27 films in 2017

This has become to all intents and purposes a film blog, and even then I can't seem to watch more than a handful of new films in the cinema every year. Most of those are comic book movies, which I continue to like despite the fashion to dismiss them. Marvel Studios in particular are having an enormously impressive run, whilst continuing to innovate within the genre –  Spider-Man and Thor are basically comedies in disguise, the latter quite a subversive one.

I can however be bothered to see old films at the cinema, and several of the below were viewed at the Prince Charles or the BFI Southbank. While I still watch most films at home on DVD, the experience of the cinema is something I have come to appreciate a lot more this year. A small screen and poor sound diminishes the impact of great films – even if it allows you to pause, rewind, and study in greater detail a film as a text.

Two overarching themes appear from the hodgepodge below. The first is a continued interest in Japanese cinema, particularly the slightly underrated workhorse Masumura, which is partly down to me trying to learn more about my partner's language and culture. Interestingly, she's not that interested in watching these old films. But then again, I wouldn't necessarily be that keen on digging out British classics from the 50s and 60s either – which (unfairly I'm sure) appear drab, dull and depressing. A foreign film from the same era, on the other hand, has a certain mystique that renders the same drab, depressing films (Red Angel, The Shape of Night) intriguing.

The second, slightly accidental, one is films with an LGBTQ theme (Funeral Parade of Roses, Handmaiden, Duke of Burgundy, Bound, Labyrinth of Passion, arguably All About Eve, perhaps Wonder Woman at the margins). Some of that may be greater awareness generally about the influence of LGBTQ culture (Funeral Parade of Roses and Labyrinth of Passion are pretty much straight-up surveys of queer 'underground' subcultures in two different countries). But I'm also struck by how easily the LGBTQ experience lends itself to themes of disguise, role-play, and self-realisation (Handmaiden and Bound are great examples) – all great material for actors and filmmakers.

Below is the list of things I've seen and wrote about, ranked roughly in order of preference and with links to the individual blogs on them.

New:

Park Chan-Wook - The Handmaiden [link]

Anna Biller - The Love Witch [link]

Jon Watts - Spider-Man: Homecoming [link]

Taika Waititi - Thor: Ragnarok [link]

Denis Villeneuve - Blade Runner 2049 [link]

Rupert Sanders - Ghost in the Shell [link]

Patty Jenkins - Wonder Woman [link]

Old:

Yasujiro Ozu - Tokyo Story [link]

Alfred Hitchcock - Vertigo [link]

Toshio Matsumoto - Funeral Parade of Roses [link]

Kenneth Lonergan - You Can Count On Me [link]

Yasuo Masumura - The Blue Sky Maiden [link]

Joseph L. Mankiewicz - All About Eve [link]

The Wachowskis - Bound [link]

J.C. Chandor - Margin Call [link]

Noboru Nakamura - The Shape of Night [link]

Yasuo Masumura - Red Angel [link]

Jean Rollin - The Night of the Hunted [link]

Peter Strickland - The Duke of Burgundy [link]

Carol Reed - The Third Man [link]

Pedro Almodóvar - Labyrinth of Passion [link]

Alain Robbe-Grillet - Trans-Europ-Express [link]

Atom Egoyan - Exotica [link]

Yeon Sang-ho - Train to Busan [link]

Dan Gilroy - Nightcrawler [link]

Cameron Crowe - Say Anything… [link]

Shinichirō Watanabe - Cowboy Bebop: The Movie [link]

Favourite songs of 2017

I've spent a lot of 2017 listening to old music. Not coincidentally, it was the year I succumbed to the streaming services, which made previously inaccessible things instantly available. Have to say the playlists curated by Spotify etc were sources of immense frustration and triggered frequent use of the skip button. I quickly abandoned them for listening to albums and EPs in full, trusting the producers with the presentation of their work. As a consequence, only the occasional single wormed its way into my library.

There is almost no guitar music on the list. Rock seems to be a decaying carcass of a genre where only the most committed vultures remain, although I think there's a heartbeat to some of the things coming out of the emo revival. Apart from a token nod to Wiley, grime has been superseded by rap, reflecting broader trends (from what I can gather by tuning into Rinse or 1Xtra). I prefer the UK's trappers and drillers over those from the US – whether that's down to patriotism or parochialism I don't know. My genre of choice this year has been R&B, which has internalised the innovations in hip-hop and electronic music, but has produced more interesting (mostly female, it must be said) personalities than your average Future, Thugger, Lil whatever bonehead.

As ever it's Kieron Gillen rules. One entry per artist, with the rest of the year's body of work pushing entries up accordingly. This is now an album's list in all but name, only four or so entries below don't have an album behind them.

19. Nabihah Iqbal - Zone 1 to 6000

This just in, from the album released at the beginning of December. I've been an admirer of Iqbal's work as Throwing Shade (particularly this gem from 2014), and her debut is a similar brand of loveliness – motorik meets dream pop, the added reverb helping to evade the danger of falling into 1980s kitsch. 'Zone 1 to 6000' is a state of the city address, rapped in Iqbal's deadpan voice over a driving rhythm that recalls the bustle of the London Underground. It's the centrepiece of fine album.

18. Sabrina Claudio (prod. by Stint) - Unravel Me

There was a distinct lack of fka twigs in 2017 (seems she's become more interested in designing magazines for her Instagram). This from Sabrina Claudio adequately fills the gap, utilising a neat production trick on the chorus where a ringing echoing syllable is contrasted with a pitch-shifted low murmur, creating the feeling of being suspended in the air by a force field. Miles better than anything on the Kelela album (of which more below).

17. Detboi - Secret Venom

Borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered Nineties. Jungle is all second-hand to me, a taste I acquired from reading Simon Reynolds and other music writers. I spent a lot of time this year with the epic Suburban Bass compilation, which came out a few years ago and collects some all-time classics. Detboi's release on Metalheadz is steeped in that tradition, eschewing the pristine quality of modern drum & bass for the scruffy sound of sampled breaks and whining divas. The track is expertly balanced, unleashing blitzkriegs of percussion and then pulling back to breathe, like a gunman unloading a clip before ducking for cover. The braggadocio is revealed by the intoning voice talking about unlocking secrets: Detboi casts himself as a sensei in a long line of break-chopping grandmasters, flaunting the secrets of his craft to the uninitiated.

16. Kelela (prod. Jam City, Ariel Rechtshaid & Kwes) - Waitin

Kelela's debut album is high on a lot of year-end lists, but is slow in revealing its charms to me. This track is probs the most propulsive and hook-filled of the bunch. The rest drifts pleasantly in the background, making little impression.

15. Kelly Lee Owens - S.O.

Speaking of drifting pleasantly, this was my go-to album for detoxifying during and after a stressful day. Kelly Lee Owens is hardly reinventing the wheel here, and her brand of wispy, pastoral techno sounds and feels like a warm bath. For plenty of young firebrands the gentility must be unbearable.  At my age I find it a blessing. (Should add a HT here to Tim Finney for pointing out Kelly Lee Owens's wonderful version of Aaliyah’s 'More Than A Woman').

14. Sevyn Streeter feat. Ty Dolla $ign, Wiz Khalifa & Jeremih (prod. Retro Future & Yung Berg) - Anything U Want

Streeter's album is a star-studded but uneven affair that seems to have been a nightmare to put together. The first track nods to the stresses involved, but then the rest seems determined to have a good time. 'Anything U Want' is a particular high-point, a bubblegum R&B banger which unfortunately reduces Streeter to little more than a hook singer while a procession of debauched rappers try out their best seduction techniques. The sexual politics are atrocious, but Streeter sells her lack of agency so well ("anything you want me to, you know I'll do it") it's hard not get swept up in the whole thing.

13. Charli XCX feat. Carly Rae Jepsen (prod. EasyFun & A. G. Cook) - Backseat

This is from Charli XCX's Pop 2, which just came out. As a longtime fan who was a bit disappointed by Sucker, I am very happy with the return to grand, glittering, soppy, robo-voiced electropop. The addition of Carly Rae Jepsen (also a longtime fan) on the first track is a gift. 'Backseat' marries M83's John Hughes worship to the lurches of EDM. Thankfully it's mostly build, with A.G. Cook restrained from adding too much wobble.

12. Blondes - KDM

A highlight from the album Warmth, which I used for similar unwinding purposes as the Kelly Lee Owens above, although Blondes are a tad more energetic. KDM is an enchanted forest of a techno track, sounding like sunlight glinting through tree-branches. The dull thuds of the rhythm are layered over with clattering, buzzing, shimmering noise which folds in and out for 7 mesmerising minutes. The Barker & Baumecker remix is also great.

11. MoStack (prod. Ill Blu) - Let It Ring

Last time I heard of Ill Blu they were making firestarting UK funky and releasing singles on boujie bass label Hyperdub. Pleased to discover that with the decline of their initial genre of specialism they've diverted their energies to supplying glossy beats for UK rappers. This is an absolute chune about being important (and notorious) enough to have your phone constantly on the go. Ill Blu makes it all sound like a marvellous state of affairs to be in.

10. Sully feat. Jamakabi - Bullseye

Sully strikes me as a bit of a pastiche artist, all shiny reworkings of genres-gone-by. But I'm not one to overlook an excellently retooled dark garage banger featuring long lost Roll Deep member Jamakabi. Especially given the finishings are so elegantly sculpted: every beat and sound effect and line perfectly in place. Hits the target, no question.

9. Wiley feat. Devlin (prod. Preditah & Mr Virgo) - Bring Them All / Holy Grime

Wiley's triumph this year is proof that persistence pays off. Long overshadowed by his protege-turned-nemesis Dizzee Rascal, it's only with the strange rebirth of grime in the last few years and a slew of books (capped off with his own autobiography) that he has received the recognition he deserves (not least an interview in the paper of record) [update: man got a knighthood!]. He's played the long game. Although not immune to the speculative pop crossover, he's kept on keeping on, maintaining relationships with almost everyone in the scene he created, so that as soon as the likes of Skepta and Stormzy blew up he could ride along behind them. 'Holy Grime' is a testament to that godfathering instinct. The single brings along Devlin ('a grime treasure' according to Wiley, a has-been according to most scene-watchers) to trade verse for equal verse. The flows are torrential, and mercifully there's no chorus. It's just like a slice of a radio set but elevated to the level of religious oratory. Wiley built the church, and everyone's welcome.

8. P Jam - Fire Lion

From the Jungle Book EP, which sounds to me like the best instrumental grime release this year. 'Fire Lion' is the widely recognised highlight – starting like something out of the Foul Play intelligent jungle rulebook, before dropping a deep slab of bass and the kind of sparse skipping beat reminiscent of the early days of dubstep.

7. MIST (prod. Steel Banglez) - Hot Property

MIST's frequent collaborations with Steel Banglez are pretty indistinguishable from each other, but that doesn't mean it's not a fruitful partnership. The Brum MC does little more than ad lib over a glistening icicle of a hip hop beat, topped off with a brilliant squeaky vocal sample that you can't resist humming along to. Even MIST joins in at the end when he has run out of things to say.

6. Kehlani (prod. Autoro "Toro" Whitfield, Danny Klein & Pop & Oak) - Piece of Mind

It's very difficult to pick a standout track from Kehlani's proper debut SweetSexySavage. That's partly down to it being a remarkably consistent album, despite it's 17 tracks. But also because every cut has it's own imperfections, which level-up into delightful idiosyncrasies the more you spend time with it. A good example is the terrible pun at the heart of this song, which is actually about trying to overcome mental illness (Kehlani attempted suicide in 2016) by sequestering a part of your brain that refuses to work properly. For someone who has been through some shit in their 22 years on Earth, it's incredible to see how wise and together Kehlani emerges on SweetSexySavage. It's a complete account of a singular personality.

5. J Hus (prod. JAE5) - Plottin

Much the same can be said of J Hus's Common Sense. And here the ubiquity of standout single 'Did You See' can distract from the brilliance of the album it's taken from. While running through a wide range of genres, it remains a cohesive whole, the product of just two voices – J Hus and long-time collaborator JAE5. Strangely for a grime partisan, I found 'Clartin' the most disposable cut. My affections settled instead on 'Plottin', a piano-tinged garage number inspired by The Streets's Original Pirate Material. Mike Skinner is referenced not only in the production, but in the focus on depicting daily life – including a trip to the local workman's cafe, knowing you've made it when you can give the waiter "a generous, generous tip". It demonstrates more than most of his other tracks that J Hus is actually a surprisingly lyrical rapper.

4. Dej Loaf & Jacquees (prod. Xeryus & Musik MajorX) - You Belong To Somebody Else

Fuck A Friend Zone is my most listened to long-player of 2017, a delightfully laid back, horny collection of R&B odes to young love. Part of what makes Jacquees and Dej so adorable is their evident admiration and respect for each other. While most R&B males tend to describe the ladies they are chirpsing as a favourite from a range of available options, Jacquees's devotion is whole-hearted and pure. I wonder whether their relative status has something to do with it – Jacquees being younger and objectively less successful than his paramour. In any case, their mixtape together provides a wonderful chronicle of a budding relationship, where each treats the other as an alluring equal. 'You Belong To Somebody Else' is where the couple's yearning for each other is at its most acute, accentuated by the complication of another relationship. It's like a mini-movie, dialogue from a phone conversation between the protagonists shining light on the dilemma.

3. People Like You - Thumbnail

The only straight-up rock entry on this list – although weirdly it's listed as "jazz" on iTunes. I spent a great deal of time this year listening to the debut albums of American Football and The Anniversary, released within a few months of each other at the turn of the century, and both classics of the emo cannon. Hunting around for contemporary equivalents I stumbled across People Like You's second album Verse, which essentially splits the difference between the two: the convoluted, brass-accented rhythms of the former plus the boy-girl vocal trade-offs of the latter. 'Thumbnail' is a masterclass of awkward composition, reflecting the tentative fumblings of a relationship described in the lyrics. Emo's legacy has been tarnished somewhat this year, but it feels to me like the genre has a bright future.

2. Shenseea (prod. J Wonder) - Reverse

God bless Radio 1Xtra. If it wasn't for them adding this infectious slice of dancehall seduction to their playlist I would never have come across it. More subdued than Shenseea's other offerings this year, it probably slides in easier next to the downbeat trap Future and Travis Scott keep pumping out, and which dominates the rest of 1Xtra's scheduling. I've been known to jam this over 20 times on repeat this year – it low key enough to never become annoying, whilst simultaneously being stimulating enough to keep you wanting more of it. The best pop song of the year.

1. SZA (prod. Carter Lang & The Antydote) - Prom

At times during the year I would literally wake up with one of SZA's songs in my head, and it would continue playing in the background throughout my day. It's eminently memeable, in other words, not least because SZA has a way of enunciating her words that is as unique and freewheeling as Erykah Badu. Like the Kehlani album above, Ctrl is precocious and subtle about how chaotic life can be when you're just out of school. Both stand-out single 'Love Galore' and my pick 'Prom' exhort someone not to take things too personally, because making mistakes is a part of growing up. 'Prom' is the most explicit statement of that fact, and the fear that the mistakes will never stop, that being grown is an end state that will always recede into the distance. It's a justified fear – SZA's "promise to do better" sounds like it will always be broken. Her prom is not a watershed moment but an absence constantly felt. The only thing left is to plea for patience, and hope that maturity comes closer, even if it never arrives.

Bound

The Wachowskis’ debut feature is a nail-biting, bum-clenching thriller, made cheaply using three sets and three main characters. It’s a lesbian noir, and I’m still unsure how effectively those two elements are integrated.

Jennifer Tilly plays a mobster’s kept gal, who is smitten by Gina Gershon and conspires with her to steal the boyfriend’s suitcase full of laundered cash. Tilly plays her part like she’s straight out of Sin City (the Wachowski’s took inspiration from the Frank Miller comics). She is playing a role, which the filmmakers associate with her being in the closet.

Which may be as far as that goes, except for the opening image of Gina Gershon literally bound up in a closet. Gershon’s character is confidently out. The choice facing her is whether to trust that Tilly's feelings for her are on the level. Tilly could just be seducing her and using her – and the film’s opening does suggest Gershon has been betrayed. It also underlines how Gershon has been drawn into Tilly’s world. Tilly leads a life of bad faith. She’s bound not with ropes and gags, but by conventions and fear of her violent male keeper.

Gershon’s performance is more toned down than Tilly’s, but there is still an air of James Dean swagger about her that’s larger than life. Likewise Joe Pantoliano’s mafia lieutenant, and the rest of the mafiosi, feel like they have stepped out of other films. The Wachowskis lean very heavily on noir archetypes, to the point where the unreality of Tilly’s persona becomes less remarkable. I wonder whether the theme of the film would have more force if Gershon wasn’t a slick ex-con, but a hapless every-woman drawn into Tilly’s spell.

The Wachowskis insisted on the lesbian story-line, despite pressure from one studio to change Gershon’s character to a man. There’s a rather elaborate sex scene, which the two actresses were nervous about, that might suggest prurience on their part. Then again, the Wachowskis also brought in a consultant to advise on making the relationship (and the sex) reflect actual lesbian experience. To me the flirtation felt quite sweet and silly, rather than leery. There is a marvellously mischievous seduction scene in which Tilly asks Gershon to retrieve an earring that has fallen in the sink, which involves looking at her plumbing and getting her hands wet. Gershon acts like she’s in on the joke, and it goes to show that innuendo is sometimes more enjoyable than voyeurism, and certainly more inclusive.

The Duke of Burgundy

A film inspired by the arty-trashy cinema of Europeans like Jess Franco, Jean Rollin and Walerian Borowczyk. I'm a dabbler in this stuff, and The Duke of Burgundy certainly hits the 1970s Euro-sleaze sweet spot between the ridiculous and evocative. I must admit I didn't get those references, however. Because while some of the trappings are similar – lesbianism, sadomasochism, the self-contained quality of a fairy tale – the drama is much more down-to-earth. The women are older (one has a bad back). And they are for all intents and purposes in a marriage that's breaking apart. The institution may appear strange (all-female dominant and submissive pairs in a society revolving entirely around BDSM and lepidoptery), but the situation is all too familiar.

And the two leads are very good at conveying the pain of that crumbling relationship. Cynthia (the one with the bad back) is losing interest in the sexual games Evelyn finds so exciting, but she plays along to keep her partner happy. Except that eventually Evelyn realises she's faking it. Although Evelyn is the submissive, she is the one writing the roleplay scripts. The most endearing and heartbreaking part of the film is watching Cynthia desperately trying to keep Evelyn happy, even though she's the one handing out commands and punishments.

The lepidoptery may just be a reference, but I thought the fusty, regimented, obsessive nature of the practice is a fitting comment on the repetitive sexual lives of the characters – constantly going through the same motions. The ultimate horror in the film is of living in a world that can't change, pinned down like a butterfly in a glass cabinet. Objectification is inescapable, even in a world without men.

The Shape of Night

This is a very bleak film, and an effective one, powered by two outstanding performances. Miyuki Kuwano plays Yoishe, who transforms from a sparkling 19-year-old working behind a bar to an utterly emotionless 25-year-old turning tricks on the street. Just as compelling is her caretaker / tormentor Eiji (played by Mikijirō Hira) who charms her and ends up pimping her out.

It's an old story. What makes it interesting is the complete power-reversal the film ends on. Eiji is crippled in a Yakuza turf battle, and turns into a docile house-husband. Yoishe is the breadwinner, who is offered an escape by a smitten customer. The central question in the film is whether she has the guts to abandon Eiji, and it's stretched out to an excruciating degree. Despite the years of abuse, including a horrific incident of gang rape by Eiji’s yakuza overlords, the decision pushes Yoishe beyond the edge. She feels bound to him, despite her own power, and his despicable actions.

A sense of duty that goes beyond all reason is the film’s theme, and that of the BFI season it is a part of. A Shape Of Night pulls no punches in exploring it.

The Night of the Hunted

Made on a ridiculously low budget and to a very tight four-week schedule, Jean Rollin somehow manages to create something evocative and eerie. The plot is rudimentary: a radioactive leak turns people into zombies, so they are imprisoned in an imposing corporate tower block and killed when the final brain-cell switches off. As with other zombie films, a nefarious corporate presence lurks in the background. The difference here is that the undead are innocent victims who are exploited and killed like sheep. This being Rollin, they are also beautiful and frequently unclothed, but you can read that in a reflexive direction if you want – the machine reducing people to attractive mindless bodies.

It ends up being a rather sweet film. The hero who is sucked into this nighttime conspiracy by the stunning Brigitte Lahaie is smitten, and joins her in becoming zombified. Perhaps love can't overcome all obstacles, but it's worth clinging on to nonetheless.

Immoral Tales

Borowczyk's four lewd, weird films don't really cohere without watching the introductory fifth. A Private Collection is just a catalogue of obscene objects, mostly of Borowczyk's own manufacture. In the enclosed space of a bourgeois flat dark secrets are revealed which underline the hypocrisy of the 'moral police'.

All very well as a tirade against censoring sex. But it's the sense of confinement that lingers. Borowczyk's eroticism is strangely sequestered and controlling. He beavers away at these films in the same way as he does his animations and props. It's a private universe in which he has the final say.

Thus we get a domineering youth who commands his cousin to fellate him while he lectures her on the movement of the tides. Then a girl besotted with the omniscient voice of God –  which provides sexual comfort in an environment of abuse. Then Elizabeth Báthory using her noble status to round up and butcher maidens so she can bathe in their blood. And finally Lucrezia Borgia led into the papal palace to be 'worshipped' by her father and brother.

Borowczyk is detail-orientated. He lovingly lingers over the objects that crowd his films, which is why A Private Collection is the apotheosis of his erotica – human flesh removed entirely. He is a set designer with a camera, a builder of entrancing but lifeless tableaus.

The Blue Sky Maiden (Blue Sky Daughter)

Masumura made a lot of films, only the more unconventional of which are well known in the West. I saw this at the BFI, and doubt it has a DVD release. There is no hint here of the perversities of Blind Beast or the gore of Red Angel. That said, Masumura’s interest in awkward family dynamics is front and centre, even if the genre is melodrama, and the ending happy.

Or so it may seem. Yuko is a Cinderella who finds a Prince Charming, but given everything we see of Tokyo living you wonder whether she was better off staying true to her roots and choosing the local boy from her village (her teacher, but that’s ok apparently). Yuko is illegitimate, and her father did her a favour when he sent her away from his nightmare of a family. Masumura is very good at showing that the fault ultimately lies with him. He was never reconciled to the loveless marriage he was talked into, and his indifference turned his wife into a harpy and his children into brats.

Yuko marries for love, but it’s another posh boy. There’s a subtle class divide bisecting the characters in the film, which Yuko steps over. A philosophy grad, Masumura’s sympathies lie closer to the philosophy-spouting delivery boy, as well as the hard-pressed family maid and the striving teacher-come-artist.

The plot comes from a novel, and Masumura handles the twists deftly. There’s a good deal of fancy camerawork where wide shots move into to closeups and back. And a satisfying shape to the film is provided by the opening and closing scenes on the shore, where blue sky thinking is embraced as a survival mechanism and then discarded when no longer needed. It’s accomplished, in other words, and goes to show that Masumura was good at this sort of thing. There’s a reason he made so many movies.

Thor: Ragnarok

There's something interesting going on behind the jokes here. Director Taika Waititi casts himself as Korg, a failed revolutionary (he didn't print enough pamphlets haha) who leads an insurrection against Jeff Goldblum's gilded planetary Emperor. The film splices this rather awkwardly with the return of Hela to Asgard, but there is a parallel between the two stories. It turns out that before Odin became a cuddly grandpa enjoying his retirement, he and Hela were bloodthirsty empire-builders. Behind the paintings on the ceiling of the Asgardian throne room (which celebrate the virtue and diplomacy of Odin and his two sons) there is a darker history of conquest and genocide. There must be some resonance here for Waititi, who is from New Zealand and has a Māori father.

This may not just be a comment on the beastly British, but on how American soft power (of which Marvel Studios is a part) disguises the real hard power it can wield. The revolution isn't a joke, at least not entirely. Asgard falls at the end of the film – its people become refugees. Again there is a parallel with contemporary events, but the film flips it so it's not the victims of empire that are seeking sanctuary on Earth, but the beneficiaries. From being lords of the universe to being at the mercy of foreign hostile powers – there are bitter twists in this otherwise sugary cocktail of a film.

Red Angel

A very grim war film focused on a nurse on the front line and with plenty of horrible amputations, vomit and blood. As usual with Masumura, things take a turn for the bizarre and depraved. The hero is an angel in hell, who cannot countenance being responsible for other people’s deaths. The first of her ‘victims’ raped her, but she still tries to save him, in so doing establishing her saintly nature.

The film is at its most interesting when it explores the strange power dynamic of being a woman surrounded by damaged men. Nishi must suffer frequent sexual assault, but she is also the one holding soldiers down when their limbs are being removed. She is in a position to torture her torturers, but she never takes the opportunity, being loyal to the last.

Instead the film establishes a melodramatic romance between Nishi and a taciturn surgeon who is addicted to morphine. The drug makes him impotent, and Nishi has to hold him down as well through his withdrawal to cure him from that ailment. She helps to make a man out of him, and he dies with a broken sword in his hand. But she also gains power. In the sweetest scene in the film, the surgeon allows her to put on his lieutenant uniform, serves her wine and treats her like a man. Granted, he refuses to give her his sword and gun (there are limits to cross dressing and female empowerment), but it’s still a striking moment of reciprocity and empowerment.

Vertigo

I'm not a Hitchcock aficionado but am persuaded that this may be his best film. Plot-wise it's improbable to say the least, but the mechanics of the mystery thriller, with its clear-cut character motivations and alibis, have never been that intriguing to me. David Thomson may be right that film thrives on ambiguities, and Hitchcock's failure is that he is too fussy to leave things unexplained. Vertigo is interesting probably because it's more than just an exercise in suspense. There's a bit more of Hitchcock in it, and that gives the viewer more to delve into.

Specifically we get Hitchcock's own strange attitudes to women and actresses on screen. Kim Novak is remade twice in Vertigo. Her character is transformed by male desires for love and money. She is as Hitchcock (and his protagonist Scottie) want her: supremely acquiescent – the obedient actress submitting to her director.

But then there is the title sequence, which suggests that women’s faces are dangerously hypnotic. They spin you about – give you vertigo. Women as actresses are fascinating but deceptive. They leave you and lie to you. Novak is both imperious and vulnerable. In fact there's a tinge of sadomasochism in Madeleine’s grey suits, tightly-wound hair and gloves. Judy’s purple evening gown is looser, more relaxed – she is being genuinely herself. But Scottie forces her back into her corset.

And actually that idea is planted early with the chat about brassieres in the beginning of the film – prurient on Hitchcock’s part, but also introducing the idea of women moulded by the science and stratagems of male fetishists. Just as a famous airman turns to applying his know-how to the design of female underwear, so the detective turns to dressing up his girl so that she becomes his ideal woman. He's suffers for it, of course. Novak is killed off in a church by a nun – the Gothic scene suggesting the punishment of forbidden desire.

I ended up feeling most sorry for the friend-zoned Midge, who offers a safe way to deal with Scottie's agoraphobia – a stepladder in the living room. Instead he gets tangled up with a femme fatale and ends up climbing a church tower. Midge is a friend who interacts with Scottie on equal terms. But Scottie wants to dominate and be dominated by women. That is what draws him to Novak, and dooms him.

Blade Runner 2049

Helen Lewis’s blog is a superb intro to the concerns of the film, although I disagree with her reading of K’s confrontation with the 50 foot advert version of his artificial girlfriend Joi. Lewis thinks it’s an attempt to "create a touching moment of remembrance" which fails. But at that point K is once again convinced he is a droid, and the girlfriend he lost is just another AI. The scene felt to me like a recognition that their relationship was a lie, they are both slaves, and the only way to reclaim freedom is to fight the owners of the means of production.

I’m not entirely sure what the plot of the film is, but I’m pretty confident it doesn’t make a great deal of sense. It doesn’t matter if you come for the mood of the thing (and at three hours it's plenty moody). All the characters look and act like replicants, the bad guy at the top of the pyramid most of all. The film is about a longing for the organic and genuine in an artificial alienating world. And as such it is a triumph.

'For anyone afraid that ignorance renders him ineligible for responsibility, politics is not the right profession.' - Edmund Dell, The Chancellors

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

It's probably inevitable that a story about alchemy with a happy ending must involve the renunciation of pride and ambition. Much like Frankenstein or Faust, alchemists dabble in forbidden knowledge and are punished for it. The big bad in this anime series wants to know all the secrets of the universe and live forever – usurp God's rightful place. God is having none of it however. The anime portrays him as a grinning white human outline, and he condemns the pretender to his throne to eternal despair. On the other hand, our hero Edward Elric renounces his genius for alchemy with the claim that self worth is not bought with knowledge but is conferred by one's peers – your family and friends. The grinning God is well pleased with this answer, and rewards Edward by returning his brother Alphonse from death.

This theological condemnation of human curiosity feels rather old-fashioned in the gnosticism-infused times we live in, where the Fall of Mankind is spun as a positive development à la His Dark Materials. Fullmetal Alchemist is a bit more Raiders of the Lost Arc – peering into the holy of holies will melt your face. It's also a bit weird that after apprehending the big truth that we are limited, foolish creatures who don't deserve enlightenment, Edward leaves his family and friends again at the end of the series chasing after more knowledge. The anime glamourises lone questing male heroes who must abandon their partners and children in the process of said quest... all while talking up how family is the preferred avenue of fulfilment.

But leaving these contradictions aside, the series is very good at exploring the consequences of ambition, both in the way it reduces people to a means to an end (philosopher stones are literally products of genocide), and also in the suffering left in its wake. The anime is set after the events of a brutal war against dark-skinned, red-eyed Ishvalans. In the original manga, this was a comment on the displaced Ainu of Japan. In Brotherhood it's easier to draw parallels with more recent conflict in the Middle East. What is interesting is that the purported 'good guys' have very clearly committed atrocities in the past. Likewise the most prominent Ishvalan character starts out as a terrorist, a religious zealot, and a murderer of innocents. Despite perpetrating unforgivable crimes, both he and his oppressors are given a shot at redemption, and an opportunity to reconstruct their war-ravaged societies.

This doveish theme is undercut slightly by the very prominent fascistic iconography employed by the series. The country is ruled by a Fuhrer, the setting is an alternate version of early 20th century central Europe where democracy is crumbling, and service to your commanding officer is presented in glowing terms. Roy Mustang, who emerges as the new Fuhrer at the end of the show, has as his guiding philosophy the paternalistic notion that if he looks after his subordinates, and they look after their subordinates, well-being will filter down to the country at large. Of course setting an example is important, but the checks and balances of a functioning republic only get a cursory mention, and I know which I'd rather rely on.

In any case, Brotherhood is not immune to the trope of government conspiracies, corruption and factional infighting frequently found in depictions of politics in Japanese media. Edward Elric's impetuous irreverence is the only protest levelled at the inevitability of these shenanigans, and it's an impotent one. The wheels of the machine keep turning, and resignation (like that of Edward's father) appears to be the only mature response.

It's very watchable, of course. Game of Thrones fans have no right to sneer at it (or to ever talk about fan service). Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is often more harrowing, but also infinitely funnier than George R.R. Martin's grim fantasy. Also, at 64 half-hour episodes, is more digestible and compressed than Game of Thrones. I was particularly impressed with the very tight plotting of the initial episodes, where a great deal of information is crammed in. The series slows down and stretches out as it goes on, to the point where the climactic final day goes on for something like 10 episodes. But the action never slows down, and my interest never faltered. It's an accomplished performance throughout, and well worth your time.

Labyrinth of Passion

This is one of Almodóvar's first films, made in the early 80s, and it shows. Although it lacks polish, the meticulous plot is very impressive – zipping along extremely quickly, and winding around a large cast of outlandish characters before wrapping them all up in a satisfying bundle at the end.

There is a coherent shape to the film provided by the opening and closing shots. It begins with high-angles of two characters wandering around a market looking to hook up. Sexilia, a nymphomaniac, eventually invites a bunch of men to an orgy. Riza, a Middle Eastern prince living in exile, picks up a guy at at cafe. At the end of the film, Sexilia and Riza are enjoying their first sexual experience together on a plane soaring into the sky – the former converted to monogamy, the latter abandoning his homosexuality. The tropical island they are flying to is a heteronormative paradise. Sexual deviancy is left behind in Madrid.

That's a slightly weird ending for a film that otherwise celebrates the counter-culture that blossomed after the fall of Franco, with its camp discos and punk rockers. Probably the most outrageous subplot involves a girl enlisting Sexilia's help to escape from her father, who rapes her every two days. The girl gets plastic surgery that transforms her into Sexilia's double, and allows her to assume her identity while the real Sexilia elopes with Riza. Ironically enough, the new 'Sexilia' ends up back in an incestuous relationship, although a consensual one, with Sexilia's dad.

Almodóvar seems to suggest that the sexual lives of his characters are shaped by their particular histories. You may run away from incest but it will find you again. Similarly, Sexilia's nymphomania is an extended rebound from feeling rejected by Riza when they were on a beach holiday as children. Riza's homosexuality is also a result of feeling rejected by Sexilia. The two are destined to be together, but a misunderstanding as children has led them down alternate, delinquent paths. Sexual identity is both fluid – in that frigidity, homosexuality or nymphomania can all be 'cured' – and also fixed by the laws of romantic destiny. Sexilia and Riza are star-crossed lovers. All the fun in between is a swerve away from that fate.

Which makes the bubbling sexuality in Madrid portrayed by the film provisional, incomplete. The hunger for hookups in the street-market crowd is something the main couple literally fly away from. The skies provide the setting for the sexual union perfected. The rest of the characters have to muddle through on the ground, constantly shape-shifting but never quite finding contentment. Perhaps Sexilia and Riza's transformation into an ideal couple presents a longing for escape that always feels slightly out of the reach of the punks and queens of Madrid.

Almodóvar has said that his two main characters remain undeveloped because the film keeps getting distracted by its subplots and outlandish co-stars. Those diversions, chronicling the subculture of a very particular time and place, are what make the film interesting 30 years on.

Wings of Desire

Hard to escape the impression that the angels in this film are mostly an extended metaphor for the camera. They don't do anything so crass as fly around. All of that is saved for the impressive crane shots around the library, across apartment blocks and over walls. That sense of floating omnipresence is communicated as much by the way the camera moves as the silent men in trench-coats hovering over the variously occupied people of Berlin.

What does it mean? Perhaps it's Wenders's way of trying to get across the way photography both reveals and distances you from the objects being photographed. Bruno Ganz isn't content with observing and recording other people's experiences. He wants to step into the frame and become a participant.

Not to get too David Thomson here, but it's no surprise that the angel's temporal desires become focused on a woman. She is a trapeze artist, already far more graceful in the air than Ganz could ever be. There's an interesting switch-around between the two, in that Ganz begins the film observing Berliners from the top of a cathedral, and ends it looking up at the object of his devotion. He trades omnipotence for submission, a transcendent (and silent) God for an immanent goddess. Wings of desire are liable to fall off and leave you grounded.

Object is the right word. I found Solveig Dommartin lovely but also absurd, the final consummation between her and Ganz close to laughable. It doesn't help that it occurs at a Nick Cave concert (that pompous vortex of toxic masculinity is not a sustainable model for romance). Her monologue is an egregious abuse of language, meaning and the viewer's patience. Wenders would have improved his film immeasurably if he had left the cod-poetry behind with the black-and-white, and tried to convey a sense of reality, with real people in it.

Tokyo Story

This is a long film, and it accrues significance with each scene. The effect is something like the epiphanies Joyce builds to in his Dubliners short stories, except that here the first one hits about half way through, with each scene after that adding fresh ones.

For the father, it's when he gets drunk with some old friends and the mask of respectability slips. He's finally able to be honest, and reveal his disappointment with his children. But unlike his more impatient drinking buddies, he at least realises that his expectations may be too high.

For the mother, it's when she stays over with her son's widow Noriko, after being turned out of her daughter's house. There she urges Noriko to let go of her late husband, and try to find a new partner. (The devoted young woman who refuses to marry and stray from her family is a recurring Ozu motif).

The final big whammy concerns Noriko herself – not a blood relative, yet does more for her adoptive parents than their own sons and daughters. Why? The sense of duty she displays is overwhelming. When she bursts into tears in front of the grandfather at the end of the film, she admits to feeling lonely and worried about the future as a single woman living alone in Tokyo. Although she is ashamed of her wish to move on and find a new husband, it's also obvious that she yearns for the surrogate family she already has, perhaps the only family she has (her own parents are never mentioned – they may have died in the war).

There is something vampiric about the care Noriko shows for her late husband's parents. As she explains to her sister in law, the distance between parents and children grows as time passes. It's a normal development that will happen to her eventually as well. That's why her gift of a watch from the grandfather is such a laden symbol. Time dissolves all attachments. Although given as a memento, it will also serve as her key to freedom.

Say Anything…

More a drama than a comedy, and given that I grew up with American Pie, quite sweet. John Cusack's Lloyd is surrounded by a chorus of supportive girls who only have the job of confirming what a nice guy he is. Seeking male advice is always "a mistake", and the film has some fun with the sexist jocks drinking at the petrol station without a dame in sight.

Cusack always comes in one flavour, a bit like Keanu. Nervous energy, slightly pathetic, intermittently witty. He walks into the film already besotted, on a seemingly impossible quest to win the girl. Ione Skye's Denise is the one with the arc – she gets to choose. But her choice is between the devoted Lloyd and a devoted father. The latter (brilliantly played by John Mahoney – Marty Crane in Fraiser) is a suffocating presence in Denise's life. There are several scenes in which we see the way he uses his devotion as a means of control.

Luckily for Lloyd, the dad proves to be a tax dodging criminal and ends up in jail. He gets the girl by default. But I wonder whether Denise hasn't traded one over-protective parent for another. The film ends with the couple waiting for the airplane seatbelt safety sign to be switched off. Denise has a fear of flying, and Lloyd is hyperactively trying to comfort her. I was left hoping that when Denise gets the seatbelt off, she'd be able to leave these caring men behind, and walk on her own two feet.

House of Tolerance

There are no surprises in this French film eulogising the Belle Époque brothel. Its sights are firmly placed on the lush frills, drapes and ornaments. And the women, who are stuck in the house getting drunk every night and having to sleep with the same tiresome men over and over again. Everyone is too wasted to summon up any kind of wit or personality. Although there is camaraderie among the girls, the prevalent mood is one of grinding frustration and hopelessness.

The film is at its most gruesomely impactful when it slides into horror. The director Bertrand Bornello was inspired by a dream of a film (...very French, that. It's called A Man Who Laughs and I haven't seen it) to include a prostitute disfigured by one of her clients. The grim scars on her face are unsettling, and her assault is difficult to watch. The film begins with it and returns to it several times, and it adds a hint of menace to each gloomy shot of a dimly lit boudoir. There is prevailing sense of predators lurking behind every shadow, although in the end that one psycho turns out to be less lethal than the inevitable spectre of syphilis.

The film's use of symbolism is boringly obvious. You have your petals falling from white roses, and also a surrealistic shot of a whore weeping tears of semen (gross and also a bit ridiculous). It ends with video footage of sex workers in modern day Paris – the implicit question being whether today's streetwalkers have it worse than a hundred years ago. It's not something Bornello seems interested in answering, so asking it feels a bit pointless. But if you needed reminding that prostitution is dreary when it isn't actively frightening, this film does the trick.

Spider-Man: Homecoming

‘Homecoming’ in several ways, one of which must be a knowing wink from Marvel Studios that they have finally brought the property back to where it belongs. After the weird diversions of the Amazing Spider-Man films, and the disappointment of the third Tobey Maguire movie, this finally gets the Spidey film on the right track.

It’s also a nice narrative arc to hang the film on, after the abrupt introduction of the character in Captain America: Civil War. Most superhero film franchises begin with an origin story and work outwards, with the main character taking their place in the world fighting against evil. This one starts on the grand stage and moves inwards. After getting a taste of Avengers action, Peter Parker is desperate to become a member and leave his dull high-school existence behind. That, however, is a rejection of what Spidey is all about: a superhero who is in the same situation as the teenagers that read his comics – juggling homework, family, bullies, and crushes on cute girls.

And this film has Parker dropping all of those balls. It rather neatly evokes the experience of competing expectations and responsibilities which are impossible to meet all at once. Being the cool superhero means disappointing your friends, or making your family anxious. This is conveyed physically by how clumsy Tom Holland's Spidey is at the job of fighting crime. Some of the biggest laughs in the film are from him crashing through people’s back yards, knocking down sheds and tree-houses, and terrifying the kids out on a sleepover in their tent. Parker is not used to his superpowers in the same way teenagers are not used to their changing bodies. The metaphor is forcibly and enjoyably communicated.

There are shortcomings, mostly of emphasis. Marisa Tomei is not given enough to do as Aunt May – the rock on whom Peter depends, but also a burden of responsibility which weighs over his activities as a costumed hero. Tony Stark’s distance could have been reinforced by less Robert Downey Jr. on screen. But these are tiny flaws in what is a tricky feat to pull off – an introduction to Spider-Man that’s not yet another Spider-Man origin story.

The Gap between Panels / Breaking out of History

Latest column on the London Graphic Novel Network looks at The Infinite Loop by French creative team Pierrick Colinet and Elsa Charretier. It's a cute time-travel story that uses the idea of stepping outside time to discuss the marginalisation of LGBT+ people throughout history. It's also a very impressive book from a craft perspective, particularly in its use of design and layouts. Read the piece here.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

An enjoyably bad film, of not much value beyond being a snapshot of a period, and even then it rather over-eggs the sex, drugs and rock and roll. Did people really speak like that, or is it a writer's approximation of what kids in the 70s were like? The parties are all an embellished facsimile, refracted through Russ Meyer's own camp desires.

The film's best and worst character is Ronnie "Z-Man" Barzell: a flamboyant Shakespeare obsessive who loosely orchestrates the revels. He dominates every scene he is in – the ringleader of a host of grotesques that swirl around Hollywood. But the film can't help but want to punish such decadence. It reveals Barzell to be trans, and then a schizophrenic monster who cannot control his desires. The lesbian characters (although obviously leered at relentlessly) are treated better, but they wind up dead as well, leaving three married heterosexuals at the end. For all its transgressive posing, the film is less daring than it seems.

Wonder Woman

There is something quite apt in making the personification of the patriarchy (and villain of the film) into an old resentful man, rather than a hunky slice of beefcake. After all, these days CGI absolves the actor of needing to perform any feats of athleticism in action sequences. And it's a clever ruse to set up one burly alpha male as the bad guy, only to switch him with an unassuming, frail-looking member of the English ruling class. These were the kinds of pusillanimous creatures that sent the youth of Europe to die in trenches, after all. Ares embodies every single kind of privilege, playing games of divide and rule and dreaming of a world free from riff raff.

Wonder Woman is a symbol of the hierarchies being levelled. It's why she leaves Themyscira, which despite its heavenly appearance is an militaristic autarky ruled by a queen – not far from national socialism with the genders reversed. Diana speaks every human language, and cares for all living things equally, and yet the film must conform to genre expectations to the extent that the romantic interest is a buff American and the sidekicks are left to fill out the diversity criteria. It's a shame that Saïd Taghmaoui couldn't have the part of Steve Trevor. It would have made for a more enjoyable movie.

No matter. It's very good, with a nice enough message about evil not being the work of bad guys but of everyone, and that self-sacrifice can defeat it. Gal Gadot is superb in the role, selling her character's passionate distress at war, but also bringing a wry sense of humour to her interactions with all these weird men she has to encounter. In the cinema the effects and music are stirring, even if you've seen all these tricks before. The most depressing thing about it is the prospect of Wonder Woman again playing second fiddle to Batman and Superman in future films. Turns out she's more interesting than either of them.

Nightcrawler

Jake Gyllenhall is literally unbelievable as the unscrupulous thief spouting entrepreneurial gobbledygook who gets involved in filming crime scenes for local news. It's an unlikely composite character, which suggests that it is a metaphor for something else: Los Angeles, Hollywood, America, capitalism in general.

Although sensationalism in the news is the film's most obvious target, the lasting impression is of Lou's ridiculous management-speak being used to threaten, coerce and exploit the people around him. They don't have the economic security to resist his obscene offers. Lou's language of aspiration and empowerment ring hollow, and add a rich undercurrent of dark comedy to the film's proceedings.

Margin Call

Turns out the good guys in this Wall Street drama – the risk analysts who spot the error that precipitates the financial crisis – are both engineers by training. They could have spent their lives building tangible things, but the money to be made in finance was too much to turn down.

J.C. Chandor portrays this twilight world of investment banking as a place of constant alienation and existential bewilderment. Employees lose their jobs at random. No one is certain of where they stand relative to anyone else. The sense of people's work and words is often unclear. In some respects it reminded me of the numb absurdity of an Antonioni film.

This is captured in a great shot-reverse-shot sequence with Stanley Tucci and Demi Moore towards the end of the film. Both are supposed to be looking at each other, and normally that would mean having one to the left of the frame looking right, and the other to the right of the frame looking left. Instead, one is framed to the right and looks right outside the frame, and the other to the left looking left. There are supposedly talking to each other, but actually a dialogue is never achieved. They are speaking to the empty space around them, unable to make a connection.

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie

An exercise in style, mostly. I haven't watched the series, but given that the characters are just collections of archetypes, it's very easy to catch up and get into the swing of things. The animation is brilliant – particularly in its use of distorted perspective and skewed framing. And the music choices are inspired – a selection of jazz and funk tracks that bring the science fiction setting down to earth, and highlight the debts owed to hard-boiled noir. The characters are all flamboyantly-dressed Tarantino-esque smart-mouths (although the film does tend to disrobe the women to telegraph their vulnerability).

Piecing together what the film is about is an unhappy task. There is something to its notion that being free from the fear of death is the source of true liberty. It also seems to be the source of the main character's exhilarating martial arts and piloting abilities. An almost Buddhist renunciation of worldly attachments is married to the rugged individualism of the wild west.

The villain is the victim of a corporate conspiracy, who wants to share the pain he has been put through by releasing a chemical weapon in the middle of a city parade (parallels with the Sarin attacks in Tokyo are left unexplored). As is typical in anime, the corporation does not get its comeuppance at the end (in contrast to the new Ghost in the Shell film, for example). Instead the only way out is suicide, of a sort. The filmmakers link this death drive to a sense of the numinous and transcendent, and end by asking the audience if they can tell what's real and what's make believe. The villain and hero are mirror images of each other, and the film may be warning the audience away from the alluring but nihilistic aesthetic they embody.

Ghost in the Shell

The LGNN discussion (which I contributed to at the margins) did a good job of exploring the whitewashing controversy. Perversely, it made me want to watch the film more, to get a sense of exactly how it dealt with the idea of Scarlett Johansson playing a Japanese woman. Turns out that you can excuse that decision in the same way that you might excuse the gratuitous nudity in the manga and anime – the Major is designed by a heartless corporation according to its (patriarchal, white supremacist) whims.

There's a strange auto-criticism in so blatantly placing a Japanese ghost in a white American shell, given that it is done at the behest of the villains of the film. The evil corporation kidnap Mokoto Kusanagi (a rebellious teen) and wipe her memories, and I find it impossible to tell whether this is a sly nod to how Dreamworks and the filmmakers have treated the original property. Not least because the CEO who is responsible for the nefarious plot is dispatched in fine style by none other than 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano, an acclaimed Japanese comedian, actor and film director in his own right. You could read it as the return of the repressed, or the revenge of the colonised on their imperial masters.

The film is at its least interesting when it indulges in shot-for-shot recreations of the anime (which I love). The rather generous Observer review is on point in so far as it identifies the sordid world as the main distinguishing feature of the remake. In the (unspecified) city of the future, giant holograms tower over buildings advertising brands both real and imaginary, adding their own sinister comment on the film's mercenary nature.

All About Eve

Gender and Christian myth are my go to lenses when interpreting film, and All About Eve is at the centre of that Venn diagram. It's not a feminist film at all, but then there's the scene where Margot (a feisty aging actress) admits that being a woman is just another performance. She can try to carve out a career for herself, but at the end of the day this is just a distraction, a way to spend the time until you find a suitable husband. Marriage is the only route to happiness available for women – any other kind of ambition is monstrous. Margot is valourised for accepting her fate, regardless of how independent-minded she may appear at first glance.

Because then there's Eve of course, who at first glance appears meek and is revealed to be anything but. The name cannot be an accident – she is an alluring object, a potential theatrical star. But she is also a tempter, and a serpent. It's interesting that despite her best efforts, the men in the film who are in relationships remain faithful to their partners. Eve's victims are women, not men. The film never allows her to have the upper hand.

Eve's intrigues spring from the same motive as Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost – observing what others have (love, grace, success) leads to resentment and ambition. It will end up in a desire to dominate that is far less benign than Margot's melodramatic inflexibility, which the film frames as feminine caprice and weakness. The filmmakers aren't brave enough to show Eve unbound. Instead, they transfer that end state onto a man: Addison DeWitt, a critic (of course).

DeWitt is a villain greater than Eve. He is omniscient – seeing through all Eve's secrets and using them to make her his slave. "You belong to me", he says, and slaps her when she doesn't comply. DeWitt also provides the initial voiceover at the start of the film. It starts off being a voice of God, before DeWitt introduces himself, and the film's one radical act is to associate his character's cold inhumanity with the deity of the Christian faith. DeWitt is a jealous God insisting on complete obedience from his servants.

I admit I missed the suggestion that Eve and DeWitt are gay, which adds a homophobic tenor to the film's defense of marriage. All About Eve has a gay following, but that is due to Bette Davis in the role of Margot – who has the largest presence, and the sharpest wit, in the film, and therefore displays a certain freedom before being forced to retire from the spotlight. The film ends with Eve's success, and the notion that the ambition that powered her ascent is something universal. And although there is something morbidly fascinating about Eve's duplicity, I wonder whether the film would be a classic without Bette Davis sparkling turn as Margot, who makes the character's retreat into domesticity into a tragedy.

The Handmaiden

The first two parts show two women being fashioned by the desires of two men. But neither of the men see into what the women truly want. Only at the very end does the con man realise what has happened – the relationship that has developed between the two women. He finally sees what they truly desire.

The irony being that that final vision (which the film ends on) is informed by the culture (those books) they have read. It flickers the first time we see it, but it's difficult to see the truth at first.

The film also exploits its cast for the enjoyment of the audience. We're not innocent either – we are the people listening to filthy stories in the library. But if our desires are to be warped by books (or films), at least we should understand what others truly want, rather than using them for our own ends.

The Gap between Panels / Standing on the Edge of an Alien Invasion

Latest column on the LGNN is a rather discursive one drawing parallels between two big manga hits – Knights of Sidonia and Attack on Titan. I also try to explain why I prefer the personal stuff in the former over the political and historical stuff in the latter – mostly because the former avoids the Battlestar Galactica problem of an unending series with compounding plot problems, and also because it's just more fun. Read it here.

"I know what I'm doing, trust me. 'Cause these man are taking major L's in front of their idols. Me and Drake are texting each other, bussing up. Checkmate. It's given me such an energy. At this point here, the only way back for me was through. I had to go through. I said it to my mum the other day. She said, 'Son, I'm getting tired of you making people famous and them disrespecting my family. Enough is enough now, Jamaal.' I said, 'Mum, I had to do this at fourteen, but you just weren't watching.' Now it's the internet time. There are histories of sets where I'm on my jacks and I have to swing. I'm wearing Nike and I have to go on the microphone and slew Nike. That's how it was. You have to go in, you have to step up and murk and that's the energy that I'm doing what I'm doing now. The only difference is I'm doing it to guys who probably wouldn't have made it to Fuck Radio. The reality of us being in the same building for a set is very unlikely. When I go to sets now, Skep will be there, the new yutes will be there and it's that environment again. These yutes actually might have their knives on them, but you have to normalise yourself and they have to see that you are reachable. If Yungen had to spit his 'One Take' in a room full of MCs not from his ends, he wouldn't get his whole bar out, I swear down. He wouldn't 'cause it's a completely different school these yutes are coming from. If you just have to let negative energy out of your body for me, that's fine, 'cause I'll lead and this time I'm not letting anyone run."

Chip speaking his own private language in Hattie Collins & Olivia Rose, This Is Grime

Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring

It feels weird writing this, but I think Žižek may be onto something. Kim Ki-duk may have intended his film to be a straight depiction of Buddhist asceticism, but you get the sense that the austerity being portrayed is just as brutalizing as life in the secular world. The monk warns his ward that lust leads to possessiveness, jealousy and murder. But the tranquil world of the temple is shown to have its own strictures, that possess the minds of its inhabitants. There are doorways without walls, which the characters continue to respect and use – just as they cling to the traditions and morality they have grown up with.

The boy finds an cruel kind of pleasure in exercising his power over animals, only to turn that same will-to-power back on himself when he grows up – mortifying his body in order to cleanse his mind. Kim may be suggesting that the boy would have become a killer even if he wasn't a monk, and that religion has been a way to atone for his crimes. I wonder whether the socialisation available in the big bad world isn't a better way to curb violent tendencies.

12 favourite emo albums

Using the rather expansive definition and longlist put together  for this ILM poll, which was a great way of discovering things I'd previously never heard of. A lot of these are on the outskirts of what would be considered emo proper, and most of it reflects things I listened to maybe 10 years ago. Restricted the below to just one album per band, to make sure it isn't just a list of Death Cab records:

1. Johnny Foreigner - Waited Up 'til It was Light
2. Death Cab for Cutie - We Have The Facts And We're Voting Yes
3. Fall Out Boy - Take This to Your Grave
4. The Hotelier - Home, Like Noplace Is There
5. The Dismemberment Plan - Emergency & I
6. The Anniversary - Designing a Nervous Breakdown
7. American Football - American Football
8. blink-182 - Enema of the State
9. Brand New - The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me
10. Motion City Soundtrack - Commit This to Memory
11. The Promise Ring - Nothing Feels Good
12. Sunny Day Real Estate - How It Feels to Be Something On

Exotica

One long striptease of a film, except what is being revealed isn't alluring at all. These clubs are wells of loneliness, and Exotica is about putting that pain and neurosis on display. The film begins with the command to observe people closely – this is a customs official at an airport instructing a newbie, but the lesson is actually for the audience. We are here to ferret out what the characters we meet are hiding.

The task is complicated by the fact that all of them are friendless – some are dealing with loss, others have never been able to adjust to society. And so conversation is inevitably guarded and stilted. In the most explicit description of this unmoored kind of existence, a character talks about a constant state of tension between himself and others. He doesn't try to overcome it anymore. It's just something you get used to and live with.

The film loops in the owner of an exotic petshop who is somewhat peripheral to the slowly unfolding story, but serves to mirror and comment on the proprietors of the stripclub. Both establishments are inherited – the current owners never managing to step out of their parents' shadow. The dancers are associated with exotic animals put up for sale, and the film makes the point that they are for entertainment, not healing. Except the latter is what the characters really need.

Atom Egoyan seems to be interested in the ways people cope with trauma – particularly the idiosyncratic crutches they lean on to process it, even if to the outside observer the behaviour looks strange or deviant. The film seems to suggest that the protagonist doesn't go to the stripclub for a sexual thrill at all – although you can interpret this more unkindly if you so wish. The petshop owner has his own strange way to spend his evenings, and they are mostly for the purposes of hooking up. But the film is asking us to dig a little deeper, and try to accept the way people choose to deal with their problems, even if they seem unsatisfactory at first glance.

There are several layers of meaning in the line "it's a jungle out there" – which gets muttered as one of the characters is leaving the petshop. It underlines a feeling of detachment and alienation from others. But if we are to associate the shop with the nightclub, it also suggests that these places are havens where the hostility of the outside world is tamed. For those that find sex or relationships impossible, Exotica a sanctuary.

I think Egoyan presents all this rather uncritically – he might think that this is where the characters should end up. I'm not sure that's a good lesson to draw, however. The film presents a torturous path to overcoming trauma – one that comes very close to inflicting more hurt and death on people. There is also something about the main character (a white middle class guy) doling out cash to young women in order to work through his issues that feels a bit cringe. The power to weave the fantasy you need to keep going is granted to those who can pay for it, and we get very little insight into the history and desires of the women who provide these services – until the very last moments of the film, that is.

Train to Busan

Working title for which was probably 'Zombies on a Train'. Which may be enough to hang a film on, but this horror flick from Korea is worth a closer look for two reasons. Firstly, the tension is remarkably sustained throughout the running time. After about 20 minutes of set-up, the film is essentially a series of escalating scenarios that winnow down a train's worth of passengers to a handful of survivors. And while the in-world logic comes under some strain towards the end (an unexplained flaming locomotive appears randomly at one point to supercharge the mayhem), there's enough inventive use of the obstacles and opportunities of the setting to keep a thrill-seeker satisfied.

The second reason is that the film is actually about something more than zombies on a train. The protagonist is a fund manager who may share some responsibility for the outbreak. His marriage has failed, and he doesn't spend enough time with his daughter. When the zombies appear, he instructs her to look after number one, and not try to help others. He is contrasted on the one hand with a burly expectant dad who understands that fatherhood is about sacrifice, and on the other with a cowardly small businessman who gets increasingly comfortable with throwing others to the zombies in order to save his own skin. The film keeps coming back to this battle between self-interest and selflessness. At one point, it suggests that there may be a generational aspect to this divide – an older, more community-minded cohort who might still remember the Korean War, and a newer, more individualistic breed of Korean out to work hard, make money and leave others in the dust. It is heavily implied that the zombies are only the next step in that (d)evolution.

But if parenting is about sacrifice, the film places an awful lot of the burden on preserving a happy family on the men. All the female characters in the film are there to be put in peril and subsequently saved by the male characters – even the teenage girl, who doesn't have the excuse of being too young, too old, or pregnant, to fight. The women also don't really have arcs – they either already accept that survival requires selflessness, or are otherwise mindless paranoiacs whipped up into a frenzy by the villain. The only female character who makes a choice in the film chooses suicide in disgust at the moral compromises of her fellow passengers. She kills herself in order to kill others. Only the men kill themselves to preserve their families. Which makes me wonder how far the critique of absent fathers working long hours to support their kids goes.

At one point the burly expectant father boasts that he 'made' the baby growing inside his partner, erasing her role in the process. It's a cute moment, but the joke becomes less funny the more the film valorises his conduct.

Keyhole

My first foray into the works of Guy Maddin – this is a gangsters in a haunted house story loosely based on the Odyssey and preoccupied by the ways your parents mess you up. The Odysseus figure is an authoritarian crime lord who cannot recognise his son, and who is on a mission to gain forgiveness from his estranged wife. The surrealism is justified by the insinuation that all of the action is taking place in the dreams of the son, who is processing his feelings of estrangement from his family. In what is probably the most touching scene, the son demonstrates a machine he has invented which can pass messages to different rooms in the house. He is still a boy trying his hardest keep lines of communication open, and put his family back together. But of course, they're all ghosts in his head. The house is empty.

The film is shot through with streaks of absurdist humour – my favourite being the father's mistress who replies only in (unsubtitled) French. Otherwise, I found the jokes a little bit amateurish, but perhaps you need to be in a certain forgiving mood to enjoy them. More arresting are the slightly coy instances of sexual awakening in the film – not just the son's desire for a beautiful medium he falls in love with, but his fear of the sexuality of other members of his family (the mistress who steals his father away, his mother's father who is always naked and probably gay, and his sister). The film probably adds up to less than the sum of its parts, but there are moments and images that make it worth trying out.