Everything in its Right Place

When Was the Last Time You Burned? When you read the very short story ‘Barn Burning’ by Haruki Murakami on which Burning (2018) is based, it’s hard to fathom how Chang-dong Lee managed to adapt it into such a beautiful and haunting 2 1\2 hour film. Being a reader of a few Murakami novels myself ( Killing Commendatore (2015) , The Wind Up Bird Chronicle (1995) and Norwegian Wood (1987), I love how Chang-dong kept true to Murakami’s style through common characteristics in his leads, whilst also injecting an intense class anxiety and emotive sequences that strike you profoundly in unexplainable ways. What’s also interesting is the distance that Chang-dong creates at key moments in the film, to create tension and ambivalence with regards to its direction.  It’s no coincidence that the film starts with an obscured view of Lee Jong-su (Ah-in Yu) from behind a truck container door. Chang-dong starts as he means to go on by putting physical barriers between the characters and vi...

Memories of Murder Yeah that’s right, I’ve jumped on the bandwagon far too late. Now he’s won an Oscar, i’m journeying back through Bong Joon-ho’s filmography and the first thing I started with was Memories of Murder . Much like Parasite (2019) the tonal shifts here are unexpected and superbly achieved, especially for a 35-year-old director on his second feature. The film is, as the pre-title describes, ‘based on the true story of an unsolved criminal investigation, set under a military dictatorship’, and is also a brilliant character study of the two key  detectives Park Doo-man (Kang-ho Song) and Seo Tae-yoon (Sang-kyung Kim). In the films opening section, it follows the conventional detective film route of the viewing of a female victims dead body by detective Park Doo-man. Joon-ho distributes his first tonal contrast by interspersing the gruesome nature of the body in close-ups with lighthearted humour as a young boy from the rural town mirrors Doo-man’s words and ac...

Rosetta (1999) I’ll be honest, I’m a bit late to the Dardenne Brothers work. I remember watching Two Days, One Night (2014) during my time at university and being blown away by the texture and immersion that they managed to provide, along with a strong female lead full of depth which is often so underrepresented in mainstream film. So, given the challenging and sorrowful situation we all find ourselves facing with the Covid-19 crisis and the shed load of spare time which I now have, I’m finally getting off the comforting and somewhat sanitised hug of Netflix and Prime to visit the plethora of films I have on my never ending list. I felt compelled to see what was one of the Dardenne Brothers most critically acclaimed films. Much like Two Days, One Night, the film is completely immersive to its female lead Rosetta (Emilie Dequenne), following her with clever cuts but mainly with what seems like a single camera. This is a technique which works fantastically in drenching you ...

The Death of Stalin I don’t think Armando Iannucci could have picked a better adaptation than Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin’s graphic novel The Death of Stalin. The film has the same name and essentially from the very outset quickly becomes The Thick of It but with consequences: you don’t just lose your job, you die. Doing what it says on the tin, the film follows the last day or two, the death and the immediate aftermath of Russian dictator Joseph Stalin, in which all his underlings battle it out discreetly to be the next to step in his shoes. Labelled as a dark comedy, the darkness comes from the truth in Russia at this time. However much it makes hilarious jokes (and it is hilarious by the way) this deceit, death and division was simply the way Russia operated at that time. But you don’t need to know that to enjoy the film. Though seeming specific and historical, Iannucci gives you all you need in the opening titles and even if you missed that, all you really need to ...

The Golden Lion, The Weight and The Pick-up Truck It certainly, I think, is not a good idea to drop acid and go to the pub. Someone in our midst had offered the prospect of a football match and back in the miserable front room of the battered house it had rushed to us in a coat of wonder, with us all thinking of the green and the glory of the ultimate game. Everyone embracing and becoming transfixed with our own nostalgic elements, my main one being quite randomly the voices of excited commentators (Aguerooooo), which became amplified by the trip and the blandness of our environment. One of the present company was transfixed by the idea of the smell of the stands on match day and kept mumbling about steak and kidney pies. Of course, we were all to spaced and none of us thought to mention that these smells would not be present at our local dive of a pub. The cut through the park on the way to The Golden Lion was a mesmerising one. Nature and hallucinogens always collide with the m...