s the story of a drifter who gets a job on an ice show and then falls for the boss’s wife, who is the show’s star attraction. At a certain point the boss disappears under an avalanche, leaving the way … Read more

Souleymane’s Story

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Close up of Souleymane

Souleymane’s Story got lots of love on the festival circuit and made it onto quite a number of the Best Of 2025 lists. And yet it’s about the immigrant experience. I say “And yet” because, face it, your heart sinks a bit at the prospect of watching some poor sap having a relentlessly terrible time at the hands of the authorities. Director Boris Lojkine clearly understands that too, and has decided that the way to persuade audiences to watch his film is to give them energy and thriller vibes. An Uncut Gems of the French sans papiers is the result. It’s a familiar story, following Souleymane (Abou Sangaré), who works as a food-delivery … Read more

Fantômas

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René Navarre as the disguised Fantômas

With a new Fantômas film in the works, a quick look at the first one, Fantômas: À l’ombre de la guillotine (aka Fantomas: In the Shadow of the Guillotine), which came out in 1913. Which is, let’s face it, a hell of a long time ago. Remarkably, it stands up pretty well and is a good reminder that the camp and larky Fantômas we know today (if we only know the 1960s movies) owes quite a lot to The Pink Panther. This Fantômas is more sombre. A creature of the underworld, a criminal first and foremost, he’s a master of disguise, which director Louis Feuillade conveys in the opening montage of Fantômas looking … Read more