I was bracing for myself for another clickbaity assault on the senses that replicates the numbing shock of our overmediated lives (à la Love Lies Bleeding or Saltburn). But The Substance actually earns its explosive, totally grotesque finale by way of its restrained buildup. The director constructs a strangely empty, anachronistic version of Los Angeles (Elizabeth and Sue use smartphones but they chase fame on TV, not TikTok) that welcomes a formal study of mutating bodies within the frame of…
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Querelle 1982
Fassbinder foregoes day and night to suspend his conniving, horny characters in the eternal glow of a French port town. And I could feel the heat of the stage lights! Which is to say, there was plenty of beauty to regard. But ultimately ‘Querelle’ reads as an errant mishmash of scenes in a cheekily theatrical yet stiflingly static and blatantly constructed set. With such abrupt scene transitions and the lack of circadian rhythm (not to speak of how you never see or hear the ocean), I struggled to latch onto much beyond the pretty, hazy things in front of my eyes.
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Poor Things 2023
Emma Stone truly carries as the Frankensteinian Bella from beginning to end. Her journey from a gangly infant trapped inside her creator’s house to a cosmopolitan and even-keeled young adult is captured by Lanthimos’ signature (albeit slightly over utilized) warped cinematography and complemented by surreal interior set decoration. So it’s disappointing how he uses lurid CGI to illustrate the cityscape whenever Bella steps outside. There are so many ways you can convey the rawness and vividness of the world without…
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Safe 1995
Obsessed with the shift in tone from the first to the second half. In Sherman Oaks, everything becomes increasingly saturated with claustrophobia and anxiety as Carol’s symptoms progress. One might think this escalation is setting her up for cathartic release once she retreats to the recovery center in New Mexico, but instead we are met with an ambiguous setting that’s largely devoid of color, sound, and warmth. There isn’t enough substance here for catharsis, even if Carol wants it. By removing herself from the noise of society in the pursuit of personal safety, she only finds a dull void of contentment.
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