T H U R S D A Y 1 3 M A R C H -
W E D N E S D A Y 1 9 M A R C H 2 0 2 5
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The Wellington Film Society: Embassy 17 March at 6.00pm and 8.30pm:
CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 Agnes Varda, France, 1962.
Agnes Varda eloquently captures Paris in the sixties with this real-time portrait of a singer (Corinne Marchand) set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy. A chronicle of the minutes of one woman's life, it's a spirited mix of vivid verite and melodrama, featuring a score by Michel Legrand (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) and cameos by Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina.
- Criterion.
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The paragraphs describing the films starting this week are in most cases adapted from the linked reviews.
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s t a r t s t h i s w e e k!
BLACK BAG -
Efficiency isn't meant to feel this thrillingly erotic. But that's how love goes in this ode to a poisonously compatible marriage between spies, in which lies are the daggers slipped under a lover's pillow each night. Airtight efficiency is also precisely how Steven Soderbergh's thriller operates. It starts the moment its plot kicks into gear and never looks back.
Also Penthouse, Queensgate, Monterey, Reading and Coastlands.
FIREBRAND -
Early on in Karim Ainouz's richly textured and suspenseful historical drama, King Henry VIII commends his sixth and final wife, Catherine Parr, on her excellent job filling in as Regent while he's been abroad engaged in warfare. Never mind the efforts to limit her powers to inconsequential matters, he tells her she won't have to worry her "pretty little head" about all that anymore. It's Alicia Vikander's best work since Ex Machina.
Also Lighthouse and Shoreline.
HARD TRUTHS -
Jean-Baptiste has an even better role than she did as an adopted daughter searching for her mother in Mike Leigh's Secrets and Lies(1996), a quietly powerful turn that earned her an Oscar nomination. Here, she brings both dynamism and understanding to the prickliest of characters, in what is sure to be one of the best performances of the year.
Also Lighthouse and Shoreline.
LUCKY WINNERS -
I usually dislike comedies, especially French comedies, but this one is really worth the look. It is funny, inventive, brilliant, bloody too - yes, bloody - always surprising. Several different stories, several segments showing people who have won at the Loto - sweepstake - but who actually get many troubles in exchange.
Also Lighthouse.
BLACK DOG -
A film like this, written and directed by Guan Hu, does not often come along, where the art and power of cinema truly leave one with a perspective on life and the world we live in that stuns you. This dramatic thriller was filmed on the edge of the Gobi desert in Northwest China. It's about survival, nature, humanity, and humans.
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