Triangle of Sadness
SimilarBorat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006), Fargo (1996), Natural Born Killers (1994), The Pianist (2002),
StudioARTE France Cinéma, BBC Film, BFI,
As we lurch our way through the sixth or seventh wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve only just begun to see how much billion dollar companies (and billionaires themselves) profited from the chaos, while smaller businesses and individuals took devastating financial hits. A class war has erupted, if not in real life (yet) then certainly on social media, marked by endless heated debates over privilege, the victims and villains of capitalism, and who the “elite” really are. Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness satirizes this very unsettling period in time, putting a cheeky spin on class rage, but with an acidic undertaste that lingers long after it’s over. Continue Reading →
Bergman Island
StudioARTE France Cinéma,
Mia Hansen-Løve's latest wrestles with the creative and romantic frustrations between men and women, with Ingmar Bergman watching mindfully overhead.
(This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 New York Film Festival.)
It's an unwritten rule of film festivals that there have to be at least a few films in the program dealing with either the history of cinema or the filmmaking process. Bergman Island, the latest from Mia Hansen-Løve, covers both of those bases. It's a quietly beguiling look at a pair of filmmakers as they go about generating their latest projects, literally standing in the looming shadow of one of filmmaking's most towering figures. Continue Reading →
Pleasure
SimilarMy Life Without Me (2003),
Ninja Thyberg's tale of a woman's attempt to make it in the adult film industry is a feature debut that doesn't pull any punches.
(This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.)
Fresh from Sweden, Jessica (Sofia Kappel) has just landed in Los Angeles. The customs agent asks her a few questions, and when he inquires whether she’s here for business or pleasure, she says—you know what she says. This is the only moment Ninja Thyberg’s debut feature winks at its audience. From here on out, there’s no sense of humor to be had. Sure, characters will make jokes with each other once in a blue moon, but this is far from a fun watch.
You see, Jessica is in L.A. to become an adult film star, going by Bella Cherry instead. It seems immediate that she’s on her first shoot. She meets Mike (Jason Toler), who soon becomes her agent, and lives with three other young women in the porn industry (Revika Anne Reustle, Kendra Spade, and Dana DeArmond). On paper, it’s a standard star-is-born tale. In some ways it is, but that isn’t the main approach. Pleasure, while incredibly difficult to watch, repackages that subgenre into a look at the cycle of abuse when having boundaries isn’t a commodity. Continue Reading →