May watchlist (5 films)

What I watched last month for the first time.

I’m surprised by how few films I watched for the first time this month. I’ve been enjoying some repeat viewings (Forrest Gump, for example, I mentioned in a previous post), and also watching a lot of series. But I’ve been a lot more selective in what I spend my time on, so I’d recommend any of these films. In no particular order…

Evil Does Not Exist

2024, dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Earlier this year I had watched Drive My Car which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2022. I loved that film’s slow-burn which allowed for a depth of character I hadn’t seen in film for a long time. So as soon I heard of Evil Does Not Exist I had to jump on Hamaguchi’s next film.

A small Japanese town where the residents are proud of their natural mineral water which they drink directly from the streams and use locally is suddenly threatened by a corporate glamping (glamorous-camping) company which is going to compromise, if not destroy, the water, as well as the wild deer’s natural pathway. The residents find themselves powerless, but so do those from the company set out to deal with them, as the corporate machinery in play is too overwhelming for anyone to stop.

A beautiful but bittersweet portrait of helplessness.

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

1975, dir. Chantal Akerman

Recently restored and preserved in 4K for future posterity; named by UK’s Sound & Sound magazine the greatest film ever made, this may be so, yet it’s a hard ask of an audience to sit through a 3 hour film of a housewife peeling potatoes, making schnitzel, setting the dinner table, and sometimes welcoming men with whom she has sex for money. It is one of the most compelling films I’ve ever seen, I struggled to take my eyes off it. Its slow pace is its defining quality. One becomes hypnotised by its serenity. Questions mount, and mount, during this woman’s fixed daily routine - until something goes wrong, and leads towards a shocking climax.

I had studied Akerman’s News From Home at university, in which shots of 1970s New York City are accompanied by her voice-over reading her mother’s letters sent to her from Bruxelles. It’s a piece that in 20 years never left me. Akerman has a masterful understanding of the camera and the power in using it in earnest.

A precursor to Sofia Coppola who shows the same power of expression with minimum effort in Lost In Translation and The Beguiled.

Aftersun

2022, dir. Charlotte Wells

An 11 year old girl and her father are on holiday in a resort in Turkey during the rare time they have together following her parents’ split. Not all is quite as it seems - her father is struggling emotionally, and the film is in essence a memory the grown up girl, now a woman, is re-analysing to make sense of their relationship and what happened that summer.

The less said, the better. Like a beautiful song, the film flows over you, and once it’s over, takes its time to simmer within you.

The Second Act

2024, dir. Quentin Dupieux

The brief 1 hour 20 minutes is a fun ride in which the actors decide they no longer want to be in a film. The fourth wall is broken (the camera is looked directly into and the actors make direct reference to the audience and the fact that they’re in a film) and we, the audience, are left to see what happens once this unexpected act of rebellion takes place.

It turns out, not much.

Worth seeing just for the waiter who, at the restaurant where the main four characters go for a lunch, can’t stop trembling with nerves because it’s his first role in a film; his 20 year dream having come true, he can’t stop his hands from shaking as he tries to pour the wine, to hilarious - and then tragic - results.

Might seem like a fresh idea but, if you like the concept, Poland’s 1990 film Escape From Liberty Cinema is a much more thought through and original idea, in which the actors protest their roles and actively attempt to shut down audiences watching the very film they’re playing in - as a parable for state censorship - a far more satisfying watch.

Vengeance

2022, dir. B.J. Novak

I stumbled across this on Netflix by accident, with no expectations, and I’m glad I did.

B.J. Novak proved himself an indispensable writer on The Office, and here as writer-director-producer-actor makes some poignant observations about the current state of western disconnectedness. This covers a lot of ground, be it social media, one night stands, consumer culture and the opioid crisis, within the framework of a man on the search of uncovering the truth behind a woman’s death; someone he had slept with and yet he can use to make a good story out of for a podcast.

Ashton Kutcher also stars in a scene-stealing role who speaks some unfortunate truths about where we are currently in our social-political discourse and our sense of diminished responsibility.

A lot of powerful words here wrapped in the framework of an enjoyable thriller.

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Seen anything good you’d recommend? Let me know!