Tunnel of Love

Bucking Fastard (2026) - Herzog What starts out as an oddball courtroom drama quickly morphs into something entirely different, then changes course again in the most unexpected way, Bucking Fastard, a new narrative film by legendary 84-year-old filmmaker, Werner Herzog, provides us with surprises at every turn.

The Holbrooke sisters, Jean (Kate Mara) and Joan (Rooney Mara), with matching outfits, are seated in a courtroom, speaking in unison. They are accused of stalking and being violent toward their hunky limo driver neighbor Mulroney (Orlando Bloom), whom the sisters have been obsessing over, ever since they laid their eyes on him at a local church they attend. He is the love of their lives.

For Mulroney, the Holbrookes were just some birds to fool around with, while preparing to marry Gwen, his fiancée. But once the sisters found out about Gwen, it's scorched-earth time, breaking the windshield of his limo, breaking and entering, constant physical and verbal harassment, and even arson, while maintaining their devotion and love reserved for Mulroney. The judge has had enough of their nonsense and places a restraining order against the sisters. But nothing, not even the law, will stop them from loving him.

After the sisters start a fire in the mail box, in the hopes of burning love letters that supposedly Gwen and Mulroney exchange, an old neighbor takes pity on them and helps them relocate to another town, far away from Mulroney, into an apartment that he owns, in an industrial part of the town overlooking the harbor. The old man, fearing for their safety in a world full of wolves, instructs them not to open the door for anyone, other than himself and kind-hearted social worker Timothy (Domhnall Gleeson). Timothy helps them to settle into their new environment, showing them how to shop and where to place furniture around the house, because the Holbrookes are like children, not accustomed to the ways of the world.

But not long after we settle down in the new town with the sisters, things change again, as they are invited to stay with their aunt in the countryside. She has a farm at the foot of a mountain with large caves on the top of the hillside. This setting provides an awe-inspiring, truly Herzogian landscape from the cave looking down the valley. As the sisters explore the empty cave, they are told by an old sheep herder about the legend of a cave digger who finds a new world on the other side.

With chisels, wheel barrows and workgloves, the sisters start obsessively chipping away at he cave walls, digging a tunnel, day and night, refusing to eat, even. Months have gone by and they are tired and tempers flare. Is it all worth it? The point is not about the tunnel, but the process. They tell themselves. They are about to give up digging, until....

Bucking Fastard is a story about obsession and if you are familiar with Herzog's filmography, the man knows a few things about obsessive characters: Dragging a boat over a mountain in Fitzcarraldo; a man's destructive quest for El Dorado in Aguirre, Wrath of God; and a man who dedicates himself to preserving wild bears in Alaska even if it means risking his life, in Grizzly Man, just to name a few. The Holbrooke sisters, first latching on to a man they deem as worthy of their love and affection, then digging a hole inside a cave to find a world where they can belong, certainly fit the description of obsessive characters.

The Mara sisters, working together for the first time, are perfectly in tune with being one person in two bodies, and are marvelous as the Holbrookes. And they seem to be having an absolute blast. They get to blurt out such Herzogian lines as, "Everyone needs to dig a hole through the mountains!" They embody the characters who are both innocent yet extremely mischievous in their actions.

The film immediately reminded me of Jean-Pierre Gorin's fascinating documentary Poto and Cabengo, about the twin sisters, raised in isolation, who developed their own language- a truly Herzogian documentary about the girls creating their own world. The grown up sisters not knowing the way of the world also reminded me of Herzog's Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, starring Bruno S., about a boy who was brought up in a confined room, without knowing the outside world. When Hauser was finally released, he saw the world with such innocent and pure eyes, and possessed childlike, yet otherworldly wisdom. And the last third of the movie resembles The Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Herzog's documentary exploration of the Chauvet cave that had never been seen by human eye before, and his contemplation on 36,000 year old gorgeous cave paintings left in there by our ancestors.

Dedicated to the late David Lynch, Bucking Fastard isn’t exactly Lynchian. It might be Lynchian in a way My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done was, vibe-wise. But Bucking Fastard is all Herzog. It is full of absurdly amusing moments - there's a forklift operator who has hots for the sisters, and doesn't mind giving them a lift on his forklift to their door. Then there is a warehouse owner who peeps on the sisters through the windows from the rooftop across the building. So the sisters grease the roof. It also features a fox which the sisters rescue from the hunters, reminding you of the scene from Grizzly Man with Timothy Treadwell and his fox friends. The fox plays a pivotal role later on in the film as well.

Extremely funny, whimsical and full of surprises at every turn, Herzog, delving into narrative filmmaking for the first time in more than a decade, creates a fairytale for adults that only he can conjure up. It’s wondrous and constantly surprising, a real cinematic pleasure.

Love Abstractions

My Wife Cries (2026) - Schanelec Angela Schanelec’s contemplation on love is even more opaque and abstract than usual in her latest, My Wife Cries. As usual, there will be people having difficulties in communicating their feelings, with their frustrations in full display on their sad faces. There will be overwhelming tender moments shared among them. And there will be visual cues so abstract and unknowable, they will remain mysteries until repeated viewing. There will be imbued silences and heart pouring, long monologues. And these are all the reasons why I eagerly await every new Schanelec film's release with anticipation. And she does not disappoint.

Thomas (Vladimir Vulevic), a lanky crane operator in a construction company, gets a distressing call from his young wife, Carla (Agathe Bonitzer, seen in Schanelec's Music). He later finds her crying in the woods, inconsolable. She asks why he stopped going to the dance classes with her. Why does he not find interest in her wants and desires? He finds out that her dance partner in a dance class she has been attending, has died in a car crash while she was with him. She confesses that she planned to run away with the man. Unlike Thomas, he understood her and had shown an interest in her desires and needs. Upon hearing this, which is too much to take for him, Thomas has a cardiac distress episode and gets hospitalized.

So goes My Wife Cries, perhaps Schanelec's most impenetrable and abstract film to date. But I say this every time after watching her new output. The film revolves around the couple and their immediate workfriends. There will be a Band of Outsiders style, out of nowhere choreographed dance scene, there will be color coded wordrobes, there will be odd characters with sad faces popping up. And there will be long continuous monologues. And just like her other films, there will be people trying desperately to connect with each other and failing. There will be wondrous and contemplative moments in nature, contrasting with traffic, industrial machine noises and a brass band's loud music in the street that drowns out the dialog.

Nothing is stated too obviously. The female characters, with their short hair and androgynous look, seem out of place against the harsh industrial landscapes. The lush greenery of Berlin as Thomas and Carla spend walking and talking, has a fairy tale, otherworldly quality to it, rather than a bustling city of 4 million. Schanelec's minimalist approach - lack of background music, camera movements and empty spaces as the characters stay still, staring off the frame, the film creates its own reality, far removed from our everyday lives, populated by sad, lonely people desperately trying to connect and understand each other.

My Wife Cries is another somber yet hypnotic puzzle piece about our yearning for human connections and our utter inability to understand one another. I can't wait to watch it again, to see if there's any other clues and bits I missed the first time to understand more and soak up all the human warmth and melancholy of Schanelec's lonely, yet lovely world.

Class Divide

Possible Love (2026) - Lee Possible Love was originally conceived as one of the feature remakes of Krzysztof Kieslowski's Dekalog series. I am happy to report that the acclaimed Korean director Lee Chang-dong opted not to just redo the Ten Commandments-inspired classic, but wrote (with co-writer Oh Jung-mi) and directed something far richer and more nuanced than its mere original concept.

Talking about novelistic films, with the running time close to three hours, it might not be narratively as explosive as Burning, which Lee directed eight years ago, but Possible Love is just as layered, and more refined and complex, when delving into class divide and human conditions. It's surely one of the finest films of the year and yet another masterpiece by the Korean master.

Possible Love starts with a quote, "Thou Shalt Not Covet," just like the 10th Episode of Dekalog. But as it plays out, one can immediately recognize that the film is definitely all Lee Chang-dong through and through.

We are at the funeral of a worker who was laid off from a giant manufacturing firm, due to the company restructuring two years before. It turns out that he committed suicide. One of his colleagues, who was also the victim of downsizing along with hundreds of others, and now suffering from depression, is Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu of Lee's Peppermint Candy).

The memorial service is being videotaped by Ye-ji (Cho Yeo-jeoung, Parasite). There is a bit of scuffle, as Ho-seok deems taping of a somber occasion and grieving families more than a little abrasive. But he is later assured by his wife Mi-ok (Jeon Do-yeon, Secret Sunshine), that Ye-ji is a documentarian making a film about the state of the labor movement.

Ho-seok's blank stares and never-smiling face tells a story of his tragic case. He is a broken man both physically and mentally, after the violent government crackdown of the sit-in striking workers at the manufacturing plant, where he worked as a welder. He was physically assaulted and was hospitalized from his injuries. In the end, the strike failed and the company ended up laying off many of its workforce.

As Mi-ok explains matter of factly to Ye-ji, there are the 'dead-ers' and the 'live-ers', as the outcome of the company restructuring -- the ones who were fired from their jobs are like zombies, defeated and traumatized, while those who were spared and retained their jobs, get to keep on living. Well-meaning Ye-ji is determined to make a documentary that represents the lives of working people, and Ho-seok would be her main star. She just needs to convince him to be in front of the camera, and a personable Mi-ok could be her ticket.

As the two women become friendly, they talk about their lives and their husbands. We get to know how the couples got together. Through their conversations, Mi-ok finds Ye-ji's tall and handsome husband Sang-woo (Zo In-sung) is from an incredibly wealthy family and Ye-ji's endeavors and, indeed, everything she does in life is provided by him. Sang-woo is the hedge fund manager type, who handles big transactions while on the phone in English, dealing in different time zones. It is hard to read his inner thoughts, but his stealthy exterior, good posture, and mannerisms are impaccable.

One of the funnier bits, and there are many, takes place in a restaurant with four of them together. During dinner, Mi-ok tells Sang-woo that he reminds her of Steve Jobs, to everyone’s amusement. It's not the physical similarities but the confidence he exudes, she explains.

After dinner, on the way home in their Porche, while talking about Ye-ji's filmmaking endeavor, Sang-woo says he admires her 'method acting' as she ingratiates herself into the lives of the working class. Hs observation is sincere, rather than condescending, and Ye-jin takes it as a compliment. She responds that she wants to 'love' these people.

There are several instances where Mi-ok notices expensive clothes and items Ye-ji wears. She tells Ye-ji to refrain from wearing them while showing up to do interviews with the workers and their families. It's not because she is envious, but she is embarrassed for her and knows it is not a good look for someone making a documentary about the proletariat. Ye-ji gets the message.

Lee's dense and nuanced script brings out all four characters and makes them three dimensional. Every small interaction, glance and gesture highlights the differences in the two couple's relationships and underlying tension. All four actors are superb. But it's Jeon Do-yeon who shines the brightest in the role of Mi-ok, who supports her broken husband unconditionally, while keeping him from losing his dignity. This means strictly enforcing no drinking in public and making scenes as he used to. Her Mi-ok is trying to hold the family together in the harsh world for her husband and their son, while always putting up a sunny disposition. She is so good at imbuing all this.

Ye-ji invites Mi-ok's family to Sang-woo's summer mansion by the sea, endowed with a private beach and a caretaker, to spend their summer vacation together. Ye-ji is also hoping that she finally gets an on-camera interview with Ho-seok while there, too. To everyone's surprise, Ho-seok agrees to go, because perhaps it’s time for him to let go of his trauma.

During their stay at the gigantic, opulent mansion, run by a silent, smiling man who turns out to be Sang-woo’s childhood playmate (a former caretaker’s kid), Mi-ok mentions the mansion is like from the novels that she never read.

Tension between two couples boils over as Ho-seok has an emotional breakdown and Mi-ok finds out that Ye-ji’s been monitoring their every movement in the mansion.

The title of the film might suggest that love is possible between different economic classes. Or, it might mean love and understanding for the proletariat are possible. Combined with "Thou Shalt Not Covet," in the context of exploitation of the labor in the capitalist society and haves and have nots, Lee leaves us with a lot to ponder.

AI Assisted Genocide

Naza (2026) - Abraham, Szor Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, two of the four directors credited for 2024's Oscar winning documentary No Other Land, about Israel settler’s government sponsored landgrabbing and daily violence in the West Bank in the Occupied Territories, come with a new documentary Naza, about systematic destruction and genocide happening in Gaza. I say genocide here, because one of the subjects in the film matter-of-factly admits it is.

Naza is a shorthand for Nazek Agavi, ‘Collateral Damage’ in Hebrew. Just like No Other Land, there is a controversy brewing, as the film does its festival runs - first Venice Film Festival where it won Special Jury Prize, and now here at New York. Netanyahu's government is threatening to revoke Abraham and Szor's Israeli citizenship and publicly marking them as traitors and enemies of the state even before the film’s general release. All I can say is, see it for yourself when it comes out. The Guardian, a British publication produced it (with Jonathan Glazer serving as executive producer). The filmmakers are self-distributing it with the help of MK2, a French company.

Naza consists of 24 interviews conducted by Abraham as an interviewer and Szor at the camera. The interviewees, all former and active Israeli military personnel, mostly intelligence officers who were engaged in the destruction of Gaza, in retaliation of the October 7th surprise Hamas attack that resulted in the death of 1,200 Israeli partygoers in a music festival in northern Gaza in 2023.

The interviews are conducted at night on the rooftop of downtown Tel Aviv, with interviewees backlit against blinking lights of shiny skyscrapers and their faces hidden in shadows and some of their voices altered, for protecting their identities from retaliation.

The filmmakers give a little bit of a background about Gazan history of building communication lines by the Israeli government. In fact, all communications in Gaza- if you have a cell phone, you will be intercepted and eavesdropped; that Israel has a total and complete control over the airwaves. But then, this prelude poses an uncomfortable question - how did Hamas manage such a large scale surprise attack? One of the interviewees admits that Hamas really outsmarted everyone, somehow.

The interviews make it quite clear that they knew collateral damage was unavoidable while leveling Gaza, which killed approximately 73,000 Palestinians so far and ongoing, majority of them women and children. More shockingly, it turns out Gaza happens to be the first genocide assisted by AI. AI interprets that the acceptable ratio for collateral damage is 20 to 1, meaning it is OK to order an airstrike or drone bombing wherever suspects are at, regardless if they are in a crowded place or alone.

It is mind boggling as these interviewees speak so matter-of-factly of these AI assisted decisions. They even mention a Hollywood movie such as Eye in the Sky, about a morally conflicted drone operator in Kenya, as if it was their ethics training video. Many of these whistle blower interviews are truly revealing and disturbing, as Abraham pushes them to answer his questions - Did you make those decisions in retaliation against what happened on October 7? Was it pure hatred that they were all enemies and deserved to be killed? Many answers coolly with a hint of irony - we are there to achieve military objectives. The order comes from the top and we follow it. It's like videogames. We do our job. They knew there were women and children.

Because Israelis have complete control, they could monitor everything that has been happening in Gaza. Some walked away after seeing dogs eating piles of corpses on the streets, some are still serving. All these interviews are intercut from time to time to show daily lives of inhabitants of Tel Aviv observed from the rooftop at night - doing chores in their apartments, walking on the promenade along the water, eating and doing ordinary activities, while talking candidly about despicable nature of what has been unfolding in the ‘war on Gaza’.

Abrams and Szor are journalists and activists. They did not go to film school and do not possess narrative storytelling skills. In No Other Land, narrative came naturally; we witnessed a friendship between Abraham and Basel Adra, one of the co-directors and the subject, a Palestinian activist, forming as they spent time together as the world around them fell apart.

In Naza, you don’t need such narrative. This atrocity doesn’t need to be narrativized. It’s a visual record of the war crimes being committed aided by AI technology. The chilling last minute footage of a collapsed building with the entire family’s feet sticking out of the concrete wall is a good reminder that once we delegate our moral obligation to AI, we’ve already lost whatever we are fighting for.

Rose by Any Other Name

Rose (2026) - Schleinzer Rose is a candid presentation of a woman's place in society in the 17th century Europe. Avoiding the pitfalls of period dramas with the similar subject matter, where things often get overly melodramatic and didactic, Markus Schleinzer opts for more matter-of-fact approach, depicting harsh prospecting lives of the pastoral Europe after the 30 Year War.

Sandra Hüller plays a mysterious disfigured war veteran returning to a rural village to claim a long neglected farmland. No one remembers the descendants of the property and it's in such disrepair, they don't make much of the stranger taking over the land. It turns out 'the soldier' is a woman and has been pretending to be a man all her life, for the freedom it grants in the world at the time. The soldier, with his bravery- defending other members of the community from a vicious bear attack, and deligent work ethics, gains the trust of the village still steeped in rigid Protestant beliefs and patriarchy, where siring an heir means more than anything. To expand the farmstead and to gain access to the neigbhoring creek, Rose agrees to marry Suzanna, a neighbor's daughter.

Under the pretense of 'protecting the purity', the couple don't consummate their usual marital duties and concentrate on the daily, back breaking work. They acquire some servants to help out at the stead. Things get touchy when the sexual needs are not met and the pressure to have an offspring gets dire. And by some miracle, Suzanna is pregnant and the family affords peace and tranquility for a while. But when Rose is stung by bees while doing a bee keeping duty and faints, her secret gets revealed.

Markus Schleinzer presents a story of a woman pretending to be a man, during the time when religious and societal restrictions for women were tantamount, with direct, clear eyed vision of a woman trying to find her place in the man’s world and yearning to be free. Thankfully Schleinzer spares us the depiction of unnecessary graphic violence and torture. A crisp monochrome image by Austrian cinematographer Gerald Kerkletz (Walden), often lit by candlelights, adds to the serene and somber mood of the film.

But the star of the film is, of course, Hüller. Time and time again, Hüller shows how multifaceted, gifted an actress she really is. In a role with make-up (a nasty scar from gunshot wound) that covers half of her face, she still manages to communicate the range of subtle emotions of a person living with a big secret and even bigger, untold backstory. Caro Braun, who plays Suzanna is also great starting out as a naive young woman who is married off by her father without a single consideration, then later becomes a confidante of Rose and co-conspirator in pursuing their freedom together.

As two women get found out their secret and an angry village mop gathers for a big confrontation, Rose gives a passionate plea, of what matters the most - a good, contributing member of the community and a great neighbor and friend, or a person who just has manhood between his legs? As the tragic ending rolls around, Rose becomes Renée Falconetti from Dreyer’s Passion of Joan of Arc, complete with the straw weaved throne on her head.

Quietly devastating and deeply moving, Rose presents the hypocrisy of its time and unforgiving nature of rigid patriarchal society without ever being too sentimental or preachy.

Visceral Action, Toilet Humor

Hope (2026) - Na In a rural village of Hope, near the DMZ in South Korea, police chief Beomseuk (Hwang Jung-min) finds the town in total destruction and mayhem- it's as if a tornado tore through. There's talk of the Siberian tiger as the main suspect. But the trail of destruction suggests the largely unseen (at least the first 30 minutes of the film) predator(s) might be something bigger. And the thought of a smart large cat from the north wading through the minefield of DMZ is not very plausible. Various village hunting parties, armed with hunting rifles in beat up pickup trucks, are on its tracks, as well as Beomseok and his very capable, pretty deputy Sung-ae (Korean model Hoyeon, seen in Squid Games). It turns out that the monsters are not of this world but possibly the cosmic kind.

Hope is pretty much extremely visceral chase scenes strung together with iffy rural Korean humor thrown in. The film's many, unrelenting and prolonged car/horse chase sequences are truly impressive and need to be seen in theaters on the big screen. Director Na Hong-jin, if his two previous films (Chaser and Yellow Sea) were any indication, really has a knack for orchestrating big scale chase sequences. And this time, with the help of CG effects.

Hope is funnier and less fatalist, miserablist than Na’s last film, Wailing. But it suffers the same wayward, unfocused messiness. The garish creature design is a mix of the practical effects of The Thing and early 90s CG of The Lawnmower Man, where they put on the likeness of Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander and Taylor Russell. Why was this necessary? To appeal to the global audience because it's a big budget sci-fi and they got money to burn? But instead of slick sci-fi blockbuster, Hope is a Korean movie through and through- bumbling, incompetent police, buckets of totally inappropriate toilet humor, general messiness of the lives of common people; Their self-awareness made into a punchline- "I never been on an airplane, but I am inside of a spaceship!"

I have so many questions: why does it have to take place near a DMZ, if it never adds anything to the narrative or even plot point? What's the purpose of the aliens being there? Why is the mother ship going down? Maybe Hope's point is that all these unbelievable celestial events are happening to these rural Korean folks because it's more fun watching them dealing with it than more jaded city folks? There's more seeming humanity in common folks' lives than we give them credit for? Korean cinema excels in this, time and time again, emblematized by the films of Bong Joon-ho and countless K-Dramas, where everyday funny folks with their messy lives and misery are always the heroes of the story. I used to think it was a populist pandering, but lately I realize that this IS the heart (pun intended) of Korean storytelling.

Hope might not be satisfying narratively. But it's a cinematic experience. Go see it big.

The Book Detective

Chronovisor (2026) - Auen, Walker Treading somewhere between a documentary and fiction, academic research and conspiracy theory, Borgesian labyrinth and schizophrenic episode, Jack Auen and Kevin Walker's Chronovisor feels like some cinematic equivalent of an uncovered dusty relic that concerns the greatest story never told.

Proving the existence and tracking down Chronovisor, a machine that shows the ancient events on screen - founding of a Roman Empire, crucifixion of Jesus, etc., which was said to be invented by a Benedictine monk with the help of renowned scientists in the 50s at the Vatican's insistence. It is the main drive of Beatrice Courte (played by a real life academic, Anne-Laure Sellier), a university lecturer, who stumbled upon the subject in books and articles. There she discovers Father Pelligrino Ernetti, a Benedictine monk in the center of it all, who remained mum about Chronovisor's power and its whereabouts most of his life, until his death in the 90s. Feigning a posthumous award as a connection, Courte tracks down anyone who knew Ernetti, in order to locate the machine that may change the course of human history. Many dead ends and red herrings later, she is sent Ernetti's belongings in a box with newspaper clippings, magazine articles and a bunch of VHS tapes, with one its ribbon in tangles outside the broken casing. She finds out that there was a grand conspiracy to suppress the knowledge of Chronvisor's existence by the Vatican under the direction of Pope Pius XII, in fear of the device falling into the hands of evil entities.

Shot on grainy 16mm in dimly lit rooms, Auen and Walker embrace doing things an old-fashioned way. In an interview from New Directors/New Films this spring, they revealed that 'thankfully' there were no research materials online when they searched for Chronovisor, which was a real life phenom, so they decided against the use of computers or mobile devices' screens displayed, which is usually quite boring. Instead, they opted for Courte going to the libraries, and doing old-school research through reading stacks and stacks of books and magazine articles. And we audiences read the information with her, displayed on screen with the books' passages directly translated in English over the top of original texts in open books. This physicality provides a different kind of intimacy than what we are used to in our digital age movie going.

The spaghettied VHS tape Courte carefully reassembles holds the key. In it is taped footage by Ernetti's nephew who informs the viewer that Chronvisor is stashed in Portugal and warns that upon viewing, it changes the viewer because it doesn't only show the past events, but also memories of people who were at present meld into the viewer's. Some of them lost their minds. And Courte, who played an armchair general in the comfort of her cozy academic surroundings up until then, needs to embark on a journey to find the device that can change the world.

The grainy, pixelated, borderline abstract images of figures and faces that Chronovisor doesn't have the creepy effects of Ring or some found-footage horror, but nevertheless unnerving. As Chronovisor charts a horror film territory at the end, we are left with the feeling that the film is not about what Chronovisor can show us after all, but more about the burning desire to uncover the knowledge that is denied to us.

Chronovisor opens 9/4 in theaters.

Touch of Leather

Her Private Hell (2026) - Refn Her Private Hell is Refn's new feature since 2016's Neon Demon, and after his stint in streaming platform: miniseries Too Old to Die Young for HBO Max and Copenhagen Cowboy for Netflix, with increasingly patient-trying style where pretty pictures moving in snail's pace and nothing much happens during the hour duration of each episode. Gone are his mystique and art-for-art's sake haydays of the early 2000s and 2010s, Her Private Hell shatters like a glass box within a few minutes in candy colored neon lights and artificial fog. I do not want to invoke style over substance and give Refn a pass as a visual stylist. I just can't, any longer.

Elle (Sophie Thatcher) and her step mother Dominique (Havana Rose Liu) live on a high sky scraper above the clouds. It's all neon colors of blue and red everywhere. It's supposed to be Japan because of the subplot involving American GI Private K (Charles Melton) and two MC characters who appear in tandem? Anyway, a new bright eyed girl, Hunter (Kristine Froseth) just moves in with Elle and Dominique. There's a strange father/daughter dynamic with Johnny Thunders (Dougray Scott), who's always busy traveling but says some cryptic things to the girls. It's Johnny Thunders, he is the most powerful, fascinating man, etc, etc... we are told. 'Johnny Thunders is gonna protect you and take care of you.' Whatever that means.

There's a mysterious entity on the loose killing women, and Private K journeys through the yakuza underworld shrouded in the mist, to find his daughter who was abducted. It doesn't really matter if the two parallel stories connect or not. It's not really the point. But why do we need a point when we have pretty faces in gaudy makeup and colorful lights? Well, they were not enough to Keep me interested.

The vacuous pretty images of Her Private Hell belong to perfume and fancy handbag commercials, not the entirety of the duration of a narrative film. Refn really has a knack for making a 1 hour 50 minutes film feeling like 5 hours. Thatcher and Liu along with Melton, walk, pose and lie around like they are in a fashion shoot. They are pretty but whenever they try to act with the stilted deliveries of hilariously bad dialogue, it shatters the movie illusion, where you get lost in the imaginary world, created by a good filmmaker. It's bad. It doesn't even work as a tongue-in-cheek satire, like Neon Demon did. With its slow pace and total lack of suspense, it also fails as a homage to giallo. And it certainly doesn't come across as Hans Christian Andersen's dark fairytale as Refn not too subtly suggests.

The only thing that is lost in this movie is unfortunately Thatcher. She has the looks, but she can't act for shit. Or at least she hasn't found the right role to shine yet. And this movie ain't it.

Unfinished

Franz (2025) - Holland Seasoned Polish director Agnieszka Holland's biopic of perhaps the most celebrated Czech writer Franz Kafka shares much unconventionality in filmmaking as Peter Watkins' Edvard Munch biopic - with jumbled timeline - Vonnegut style, breaking the 4th wall with protagonists glancing at the camera, etc. Like Watkins's Munch, Holland relies on these dizzying formalist filmmaking - unruly zoom-ins, shallow focuses, to accentuate the craziness of early 20th century hurtling towards world wars and nazi Germany.

In Franz, Kafka (Idan Weiss), is a man of words, writing strange short stories in the household of gregarious industrialist patriarch, Hermann (Peter Kurth). Growing up with 3 sisters and an obedient mother and later, suffering from consumption (which he died of at the age of 40), in many film versions, Kafka is treated as an effeminate and sickly man, a complete outsider who couldn't deal with outside society. Not in Holland's version - here, he is depicted as a well-rounded, vigorous young man who enjoys the company of women, physical exercises and being sociable when he wants to. He even enlisted in WWI in support of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

It's his words on many letter exchanges with women that gets him in trouble. First with Felice Bauer (Carol Schuler), whom he was hastily engaged with, then her best friend Grete (Gesa Schermuly) and later, his best friend and publisher Max Brod (Sebastian Schwarz)'s wife Milena (Jenovéfa Boková). In many ways, Kafka is depicted as an everyman who happens to be a great writer with a very dark imagination. As a tour guide to Kafka museum in present day explains, Kafka wrote only a handful of short stories and novels but himself is a subject of millions of writings.

But I think Holland's cinematic approach to Kafka's genius was taken for granted too much. The only time we see one of his writings coming to life is Penal Colony in the beginning. It is appropriately shocking and gruesome - an accused is bound on a board face down. And countless beds of needles press down on his bare back to write his crimes on his skin for hours. As Kafka reads giddily in front of live audiences, the half of the crowd, sickened by the story, walk off. I just wished she used more of his writing imagined on screen, throughout the film.

With a kaleidoscopic depiction of the life of the famous literary figure, what Holland is trying to get at with Franz, is that it is impossible to present someone truthfully. It is true that Holland's Kafka is not a caricature of the famous writer but more of a person, but in doing so misses the mystique about the man who was one of the most influential writers of all time.

Past Future Perfect

Rose of Nevada (2025) - Jenkin Mark Jenkin, a Cornish purveyor of celluloid art, has been shooting his films exclusively on 16mm film on Bolex camera, now comes up with time traveling, seafaring film with great efficiency and intrigue with two big movie stars, George MacKay and Callum Turner, as a couple of hired fishermen off the Coastline where Jenkin comes from.

Rose of Nevada, a small fishing boat that disappeared 30 years ago, returns to the harbor. The declining fishing community is still reeling from the loss of Alan, the fisherman who set out to sea on that boat, and Luke, whose guilt of not accompanying Alan that day drove him to suicide. The boat's owner/businessman Mike recruits young family man Nick (MacKay), who happens to be the next door neighbor of Luke's grieving parents and Liam (Turner), an interloper who needs a job. The boat is steered by a seasoned, mysterious snarling seaman Murgey (Francis Magee), who might or might be the connection between the past and present.

After a successful haul, Nick and Liam return home and find themselves to be regarded as Alan and Luke by the townsfolk thirty years earlier. The Richards - Luke's parents, think their son is having some sort of mental breakdown from stress and Alan's fidgetty wife regards, he is having one of those moody episodes. As they go on another fishing trip and things remain stuck in the past, Nike is having a hard time accepting a new reality than Liam, who slowly embraces his role as Alan, a family man with wife and daughter.

Nick refuses to go on board for yet another fishing expedition because he can't go on without seeing his wife and young daughter because like himself, they are not born yet in 1993. He contemplates suicide by jumping off the cliffs, like Luke did, thus, completing Terminator/Twelve Monkeys like self-fulfilling profecy. But he thinks better of it. He accepts fate and joins the Richards as Luke.

Featuring working class characters and their circumstances that Jenkin is familiar with growing up, he beautifully crafts a sort of low-fi sci-fi with sodden social realism with Rose of Nevada. The details of the fishing village is vividly captured in glorious 16mm with vibrant colors, blemishes and grains. I gotta check out Jenkin's other films now.

Self Discovery Through Slasher Genre

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (2026) - Schoenbrun A mousy, Sundance winning filmmaker Kris (Hannah Einbinder) has been given a chance to direct a reboot of the Camp Miasma, the 80s slasher franchise, reminiscent of Sleepaway Camp, Friday the 13th, Burning and the like. Miasma franchise is now a butt of a joke to everyone who remembers it being steeped in blatant homophobia, transphobia, gore and titillation of the flesh. Still, it’s a cult classic to diehard horror weirdos.

Kris is keenly aware that her new hot status as an indie darling, plus being a queer filmmaker, landed the job because the studio desperately wants to be seen as woke by hiring them. They understand the fact that the Hollywood ecosystem is a mutual exchange of who's using who.

Under the microscope of a gaggle of Hollywood producers and moneymen, Kris has to get the project off the ground, soon. They are obsessed with the starlet of the first Miasma movie, Billy Presley (Gillian Anderson). They keep watching the VHS copy of the movie over and over again.

In a hilarious pitch zoom meeting with the executives, using their newly earned auteur clout, Kris tries to dictate the project the way they wanted, not in the studio's terms. It doesn’t go well to say the least. While their team tries to smooth over the aftermath, Kris has to convince reclusive Billy to partner up with them to realize the grand vision of the complete and utter transformation of the dead franchise. Little do they know, it is Billy, the Final Girl of the first Miasma movie, who lost her virginity in it, the sultry recluse, ends up helping them to give The Little Death (La Petite Mort - euphemism for orgasm in French), the spear wielding boogie-person of the franchise, the correct backstory and transform them into a sympathetic character.

With two previous somber films, We are All Going to World's Fair and I Saw the TV Glow, Jane Schoenbrun explored desire, fantasy and missed opportunities in an emotionally resonant search for queer identity. In turn, Camp Miasma is a campy, tongue-in-cheek, gory, meta rendition of nostalgia ridden romp. It’s a tale of self-discovery and joyful celebration of queer sex, guided through the great Gillian Anderson, who embodies Billy, Kris’s desire and myth personified, in the Dolly Parton drawl.

With intentionally fake production design, and the great mix of Bob Ross inspired matte paintings, over the top cartoon violence and campy humor, Schoenbrun seems to be finally letting it loose and just having fun- embracing their queerness fully and sexuality all out in the open, matching the main theme of the movie - self-acceptance and showing who they really are. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is great fun.

Thoughts on Theater of Thought

Theater of Thought (2022) - Herzog At age 83, Werner Herzog, legendary filmmaker, seems he has no plans to slow down. Over 80 films in his filmography, he continuously churns up one or two films every year or so, with widest variety of subjects one can imagine. For a moment, please set aside your misgivings about his aggressively grandious and what can be seen as culturally insensitive films he is best known for, from the 70s and 80s. Without much public attention or interests, he's been quietly building his reputation as a documentary filmmaker in parallel with his narrative works, especially from the 90s to present.

Objectively speaking, he is one of the few established filmmakers, who is in a position (well, he has no scrupples taking on a role in Mandalorian to finance his films), can and will choose to make films about what he is interested in.

His documentary work lately though, has been inclined to science and technology. And there, he has been exploring subjects with child-like wonder and curiosity, which he professes are and should be the bases of all filmmaking. In Theater of Thought, he explores technology and human brain and its philosophical and ethical implications by asking neuroscientists, industrialists and medical doctors and using his reputation as a legendary filmmaker, gains extraordinary access to their work.

It is not really possible to objectively critique Herzog's films in its filmmaking merits anymore - especially on his documentary inclined work. What interview technique or his framing or music choices are not the focus of his films. But his unending curiosity to human experience is. Keeping that in mind, here are some of my thoughts on Herzog's Theater of Thought:

At its infant stage, the advancement neuroscience has two big implications to the world we live in- to help disabled individuals to experience human life to more fully, and dangers of government/coporate manipulations of individual rights and freedom.

Human brains are too complex and fickle, it is impossible (for now, and probably not in our lifetime) for AI to replicate it fully.

Herzog never wavers in his curiosity about human existence and experience. That's why he never looks back in his films. Because there are still so much to explore. Nostalgia is not his game.

Theater of thoughts, again, as all of his films, is an invigorating, fascinating and thoughtful inquiry into our existence. I really hope Herzog keeps making these until the end.

Time Machine: Cinema as Therapy

Blue Heron (2025) - Romvary It's the 90s. A family of 6- mother and father, 3 boys and one girl, of Hungarian heritage, moves into a house in British Columbia, Canada. It's summertime. Just like any other young family, we see the family dynamics playing out. There are laughs, there are arguments, there are beautiful little moments. Daughter Sasha (played by Eylul Guven and later Amy Zimmer), is our main observer, as she is getting acquainted with the surroundings. There's a bit of prejudice against her among her young playmates in the neighborhood - maybe it's her slight accent or her status as the new girl in town, as she is left playing in the neighbor's pool covered in tarp, while other girls giggle in the distance. But that doesn't deter her sunny disposition.

It is clear that the eldest son Jeremy (Edik Beddos), a tall, lanky blonde with square thin rimmed metal glasses, has behavioral issues and the parents don't know what to do with him. He is constantly in trouble for shoplifting and violent outbursts. There are no government health authorities to help them cope with his deteriorating conditions. But we see the gentle side of Jeremy with his younger siblings as he silently watches over them. With dad always on the computer for work, the duty of taking care of children during the summer falls on mom, and with Jeremy constantly acting out whatever he is experiencing mentally, falls on her to deal with. And she is on her wit's end.

After the social worker's visit, there are things that are revealed about Jeremy. He wants to be rich and famous. He loves drawing maps. He loves the idea of time travel- typical teenager stuff, and also a yearning for structure and perhaps a re-do.

In the halfway point, we are introduced to a filmmaker Sasha (Zimmer) in the present day. With memories of her childhood fading and unreliable at times, she is in the process of making a film about her older brother who passed recently.

In a very poignant moment, past and present intersect: we see a grownup Sasha visiting the family as a social worker and telling her distressed parents that nothing they would do for Jeremy would make any difference - therapy, medications, foster care, institutions. That the outcome of Jeremy's life trajectory really wasn't their fault. While all of the children are watching TV, the present Sasha whispers something in her younger self's ear and smiles while Jeremy's eyes are fixed on blinking TV lights.

Sophy Romvary's semi-autobiographical debut feature beautifully displays yearning for understanding and closeness that was never meant to be. Some people in our lives are unreachable however we try, but it doesn't mean we don't love them any less. Astute observations of life's complications and emotions, Blue Heron is one of the most emotionally resonant films in recent years.

All the World's a Stage

W's Tragedy (1984) - Sawai Shizuka (played by Hiroko Yakushimaru, Sailor Suit and Machine Gun), is a 20-year old aspiring stage actress, not afraid to sleep with an older actor who is in business in the hopes of getting the role of Mako, a heirless of the wealthy Watsuji family, who is accused of murdering the family's partriach/her grandfather. But the role goes to her classmate and she as an apprentice and prompter girl behind the curtain. Disappointed but still determined, Shizuka confides in Akio (Masanori Sera), her suiter and former actor who has given up the profession.

During the production tour, the star actress Yoshiko (Sho Hatori), who plays Mako's mother in the play finds herself in a pickle - the producer of the production dies of a heart attack during sex with Yoshiko, and confides in Shizuka, who happens to be stopping by her hotelroom door. It would be a big scandal for the star and it will surely end her career. But maybe Shizuka can say that the dead man was with her. It would be less of a scandal with her youth and innocence, the press will be more forgiving. In exchange, Yoshiko can help her career.

After the media conference about the death and Shizuka taking the blame, in exchange for the role of Mako, Akio wants an explanation. Is Shizuka that ambitious to get the role of a lifetime, and be willing to sacrifice her reputation and self dignity? Shizuka has no explanation for him but begs him to attend her big performance in Tokyo. The real life starts mimicking the stage production.

80's J-pop idol, Yakushimaru shines as a likeable, ambitious aspiring acccress who would kill for a role. Her deer in the headlight expression with her small mouth and big hairstyle, leg warmers and pastel colored wardrobe are all quintessential 80s Japan. The smooth dolly movement and muzak playing in the background add to that artificial 80s aestehtic. But W's Tragedy is a fun film built around the charm of Yakushimaru as she carries the film.