Review Category: Movie

A young woman, mourning the death of her lover, drives her striking red vintage sports car through the French countryside. With the urn holding Frida’s ashes strapped into the passenger seat, Anya (Aurélia Mengin) travels alone whilst lost in grief. Disconsolate and disconnected from the world, memories blend with freakish fantasies as she recalls her life with her partner. When night falls, Anya calls at a strange, downbeat dive Le Fornacis. There she becomes enthralled with Wolf (Emmanuel Bonami), a brooding and taciturn club-goer, who drives them both off into the night.

Summarising the opening sequence of Fornacis risks giving the impression that the film is a lot more straightforward than it is. The film does have a linear narrative of sorts, but ‘story’ takes a distant second place to a concern with abstract visuals, unsettling soundscapes and layers of metaphor and abstraction. Aside from brief poetic statements, delivered as narration, there is next to no dialogue in the film.

As should now be obvious, Fornacis is a product of the defiantly non-naturalistic end of the spectrum of modern French arthouse cinema. As Anya’s experiences unfold, writer-director-star Aurélia Mengin and cinematographer Nicolas Bordier conjure up suitably strange and surreal images on screen. Their efforts are reinforced by bold and emblematic art direction by Mengin.

The depiction of Anya’s dilemma blends elements of body-horror with the signatures of sapphic and vampiric cinema. The intention is to produce a film that is hypnotic: a lush, immersive on-screen experience in which reality and fantasy blur without boundaries. Everything is delivered with a great deal of confidence and more than a little élan. It is, though, hard to assess the characterisation of the small, and clearly very committed, cast because they’re not being asked to deliver anything close to a natural performance. And while the film’s visuals can claim to be striking and experimental, its sound textures feel more familiar and hit many predictable beats.

By the time the end credits roll, it may not be entirely clear to everyone watching exactly what this movie is trying to say about the existential experience of grief and longing. But this is cinema at its most art-flick niche, and those who don’t warm to Fornacis’ charms are unlikely to have lasted the distance to the film’s finale to reflect on that question.

Where to watch: the Cine-Excess streaming channel.

We’ve all seen Internet trolls. Those people who comment on almost anything they can and show the worst of the human condition. When it builds to cyber-bullying it can become incredibly upsetting for those on the receiving end. This is what happens in Ivo van Aart’s The Columnist (De Kuthoer), an amusing but brutal tale of what happens when one woman can’t take anymore.

“Why can’t we have opinions and be nice about it?” asks newspaper columnist Femke Boot (Katja Herbers) when she reads the latest bile aimed her way on Twitter. It’s even affecting her ability to write a novel she’s under contract for. Others can shrug it all off, particularly her lover, fellow author Steven Dood (Bram van der Kelen) who tells her “It’s just the Internet – it’s not real”. Well, it certainly gets real for these trolls as Femke dishes out some tough justice.

Daan Windhorst’s script keeps thing humorous while delivering a powerful message. While we don’t condone the actions of the lead character, there isn’t a one among us who wouldn’t punch the air at such actions – on screen only, naturally. The fact that she develops a zest for her writing following the murders adds another rye element. Femke’s daughter, Anna (Claire Porro), ironically is a fierce advocate of free speech – something her mother agrees with. But does that right only come when you’re not the subject of the remarks?

With remarkable performances from all involved, The Columnist is a Dutch treat well worth seeking out. If Hollywood tries to remake it, you will all be forgiven for the evil comments.

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A fairly successful writer, May (Brea Grant), is hoping for her next book to be green-lit and, after a meeting with her agent, drives home to her husband, Ted (Dhruv Uday Singh). After going to bed, May is awakened by a noise, only to spot a strange man in their garden. When she wakes Ted to tell him, he acts very calmly, advising that it must be the man who comes to their house every night and tries to kill them.

After a scuffle, which ends with the masked intruder out cold on the floor, the couple leave the house with May asking if they are just going to leave him there, to which Ted replies – very matter-of-factly – that he’s probably already gone, for May to turn around and see that the body has indeed disappeared.

The couple have a fight the next day as May tries to understand exactly what is going on and why Ted is so blasé about it all and Ted walks out, ignoring May’s attempts to contact him.

Each night from thereon in, the intruder returns, and May has to fight him off and kill him first with his body disappearing each time before she can either capture him or have the police turn up.

This continues as May tries to work out answers, find her husband, and keep her sanity. However, nothing is that easy for her as she struggles to get others to believe her; the police think it’s more important to question her about her relationship with her husband and her sister-in-law is acting strangely. When a past indiscretion surfaces, you may think that it’s pretty obvious where this is all going, but you’d be wrong.

Written by its main actor, Lucky is not what you may expect going in if you’ve seen the trailer. If you thought that Lucky would be a Happy Death Day-type of film, you’re wide of the mark. Apart from the returning visits of the intruder, life goes on as normal, and the puzzle is not easily solved.

Lucky is a film that defies simple genre classification. It is also not a film that will simply provide answers, with even the final scene denying the viewer any exact closure, leaving you to try and make up your own mind what it is about. It is this sometimes confusing structure that makes the movie somewhat of an enigma, and you’ll choose whether you like it or not by what you take away from it.

We will not spoil it for you by offering our perspective of what we think it is, but it would be fair to say that in the current climate of female empowerment, there are a few ways of looking at it. Sometimes almost artistic, others almost a breakdown of the slasher genre and the final girl trope, Lucky may push you to consider some of your own perspectives on gender, strength, and whether you should look after yourself or help others.

At only eighty minutes, it doesn’t outstay its welcome and if you’re looking for a more cerebral horror than usual, this should be right up your street.