Little Deaths
A Film That Refused to Stay Comfortable When Little Deaths hit festival screens in 2011, it wasn’t an easy watch. The British horror anthology stitched together three disturbing tales — Sean Hogan’s House & Home, Andrew Parkinson’s Mutant Tool, and Simon Rumley’s Bitch. Each short film explored sexuality, violence, and power in ways that left […]
Room in Rome
A single story within a film can emit more meaning and value than a ten page essay. Julio Medem’s ‘Room In Rome’ was released in 2010. It was a strange mix of a blockbuster film and a European art-house drama. Medem’s film depicts two women named Natasha and Elena and their adventure in a hotel […]
Not Another Teen Movie
The Satire That Won’t Fade Away From the onset of ‘Not Another Teen Movie’ (2001), audiences understood that the film was a satire. It was essentially a synopsis of the numerous rom-coms of the 1980s and 1990s, like She’s All That and American Pie. What audiences did not know, was the speed at which the […]
Adore
When Desire Burrows Beneath the Bonds of Friendship Adore (2013) written by Anne Fontaine which is an adaptation of the novella The Grandmothers by Doris Lessing does not consider the entire novel to be a mere love story. Instead loving one’s mother, a friend and loving a friend’s mother are all with a single element […]
The Ages of Lulu
A Film That Broke Spain’s Silence During the 1990s, Spain was still immersed in the cultural reverberations of the Movida. Franco’s dictatorial regime had, at long last, given way to free artistic expression, sexual exuberance, and social defiance. Enter: The Ages of Lulu (Las edades de Lulú), directed by Bigas Luna and adapted from the […]
Sexual Chronicles of a French Family
When Secrets of a Family became common vernacular The European drama ‘Sex Chronicles of a French Family’ was released in 2012. This drama was under the direction of the film makers Pascal Arnold and Jean Marc Barr. During this time there was a lot of controversy around the film. The film was neither a scandalous […]
Pleasure
A Film That Refused to Look Away When Pleasure first premiered at Sundance, the atmosphere was equally filled with eagerness and discomfort. Marketed as the unvarnished, explicit exploration of the adult film business, it was obvious this would not be yet another pornographic film wrapped up in artifice. Film maker Ninja Thyberg, in her feature […]
Swingers Sex Party
Whispers Before the Storm Some films debut quietly, while others are born into a world of curiosity, conversation, and even a little scandal. Swingers Sex Party falls into the latter. Before the release, this film was not just another erotic drama; it was touted as a brave look at contemporary relationships and the fantasies people […]
Fair Game
When Reality Collides With Cinema Hollywood has always served us political thrillers that hover in the realm of fiction and reality. However, they were raw and different in the case of Fair Game (2010). Featuring Naomi Watts and Sean Penn, the film wasn’t merely a cinematic adaptation of history, it served as a memoir of […]
Hooking Up
A Road Trip Comedy That Does More Than Make You Laugh ‘Hooking Up’, which was released in early 2020, coincidentally came out just before the pandemic began and closed theatres all around the world. Although it may appear to be absurd, there is no denying that it is the tale of two people – a […]