“Passing”
Adapting Nella Larsen’s seminal Harlem Renaissance work of the same name, Rebecca Hall’s directorial debut “Passing” stars Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga as two friends in the late 1920s whose lives have veered off in different directions—the latter choosing to pass herself off as white for all the social capital that goes along with the privilege. Though it’s not a perfect adaptation, we were quite impressed with the film, one which poses tough questions such as: “Is racism the culprit or the survivalist instincts born into oppressed people to hold on to their hard-earned comforts? With an incredible ensemble and an elegant eye, Hall’s ‘Passing’ is a high-wire act of a debut that tackles its several thorny issues with nary a scratch.”
“Petite Maman”
Following up the phenomenal “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” Céline Sciamma’s intimate latest returns to the childhood focus of her early films, such as “Girlhood” and “Water Lilies.” A short, poetic work, which our review described as a “soft interlude of a film,” “Petite Maman” is a melancholy story of youth in mourning. Wrestling with the death of her grandmother, 8-year-old Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) somehow befriends a young version of her own mother, Marion (played by Joséphine’s sister, Gabrielle Sanz), stumbling upon a hut her mom built in the woods as a small child. Playing with her seemingly imaginary friend/family member, Nelly works through her grief via the soothing powers of perspective and insight.
“Prayers For The Stolen”
Another one of our favorite movies out of Cannes, Salvadoran-born Mexican filmmaker Tatiana Huezo’s “Prayers for the Stolen” (“Noche de Fuego”) explores a pair of women’s harsh experiences dealing with the horrors of trafficking. A coming-of-age drama on Mexico’s narcotics wars, Huezo’s powerful fictional feature debut is not to be missed. Known for her documentaries such as “Tempestad,” “Prayers for the Stolen,” is a “magnificently lucid portrait of girlhood under siege… a slice of life portrayal accentuated with unassuming visual poetry” creating a cogent snapshot reflecting on how “violence itself is never frontal but a looming force that underscores every scene.”
“The Souvenir Part II”
The much-anticipated second-half of Joanna Hogg’s painfully autobiographical romance, “The Souvenir Part II” is “a meta epic of delicate proportions that constantly folds into itself and reveals the murky waters that border fiction and the reality that inspires it, sometimes, like in this case, more directly than others.” Picking the narrative pieces up where the first film left off, Julie (Honor Swinton-Byrne), feeling partly broken following the fallout of her and Anthony’s (Tom Burke) toxic coupling. Now alone in facing an unknown future of self-expression, ‘Part II’ of Hogg’s diptych holds a mirror up to the roots of artistic identity and creative inspiration. Also starring Tilda Swinton, Joe Alwyn, and Richard Ayoade, ‘The Souvenir’ paints an unsentimental look at personal fortitude.
“Titane”
From “The Kills” song accompanying a slithering single-take track across the hot rod dance floor to a botched killing sequence that will make you both cackle and squirm in your seat, “Titane” is batshit insane in the best possible way. A snarling companion piece to her body horror/black comedy debut “Raw,” hardcore cinephiles will see why Julia Ducournau’s film won the Palme less than 10 minutes into its runtime. An unclassifiable work of art attacking the notion of physical, biocompatibility, “Titane” is “a visually striking, thrillingly perverse corrective to… lunkish sexless heteronormativity… while also truly, troublingly interrogating the notion of family as a thing you are born into vs. a thing you choose.”