A collection of vignettes, Angelina Jolie sings opera, confronting tragedy in Canada, and a classic from Franco-era Spain. Here's what I watched last week...
Maria (2024)
Director: Pablo Larraín
Genre/s: Drama/Music Length: 2 Hours 4 Minutes Languages: English/French/Italian/Greek Countries: Italy/Germany/USA
Cast: Angelina Jolie, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Pierfrancesco Favino, Alba Rohrwacher, Haluk Bilginer
Synopsis: The final days (and years) in opera super star Maria Callas’ life.
My Take: Pablo Larraín is one of my favorite filmmakers working today. Having delivered two excellent biopics, Jackie and Spencer (both of which, in my humble opinion, should have earned their leads Academy Awards), he returns with Maria, the third film in his biopic trilogy about three highly influential and tragic figures who were constantly in the media’s crosshairs. These women, though heavily covered by the press, still retain an air of mystery—a mythos that has developed around them due to the media bombardment of their lives and characters. That’s what makes these films so fascinating: they focus on a pivotal moment in each of their lives, a moment when they were at their most vulnerable. Sure, they might not be 100% accurate portrayals of what they were going through at the time (unfortunately, we don’t have their voices to tell us exactly how they felt), but what these films do so well is humanize them. They remove the veil of mystery, working to both sympathize with and empathize with them. They excel in writing, directing, and, of course, performance.
So, it’s no wonder I was excited for Maria, a film which would see Angelina Jolie make a now rare acting appearance. But despite an incredible performance from Jolie, who truly connects with and grasps the conflict of her character, Maria feels aimless, struggling to untangle its mysterious subject at its core. However, I did connect with Maria’s central conflict. It’s a film that isn’t really about her final week but about the tragedy of losing something you once had and desperately trying to get it back. For Maria, it’s her voice. Having not performed in years, and dealing with rumors about her faking an illness around her last appearance, she dreams of performing again, missing the organic, exciting, and raw imperfections that come with performing live. But she just doesn’t have it anymore. And that’s what connected with me so deeply.
Admittedly, I’ve gotten rusty in my writing, and with each thing I write, I loathe myself even more, wishing I could be as good as I remember myself to be. But what Maria tries to remind us is that we can’t shake off the rust immediately—it comes with time and practice, and she unfortunately can’t see that. That element is so easily relatable for viewers, and although Jolie may be a touch unconvincing in certain lip-syncing scenes (she actually sings in key moments, merged with Maria Callas’ actual voice), she remains phenomenal here—conjuring a stoic, almost spectral presence as a woman whose prescription drug addiction has her hallucinating and wandering the halls of her past.
On paper, it’s everything I want from an unconventional biopic, but I ultimately found myself bored at times as these moments became repetitive in action and outcome. It doesn’t connect as deeply as Jackie and Spencer do, never quite breaking down and hypothesizing the internal conflict in the same way. Instead, it keeps us at the door, offering us a chance to step inside but ultimately shooing us away. Maybe this is by design, but unfortunately, it doesn’t give us intriguing enough insight—even if it would be hypothetical—for us to learn anything new.
Try it if you're a fan of: Angelina Jolie getting back to form, unconventional music biopics, Maria Callas wandering around Paris on prescription drugs, Pablo Larraín’s biopics.
Where you can watch it: Netflix (USA), in South African theatres 31st of January.
The Spirit of the Beehive (1973) (rewatch)
Director: Victor Erice
Genre: Drama Length: 1 Hour 38 Minutes Language: Spanish Country: Spain
Cast: Ana Torrent, Isabel Tellería, Fernando Fernán Gómez, Teresa Gimpera
Synopsis: 1940, post-civil war Franco-era Spain. Ana, an impressionable 6-year-old’s life soon changes when she watches Frankenstein (1931), an experience that will change her entire worldview.
My Take: Steeped in rich symbolism—from its barren landscape and sparsely populated town to its colour palette and the visual representation of bees and their beekeeper—Victor Erice manages to convey so much by saying so little. He marries his ideas and observations on fascism and Spain's isolation during this dark period through imagery and the very actions of his characters. By giving us a perspective largely shaped by 6-year-old Ana’s experiences, which unfold after she watches Frankenstein (1931) for the first time, Erice works his magic. It’s somehow easier to understand when we see things through the eyes of a child, and after watching Frankenstein, it all seems so simple despite the complex issues at hand: life, death, humanity, and inhumanity. Ana experiences all of these things, much like Frankenstein’s monster. And while we are at the center of Franco-era Spain, this perspective feels louder than ever as she gradually retreats into fantasy while the world around her grows quieter. A massive influence on Guillermo del Toro, especially Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), The Spirit of the Beehive is a landmark in world cinema that remains as beautifully bleak as ever.
Try it if you’re a fan of: Frankenstein, any Guillermo Del Toro film centered around children, coming-of-age stories, allegorical filmmaking.
Where you can watch it: The Criterion Channel (USA), most VOD platforms (SA, UK, AU).
Sugarcane (2024)
Directors: Emily Kassie & Julian Brave NoiseCat
Genre: Documentary Length: 1 Hour 47 Minutes Languages: English/Secwepemctsín/French Countries: Canada/USA
Synopsis: An investigation into the abuse and missing children that swept across Indian Catholic residential schools across Canada over the course of a hundred years. Sugarcane follows the survivors, their children and grandchildren.
My Take: Residential Indian Schools, primarily catholic, are a major stain on not only America’s bloody past with its indigenous people, but Canada as well. And although Canada is seen as the friendly neighbour, a beacon of kindness and decency to the world, its past and present with its Indigenous Peoples remains just as complicated, just as cruel as it continues to battle with the ugly truths of its past. This year, we have seen notable Canadian documentaries about its people from Red Fever (a film about Indigenous People’s representation in media) to Yintah, an inspiring but maddening look into various clan’s war against industrialists vying to steal their land once more. But Sugarcane proves to be the toughest watch, dealing with harrowing stories of sexual abuse and murder at the hands of those who claim to be righteous – cleansers of the land who view them as nothing but barbarians needing to be purified. Sugarcane doesn’t offer much investigative journalism in its filmmaking, but what it does offer is raw, emotive life. It’s a film that feels ghostlike, a specter in desperate need of peace as it looks to confront the demons that placed them there in the first place, from the unwanted children of rape committed by priests to those who survived their harrowing years suffered at schools as well as being chastised and outcast by their own community. It’s so important that we break these traumatic, generational cycles and with Sugarcane, it looks to listen and embrace its subjects, reminding them that they need not suffer in silence ever again.
Try it if you're a fan of: Procession (2021, on Netflix), documentaries tacklingorganised religion’s abuse of power, Indigenous American stories.
Where you can watch it: Disney+ (Worldwide).
Terrestrial Verses (2024)
Directors: Ali Asgari & Alireza Khatami
Genre/s: Comedy/Drama Length: 1 Hour 17 Minutes Languages: Farsi/English Country: Iran
Cast: Bahram Ark, Sadaf Asgari, Ardeshir Kazemi, Gohar Kheirandish, Farzin Mohades, Faezeh Rad, Majid Salehi, Arghavan Shabani, Hossein Soleimani, Sarvin Zabetian, Sara Bahrami, Alireza Khatami
Synopsis Told through 9 vignettes over the course of a day in Tehran, Terrestrial Verses follows ordinary citizens navigating through the increasingly absurd constraints that comes with living and working in Iran.
My Take: A woman has her car taken away from her for allegedly removing her hijab while driving. A man has to demonstrate how one washes before prayers in order to get a construction job. A man is forced to reveal his tattoos with the hopes of getting his driver’s license. A woman answers inappropriate questions in a job interview. Although we are initially greeted with each vignette as a mundane familiarity from our own lives, each one’s humour springs from the absurdity of living in Iran as they eventually culminate in humiliating defeats to the faceless voices from behind the camera, ones that intend to inflict its petty cruelty as a means to control. And although Terrestrial Verses is more stylised and exaggerated in tone vs. the usually more gritty, neo-realism that Iranian cinema has become known for, it remains just as powerful and as brave as its counterparts - anchoring its absurdity in a reality that is somehow both familiar and unfamiliar, collecting and stacking the frustrating grains of hope lodged in each portrait before mounting into a colossal avalanche that will hopefully bring the whole beast down for good. For my extended thoughts, you can read my review for it here.
Try it if you’re a fan of: Iranian cinema, Roy Andersson, vignettes, political and social satire, dark comedies.
Where you can watch it: The Criterion Channel (USA), Most VOD platforms (USA).
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