Music & Films for
Common People
THE BEGUILED
DIR. SOFIA COPPOLA
10
Mrs. Coppola is back in form, taking a step backwards to examine what set her apart as an artist by tackling the dark parts of repressed womanhood in a thriller-esque drama following a wounded male soldier taken by an all-female boarding school in the middle of the Civil War.
​
The same beautiful aesthetics that she developed in her early films is what make this film great: the soft textures in desaturated pastel colors, the slow camera movements, the use of flairs and light diffusions, all of them used to portray the dark side of immaculate white nymphs fighting with the desires of the flesh.
​
It's a perversely delicious film charged with sensuality and darkness, but made with entire maturity and elegance.
​
9
JUSTE LA FIN DU MONDE
(IT's only the end of the world)
dir. Xavier dolan
Dolan gives another go at his obsession with unhealthy family relationships in the story of a writer that goes back to his family to tell them that he is going to die soon.
​
He gets the most of his all-stars casting, not only giving them brilliant lines and powerful personal stories, but also by using extreme close-ups that let us get very close to their rich expressions. The use of the space is also fantastic, this house at times is huge, filled with textures and ambients, but at times a claustrophobic hole that suffocates the characters and the audience.
​
After six films, it's very safe to say that this is a perfectly Dolanesque film, full with his personal style that is a perfect combination of strong narratives and thrilling visuals.
​
THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER
dir. giorgos lanthimos
8
Lanthimos contrasts the clinical hyper-realism in his directorial approach with a magical conflict, worthy of a Greek tragedy, when a doctor falls victim of the revenge of a kid who promises that his family will die slowly if he doesn't choose to kill of them before.
​
The characters in the family keep evolving as they face the fatality of their destiny, forced to go to their animal instincts, but in such a contained way that aligns with the tone of the overall film, a psychological thriller that give us the creeps thanks to the ambiguity in its elements.
​
It is an unsettling film that demands a lot form the audience and that will be rewarding as long as you cooperate with the absurd game proposed by the director.
​
7
Call me by your name
dir. Luca Guadagnino
Guadagnino makes a film able to arouse all the senses and not just the libido; we can almost smell, touch and taste the story of a summer romance between a teenager and his father's apprentice.
​
The beautiful cinematography, the charming music by Sufjan Stevens, the colorful mise-en-scène in the Italian countryside, and all the other elements work together to make a vivid experience of a passionate love story where the seduction is long, but precise, growing the tension and making the desire and the infatuation stronger and deeper.
​
It is warm, sweet and touching, a reminder that the greatest love stories are not always the ones that last forever, but the ones that are able to transform us.
​
6
AH-GA-SSi
(THE HANDMAIDEN)
dir. PARK chan-wook
Park Chan-Wook uses the camera as if it is a voyeur that needs to be subtle in its movements to don't be discovered to reveal the story of a woman that is convinced to became the maid of a rich lady to trick her and steal her fortune, only to end up falling in love with her.
​
The screenplay is designed to reveal things in small doses, leading to two major plot twists that make the story even better, but the director makes sure to make an aesthetic experience of every single shot, mastering the cinematic language to exploit the richness in the art direction.
​
At times beautiful and subtle, at times brutal and explicit, but precise in its development and its evolutions to offer a round film that will keep things interesting until the last minute.
​
5
HAPPY END
dir. michael haneke
Haneke, hits again with yet another nihilist film that attacks the middle-upper class societies. Focusing on a bourgeois family in the north of France, the director explore the cold modern relationships between people that are supposed to care for each other, but who in reality are unable to hold significant connections.
​
The film explores heavy existential topics that are framed in the long wide shots that are recurring in Haneke's films, but here we are also treated to Snapchats and Facebook chats, as if the screen was our mobile device, to make a meta-comment on the effects of technology in human interaction.
​
A pessimistic and confrontative film that is poignant in its critics, offering meaningful questions rather than answers.
​
4
Enyedi creates a smart, funny and touching love story about two people who are very inadequate in their social interactions but that connect with each other when they discover that they share the same dreams every night.
​
It is a great study of characters, both of them very unlikely candidates for a romantic film, but approached in a sincere way to discover what their inner worlds are like, being able to get to their human side without risking crossing the line of corny clichés.
​
Set in cold environments and very formal in the aesthetic approach, the director makes use of a particular sense of humor and relies on the great performances of the main couple to offer a very memorable experience.
​
3
Get out
Dir. Jordan peele
Peele bends gender structures to point out one of the issues that people should be most worried about right now: the new rise of white supremacism.
Even if it is one of the best horror movies in recent years, you wouldn't really find yourself jumping in your seat very often. Instead, it will creep in your brain and haunt you because the source of fear in this film is something very real.
​
Peele is great at making social statements while constructing a dark tale full of tension, it takes time with the characters and knows on what dose reveal things to keep us intrigued, we know there's something wrong in that house but we discover it along with the protagonist, each twist is surprising and truly plausible.
​
Nelyubov
(Loveless) DIR. Andrei Zvyaginstev
2
Loveless is a cold view at Russian society, where Zyvaginstev shows a steady growth as a master in the film language, matching powerful images with an existential tale about a splitting couple that hates each other but has to team up to look for their missing child.
​
It's smart storytelling that makes the narrative actions go forward while it digs in the characters more and more, revealing how is it that the society forces us to grow up as entities unable to form connections and love anybody else, not even our own family.
​
Loveless can suffocate us, but it also give us a deep introspection on our relationships at a micro and a macro levels, with beautiful and very sad images of the Russian taiga.
​
120 battements par minute
(B.P.M.) DIR. robin campillo
1
This is a film where the political statements are as strong, if not more, than the personal stories of loss and suffering. Following a group of activists on AIDS in the early 90's Paris, that are very unorthodox in their methods to draw attention towards their agenda, Robin Campillo offers a film that is as pulsating as the title can suggest, hitting with strength from the opening scenes and never slowing down for its entire length.
​
For a film that is charged with that many discussions, strong scenes and personal drama, it has an amazing sense of rhythm. A film that has the same high levels of guts and heart is so rare to find that 120 Battements par Minute feels unique, it is almost an action film but with its human side very present; loud and aggressive when it has to be, but deep and moving when it needs to, even extremely erotic at some points.
​
