Category Archives: Review in Brief
Review in Brief: Relic (2020)
RELIC is an oppressively creepy, deeply moving horror from already-distinct Australian filmmaking voice Natalie Erika James. Kay (Emily Mortimer) along with her daughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) goes looking for her missing dementia-suffering mother (Robyn Nevin) but when she reappears apparently … Continue reading
Review in Brief: Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)
The world loves telling teenage girls what to do with their own bodies – don’t wear this, don’t take that, if you end up with another life inside you then you absolutely must have it. If you were being glib … Continue reading
Review in Brief: Impetigore (2019/20)
Even in a year chock-full of examples of distinctively-voiced horror, the Indonesian offering IMPETIGORE stands out. It’s self-aware without being glib (someone asks “who kills students?” the answer every horror fan knows, is any antagonist in a horror film), it’s … Continue reading
Review in Brief: My Octopus Teacher (2020)
Nature documentary makers are told never to interfere with the natural order of things, to be neutral observers only. MY OCTOPUS TEACHER is the magical story of a man with a camera forming an unlikely and unbreakable bond with another … Continue reading
Review in Brief: His House (2020)
HIS HOUSE tells a familiar enough haunted house story but filters it through the real experience and plight of refugees and is all the sadder and hard-hitting for that. The lead performances of Sope Dirisu and Wunmi Mosaku are raw, … Continue reading
Review in Brief: A White, White Day (2019)
A WHITE, WHITE DAY is a film, like its protagonist (a craggy, mesmerising Ingvar Sigurdsson), utterly consumed by grief. The imposing Icelandic landscape blurs the line between life and death, beauty and bleakness, memory and reality. Little moments of quiet … Continue reading
Review in Brief: Ainu Mosir
The Ainu are the aboriginal people of Hokkaidō, Japan’s large northern island. Following centuries of oppression, discrimination, cultural invalidation, the Ainu were officially recognised as indigenous people of Japan in 2008. AINU MOSIR (after the Ainu name for Hokkaidō) tells … Continue reading
Review in Brief: I’m Thinking of Ending Things (2020)
I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS is challenging, elusive, indulgent, alienating – a Charlie Kaufman film, in short. Like pretty much all of his work, reality is brought into question minute by minute, nobody ends up playing exactly the same character … Continue reading
Review in Brief: Rocks (2019/20)
The wonderful ROCKS completely broke me multiple times. It is the most loving tribute to friendship and the collaborative process of filmmaking. Thanks to director Sarah Gavron’s process involving classroom-based intensive workshopping and invaluable, grounding input from the young cast, … Continue reading
Review in Brief: Rebecca (2020)
I really liked Ben Wheatley’s REBECCA. With the impossible task of competing with Hitchcock’s Oscar-winning black-and-white classic, Ben Wheatley and co take a different path, turn a modern eye to a vintage tale and have produced something sumptuous, grand and … Continue reading
SSP Thinks Film 