Female Film Critics 24/375
The trauma of an abusive relationship resurfaces in Resurrection, a thriller that Rebecca Hall centers with a get-under-your-skin performance, even as the film turns into bonkers territory. For a while, Resurrection lives in that relatable, uneasy space when something reminds us of a version of ourselves we thought we’d outgrown. The gory climax leaves viewers wondering what they’ve just watched—and if the running time was worth the trouble.
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Sundown offers a painstaking character study with family dynamics. How does any writer/director cinematically dramatize the life of a middle-aged man, ensnared in ennui, relatively emotionless? That’s the challenge Michel Franco confronts in Sundown. Well, first, to infuse interest, he locates the wealthy British family on vacation at an upscale Acapulco resort, though the sun-drenched beaches and the infinity pool contrast strikingly with the Bennetts’ inertia.
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Invoking multiple references to iconic Swedish director Ingmar Bergman sets writer/director Mia Hansen-Løve’s film Bergman Island up for an inevitable comparison with that revered legend’s work. In fact, as Hansen- Løve says in a press interview, her interpersonal drama, taking place entirely on Bergman’s beloved Fårö Island, is “haunted by his work and his presence,” as reflected throughout her film.
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Art imitates life and life imitates art in Mia Hansen-Løve’s leisurely, introspective drama Bergman Island. The film follows partners/fellow screenwriters Chris (Vicky Krieps) and Tony (Tim Roth) as they retreat to Fårö, the remote island that celebrated Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman called home. Eager for both inspiration and connection, the pair — especially Chris — instead find themselves restless and sometimes at odds. As their story unspools, so does that of the screenplay for which Chris is determined to find an ending.
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The main focus of director-screenwriter Mia Hansen-Love’s meditative comedy-drama is Tony (Tim Roth) and Chris (Vicky Krieps), a couple who are both director-writers and parents of a young girl. Both are hoping find inspiration by soaking up the genius vibes of a master of cinema known for exploring the often dour circumstances of the human condition. They even rent the cottage and sleep in the double bed used for Ingmar Bergman’s 1973 divorce drama Scenes From a Marriage.
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A relationship drama, razor sharp character study and a poignant portrait of the overlapping of life and art and the blurring fiction and autobiography, “Bergman Island” is a sumptuous addition to writer/director Mia Hansen-Løve’s already impressive body of work. The setting is Faro Island where Swedish director Ingmar Bergman lived, worked and shot many of his famous films. But Hansen-Løve isn’t trying for homage or even for her own “Bergmanesque” movie. Her work is far too original for that. Instead, she’s created a story about life and art with tender insight, humor and without a whiff of pretension.
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Pain lies in the switchbacks in time in The Song of Names. The title, which remains opaque until the middle of the story, refers to the dead, chanted for ease of memorizing. This litany names the dead at Treblinka, an extermination camp in Poland during the Holocaust.
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Luce will disturb audiences well after the credits have rolled. There are so many issues being played out in the form of social acceptance and pressure, racism, entitlement and what face the truth takes. At the end of the day, we’re left with questions about the pressures one encounters simply by being a human navigating in this world that moves at warp speed.
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When Luce Edgar’s stern history teacher questions his provocative essay about West Indian radical political philosopher Frantz Fanon and, subsequently, finds a bag of illegal fireworks in his locker, Luce’s reputation is called into question. Parent-teacher confrontations, monitored by the principal, raise pertinent questions about racial identity and prejudice.
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Director Julius Onah’s Luce trades on the perplexing challenge of accurately accessing character, even in individuals known quite well and occasionally on public display. Add to that a Rashomon factor, that is, the subjective trap for everyone of their own status and personality, and the complications multiply, the film’s audience included as we second guess our own judgments.
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