Curiosity

The Secret Agent (2025) - Mendonça Filho To filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho, Recifé, the capital city of Brazil's northwest region where he grew up, is what Fenyang in Shanxi Province means to Jia Zhangke. Like Jia, Mendonça Filho, has been chronicling the changing times, in both real and fictional stories of his beloved region. After series of critically acclaimed films in and around Recifé, he comes up with The Secret Agent, a sun-lit neo-noir/political thriller taking place in 1977, which makes a great companion piece to Pictures of Ghosts (2023), his documentary about history and cinema in Recifé.

Mendonça Filho, using the meticulously recreated old Recifé as a backdrop for a story about a man on the run, trying to navigate the place where daily violence and corruption are rampant under the country's military dictatorship.

As Marcelo/Armando (Wagner Maura) arrives in a dusty, desolate gas station on the outskirts of the town, he finds a dead body lying on the ground, partially covered with rocks and cardboard boxes. The proprietor of the station is completely nonplussed by the bullet riddled body. Since all their resources are tied up for the carnival, which is just wrapping in town, cops won't come until Ash Wednesday, he says to Marcelo. But soon the cops arrive, not for the body, but to shake up Marcelo for bribery. From the beginning, the filmmaker lets us know that violence and death are everyday occurrences for the citizens of Recifé with corruption in law enforcement normalized.

Armando under alias, Marcelo, is welcomed by a propriator Donã Sebastiana (Tânia Maria) of a building complex doubling as a refugee hideout. It is slowly revealed that Armando was a university researcher who rubbed a powerful company head and now a high ranking government official, Ghirroti (hailing from Sao Paolo), the wrong way. They met in 1974 and had a blowout, due to Ghirroti's attitude towards what he deems as country hicks (Armando and his research team) and his extreme southern arrogance. Now Ghirroti wants to eliminate Armando and send two assassins (a disgraced ex-military and his stepson) from the south.

Fernando, Armando's adorable young son, has been raised by his grandfather Alexandre (who is based on the real life film projectionist who was featured in Pictures of Ghosts), but longs to live with his fugitive father. Armando is in Recifé not only to retrieve his son back but to find out about his mother's past since she was from the region. With the help of underground resistance network against military dictatorship, he gets assigned a job in an ID issuing government facility in town, which also happens to be in the same building as the police station, lead by corrupt cop, Euclides. Armando needs to juggle and pit the unsuspecting police and assassins against each other while he waits for the new passport to arrive.

Tall and bearded Wagner Maura is effortlessly sexy with his sad eyes in his fugitive ways. And the film's filled with memorable characters and faces. Udo Kier shows up in his last role as a reclusive German Jew partaking in the wild street carnival.

As with all other Mendonça Filho films, the geopolitics of Brazil, the class struggles, regional culture and personal memories all vividly intersect in The Secret Agent. The title gives Armando's story an air of hero's tale full of intrigue and curiosity. It also has a lot to do with the pulpy cinema tradition and telenovelas which the filmmaker was brought up in. There's an urban legend story brought to life in a man's leg discovered in a shark's stomach and police trying to cover it up. There's a sequence of a severed leg moving around and attacking unsuspecting people participating in cruising sessions in the public park at night. Also the significance of the American influence in pop culture is everywhere - Jaws was playing in theaters in 77 in Brazil, so was Omen and Chicago's If You Leave Me Now is on the radio all in the backdrop of seedy and dangerous Recifé in the 70s.

With Bolsonaro and the ultra rightwing factions of the Brazilian political spectrum being in charge not far from the collective memories, The Secret Agent is about rebuking anti-intellectualism by having university researchers both past and present the heroes of the film which is also very pertinent in our own political climate. Slow at revealing the plot and not spoon feeding the audience with all the information and backstory, the film beckons at your curiosity to find out more about the not too distant past of checkered Brazilian history. Definitely one of the year's best.

Suffocating Conformity

Die My Love (2025) - Ramsay Lynne Ramsay depicts a young woman experiencing the perils of motherhood at great length with the help of a feral performance by Jennifer Lawrence and intimate/expansive images by DP Seamus McGarvey, in their second collaboration after We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011).

Short on backstories in typical Ramsay fashion, Die My Love is mostly told visually, from a young woman's perspective as she goes through a postpartum depression. Grace (Lawrence) and Jackson (Robert Pattinson) are a young couple, moving into an old fixer-upper farm house in the countryside that belonged to Jackson's relative. The house is all covered in old wall papers and has rat problems. No matter, the young couple is enthusiastic to start a life together and Grace soon becomes pregnant with a son. Left alone to her own devices while her partner Jackson is away for a job in the city half of the time, Grace's daily life, bored and living in her own head, veers dangerously into fantasy territory.

Foreshadowing with Grace roaming around the yard on all fours with a kitchen knife in her hand, Ramsay makes a point that the film is not about Grace suffering from depression, but how a young woman is perceived when she behaves outside societal norms.

Grace does act irrational and compulsive - throwing herself through the glass window while arguing with Jackson, strips to her underwear and jumps into the kitty pool at a party, fantasizes about a married neighbor (LaKeith Stanfield). Family and friends are left helpless, not knowing how to help her. And the film shows how normal society deals with a 'difficult woman' - either marry her or institutionalize her. Jackson does both, but that doesn't fix Grace.

Filled with many details and nuances with McGarvey's 4:3 ratio shot images simultaneously confining and expansive, and great supporting cast- Pattinson as wide eyed, frustrated partner, the great Sissy Spacek as Jackson's sleepwalking, shotgun totting mom and the only person who understands Grace (reminiscent of her character in Badlands) and Nick Nolte as Jackson's dementia suffering dad, Die My Love is a great film about suffocating conformity of a life of a young woman. I really liked it.

The Hole

If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You (2025) - Bronstein Rose Byrne gives it all for If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You, a prolonged postpartum depression story of a therapist mom juggling life with an unseen (but heard) daughter with a medical condition (pediatric feeding disorder) where she has a feeding tube in her belly, while her Navy captain husband is away for 2 months.

It starts out with the ceiling of Linda (Byrne)'s suburban house leaking water then collapsing, leaving a gaping big hole. She has no choice but to move into a shabby motel with her daughter while arguing with her husband and contractors over the phone. She blurts out all her feelings to her very unsympathetic therapist (Conan O'Brien) who has an office in the same building as hers. Linda has to deal with her daughter's medical issues and it brings out all the resentment and fear and pain of giving birth, and being a mother in general. More chaos ensues when Linda seeks the help of James (A$AP Rocky), a manager of the motel who takes sympathy on her situation. One of Linda's patient, Caroline (Danielle Macdonald), a young mother who is extremely paranoid about her toddler's safety, disappears during the session and leaves the baby behind, Linda's life get progressively more chaotic, resulting in her therapist to say that he can't see her anymore after she crosses the professional boundaries repeatedly.

It's all about the hole both physical and metaphysical- the hole in the ceiling, the hole in the daughter's belly, giving birth, the black hole and the unknown universe, the empty space in her life... Bronstein has a very good sense of humor and timing, the cast is spot on, especially Byrne who embodies the frazzled middle aged woman whose life is in turmoil and self doubt and blame plaguing her every minute. In an inspiring choice of casting for the therapist, Bronstein makes O'Brien play straight, going against his TV persona and the result is hysterical. Christian Slater shows up late as the blaming husband. Some cool visuals and hallucination sequences also. It's funny, but at the same time not, because it's so real and stressful all the same.

Future is Bright, The White Old Man Says

One Battle After Another (2025) - Anderson In a frenetic, unrelenting pace, Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another begins with the French 75, an armed and well organized Leftist group penetrating an immigration detention center and freeing immigrants near a dusty southern Californian border. Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a resident bomb maker of the group, who is romantically involved with Perfidia (Teyana Taylor), an outspoken member of the group. They are seen taking advantage of a tense cat-and-mouse situation with the Feds for a lustful quickie at a pit stop. During many such activities - targeting detention centers, government facilities and bank jobs, French 75 is pursued by Col. Lockjaw (Sean Penn), a strong army man who has ambitions to climb up to the big boys club one day. His relentless pursuit pays off, and most of the members of the group are either dead, apprehended or went into hiding. This is the mid 2000s.

Fast forward to present-ish. Bob is a paranoid dad of Willa/Charlene (Chase Infiniti), a 17-year old high schooler. The two have been living in a remote cabin. For Bob, now a middle aged fugitive, after years of living in shadows looking over his shoulder, has become a couch potato with drugs and alcohol, as his strict regimen slackened.

In Lockjaw's pursuit of joining the elite white supremacist cabal named the Christmas Adventurer's Club(!), he has to prove that he is the purist Aryan stock, and has no dealings with any inferior race. So he tracks down Willa who might be the love-child of his and Perfidia's to eliminate any evidence of his impurity. So begins the Searchers like adventure of fumbling, middle aged Bob, with the help of a zen-like local karate instructor, Sensei Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio Del Toro).

One Battle After Another is a fantasy, based on Thomas Pynchon's Vineland, which was published in 1990 in the throes of the Bush Sr. regime. If anything, it shows that nothing much has changed- the kidnapping and deportation of the undocumented and overarching racism of the country. I say fantasy because as much as I wish that there is a well connected and well equipped underground network of leftist resistance going on in the age of tiktok, but there isn't. I'm sure it's a fantasy cooked up by right-wing conspiracy nuts also.

Narratively speaking, you can't not fall for One Battle After Another. With how it is put together: from how it was shot in Vistavision, accentuating the vista of American Southwest and heart pounding car chase sequences, aided by Jonny Greenwood's marvelous score, to to its stellar cast- DiCaprio has never been better as a burnt out radical, Sean Penn literally eschews his namesake comic book villain role with relish, Del Toro's hilariously deadpan but grounded zen master and the newcomer Infiniti with her clear eyed, whip smart Gen Z stand-in. The film is a great fun as it unfolds in satisfying ways - bad guys get their comeuppances, dad and daughter reunite, and a young black woman's empowerment fulfilled.

Anderson deals with the contemporary world for the first time since Punch Drunk Love and shows that the world is still in the grips of the old white men ways - the gungho military homophobic dickheads, sexual stereotypes that propelled the whole narrative, fumbling at proper pronouns and the white supremacy deep state. But relishing in showing it which is meant to be comic relief, the scenes tend to be super awkward and downright Tarantino-foot-fetish creepy - the camera gliding over Perfidia's butt over and over, Lockjaw's huge boner, and an uninspired gay joke. And it shows Anderson's awkward middle aged white man side when it comes to dealing with race.

But you gotta admit, it is refreshing to see a mainstream American film hell bent on showing the resistance side of things that tells you the kids are all right, even if it's from an old white man.

Failed Experiment

Bugonia (2025) - Lanthimos It is pretty obvious why Yorgos Lanthimos chose to remake a wacky Korean sci-fi comedy, Save the Green Planet: it has all the elements we've grown to associate with his films - the cynicism, cruelty and absurd sense of humor. With Bugonia, starring very committed Emma Stone in their 4th collaboration, and Jesse Plemons, Lanthimos shoots for the most absurd film to date.

It's a hit or miss for me when it comes to Lanthimos films. For me, like his other fans, it all started with Dogtooth (2009), a perennial hit that started the Greek New Wave or Weird Wave or whatever it was labeled as. It was when Greece was battered with waves of crushing austerity measures and governmental restructuring. Greeks, being a rowdy bunch who didn't really have faith in their government anyway, made a series of films that vividly depicted generational divide and discontent of the younger generation with little prospects for the future. But however penetrating Lanthimos's observation of the world has been, it's his cynicism and cruelty that kept me at bay to be a full fledged fan. I admit that it's hard to do in comedy, considering he is not Haneke or Bergman.

When a Lanthimo's is balanced right, with the right amount of sweetness and heart, it's really great - Lobster, The Favourite, Poor Things. But when it is just cynicism, such as Bugonia or Kind of Kindness, it loses me.

Bugonia concerns Teddy (Jesse Plemons), a conspiracy-addled worker at an Amazon style processing facility. The conglomerate is headed by a ruthless Michelle (Emma Stone), by all appearances, Michelle is a powersuit wearing, posh CEO with all business and no heart. Teddy and his dim-witted cousin Donnie (Aidan Delvis), believing Michelle is an alien from The Andromeda Galaxy, bent on destroying the human race, kidnaps her and puts her chained to the floor in the basement of their rural house. Teddy tortures Michelle to admit that she is an alien and to arrange a meeting with her emperor in their space craft which is heading to earth during the next lunar eclipse which is three days away.

Things get complicated when Michelle manipulates them into harming themselves and their loved ones. Is she really an andromedan intent on eradicating the human species or are we just one of those cruel experiments by higher power, on the verge of failure?

If Bugonia is a satire of billionaires controlling the fate of humanity and we are all just their play things - either just pawns in the game or rebellious crackpots, it's just too bleak and too close to home to laugh about.

As Bugonia progresses to an absurdist territory with much blood shed, you are left with that cold feeling that we are supremely manipulated to and fro for laughs. But who is laughing anyway?

Life/Work/Death

No Other Choice (2025) - Park Mansu (Lee Byunghun), a 25 year veteran in a paper mill company with a big house in the countryside with a loving family - wife Miri (Son Yejin), teenage son, ten year old autistic daughter and two golden retrievers affectionately named after his children, just got laid off. Just before he was laid off, he was planning union activities with his subordinates. The only thing he has known in his adult life was the paper mills and he has no prospects other than that industry and with the mortgage company repossessing the house in three months, the clock is ticking for Mansu to get another job.

Taking the cue from his stress, Miri restructures the household in order - no more outlandish meals, no more tennis lessons, no more Netflix, dogs to her parents house, downsize the 2 big cars to one small one and put the house on the market. Mansu refuses to sell the house since it's the one he grew up in and bought it with his own money. And especially, the potential buyer is a sleazy local electronic shop owner who is a dad of his son's best friend. Three months, Mansu tells Miri.

Mansu does research on his competitors just in case Moon Paper, a big paper company, is in need of hiring another manager. He narrows down the potential competitors to two and devises a plan to eliminate them.

No Other Choice says a lot about salaryman life in Korea where you are defined by your work, where your life is completely tied to your job and the job defines you. In Mansu's elaborate scheme - spying on his competition at home and work in order to get a chance to kill them, exposes that they are in the same boat as he is: the grueling unemployment life- the daily humiliation, temptation of alcohol and drugs, suspicion of spouse infidelity, etc. They are the mirror images of himself! But Mansu, trapped in the cruel rat race in the capitalist system, has no other choice but to pursue his plan to save his family from poverty.

As usual, Park Chanwook is a first and foremost visual stylist. There's more visual ideas in No Other Choice than most Hollywood releases in a year combined. Lee, with his model like angular face twitching as a stressed middle aged man, is tremendous as Mansu, the stressed out salaryman. Son, as a practical wife who loves her man, no matter what, is fetching in her coy performance.

No Other Choice touches upon a lot of modern society's illness with satirical humor. There's dying manufacturing industries, automation and A.I. taking over human labor, deforestation and autism. I do not want to compare Park's movies to others, but the head of the family losing his job as a subject, is done before much more realistically in Tokyo Sonata by Kiyoshi Kurosawa. I mention this because there's also a theme of music and gifted child involved. But it's Park Chanwook movie. So it has to be fantastical and much more artificial, therefore less emotionally resonant. It's superb entertainment but boy is it stressful.

Smells Like Indie Spirit

Nouvelle Vague (2025) - Linklater Breathless, a perennial French New Wave film that started everything and changed filmmaking forever, is closely reenacted and memorialized along with the movement and people involved. I got to admit, being a diehard Godard-head, I was very skeptical going into this film. But rest assured, Linklater, coming from the experimental indie filmmaking background, knows his history of cinema and understands how to pay homage without being nostalgic and sentimental about the New Wave and its influences that had on him as a filmmaker. And Linklater's assumption is right about his view on Breathless as a granddaddy of indie filmmaking.

Casting and working with French speaking actors, Linklater commands a very convincing reenactment of the events in and surrounding the production of Godard's tumultuous feature debut.

Godard, played wonderfully by Guillaume Marbeck, encouraged by/and riding the coattails of the success of his two Cahier du Cinema colleagues' directorial debuts not too long ago - François Truffaut's 400 Blows (1959) and Claude Chabrol's Le Beau Serge (1958), finally tries his hands in directing a feature, with the help of a producer Beaureguard (Bruno Dreyfürst). With the rebellious spirit of countering the cinema that came before, and his own eccentricities, Godard embarks on directing a film as unconventionally as possible. Working off of a thin treatment that Truffaut and Chabrol wrote, about real life incidents of a car thief who ends up killing a police officer, Godard charges on Breathless without a script. Casting includes a newbie actor/boxer named Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin) and a reluctant American movie star Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutch). In 23 days of shooting with no lights and all hand-held camera by army vet, documentary photographer Raoul Coutard (Matthieu Penchinat), who later went on to shoot most of the memorable Godard films.

Linklater makes sure that who's who of the French New Wave are all mentioned in the film- portrait style with their names appearing on the screen - Truffaut, Chabrol, Suzanne Schiffman, Rivette, Rohmer, Rozier, etc. Godard's mentors/idols also appear on screen - Jean Pierre Melville, Roberto Rosselini, Jean Cocteau and even has a run in with Robert Bresson in the subway where the master is in his production of Pickpocket, around the same time.

Sure, championed by Cahier writers, including Truffaut and Godard, The Auteur Theory elevates the director as the primary creative force behind a film, but Linklater shows and acknowledges that there are a lot of people contributing their talents and hard work and time in making a film - that extends to the job of an assistant director, script continuity, make-up, editor, so and so forth.

Yes, the film's monochrome shot on 35mm and impeccable period set design and costume take us into a nostalgia trip. But the film is never corny or sentimental. Linklater is after something more direct, only concentrating on the production of Breathless; people involved in it and the overall climate that incubated the French New Wave.

It's a lovely, charming and endlessly enjoyable homage to one of the most influential film movements and which birthed perhaps the most singular and unique filmmaker ever lived. Loved it.