Monthly Archives: March 2025

Thinking Aloud About Film: L’innocente/ The Innocent (Luchino Visconti, 1976)

March 29, 2025UncategorizedGiancarlo Giannini, L'innoente, Laura Antonelli, Luchino Visconti, Massino Girotti, Rina MorelliNotesonFilm1

We discuss Visconti’s final film, currently available to see through the BFI streaming service, in conjunction with the Visconti season recently held at the Southbank, and in a lush and lovely print. Richard had to convince me to podcast on this and I’m glad we did. We both think it a great film, without being anywhere near Visconti’s greatest, a measure of the director’s extraordinary achievements. Here we discuss it in relation to D’Annunzzio’s original novel (The Intruder is the literal translation of the novel’s Italian title); the lushness of décor and costuming, which sometimes seem a John Singer Sargent painting come to life; how the mise-en-scène vividly and complexly conveys character feeling, often without dialogue, and with such skill it can make a viewer swoony with admiration; we talk of how Alain Delon and Romy Schneider were originally cast and admire the performances of Giancarlo Giannini, Jennifer O’Neill, Laura Antonelli and Rina Morelli. It was also lovely to (barely) recognise Massimo Girotti, so beautiful in OSSESSIONE, as one of Giannini’s rivals for Jennifer O’Neill’s favours. We discuss the auction scene,and the fencing scene between husband lover in some detail; how the film reminds us of the 19^th century novel in its narrative sweep, melodramatic accents and its dramatization of complex ideas (faith vs science, moral actions in a world without God, marriage vs free love, equality between the sexes, etc.). A world of feeling and desire, fuelled by melodrama; a beautiful film slightly marred by its ending. We discuss all of this and more here:

The podcast may also be listened to here:

The podcast may also be listened to on: Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

The Auction Scene

Eye-ing up his rival:

Pregnant but not by him

Desire

Watching

Extraordinary Capacity to Adapt to Reality

There’s not a jury in the world that could try me:

John Singer Sargent

Images

Eavesdropping at the Movies: 441 – Ne Zha 2

March 27, 2025UncategorizedAction, Animation, Chinese, fantasy, Jiaozi, Ne Zha, Ne Zha 2NotesonFilm1

Over the last couple of months, Chinese children’s fantasy Ne Zha 2 has quickly, and arguably quietly, become the fifth-highest-grossing film of all time, and the first animated film to gross over $2 billion. It’s hard to keep up with the records it’s been breaking – but can we keep up with the plot?

No is the answer, but we readily accept that younger minds, and minds more in tune with Ne Zha 2‘s cultural context and mythological basis, won’t feel as overwhelmed as we did. It did make us feel old, but this audiovisual whirlwind is beautiful and coherent – writer-director Jiaozi exhibits great control over the most energetic of action scenes, and has an eye for striking, colourful imagery. We discuss how closely some of the film’s visual design and messaging might reflect the particular culture from which it comes, or whether it’s so different from American cinema after all, and ask why this and last year’s Inside Out 2 have been able to make so much money (the Pixar film grossing $1.7 billion and becoming the then-eighth-highest-grossing film of all time) with such little response from critics.

Listen on the players below, Apple Podcasts, Audible, Spotify, or YouTube Music.

Listen to our podcast on the first Ne Zha here.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

Eavesdropping at the Movies: 440 – Mickey 17

March 24, 2025UncategorizedBong Joon-ho, Cameron Britton, Comedy, Mark Ruffalo, Mickey 17, Naomi Ackie, Parasite, Robert Pattinson, satire, Sci-fi, Snowpiercer, Steven Yeun, Tim Key, Toni ColletteNotesonFilm1

After a little time off, we’re back at the cinema to see Bong Joon Ho’s sci-fi comedy, Mickey 17, in which Robert Pattinson dies. Repeatedly. Leaving Earth on a spaceship seeking to colonise an icy planet, Pattinson’s Mickey is an “Expendable”: a disposable worker given lethal assignments, regenerated by a biological printer, and sent out to die again. But when the 17th version of Mickey fails to die at the mandibles of the local fauna, he finds his way back to the colony, only to find that he’s already been reprinted as Mickey 18 – and clone coexistence is strictly prohibited.

We’re disappointed by what looked like a marvellously energetic, knockabout comedy and social satire from the trailer. Even considering the film’s very broad tone, there’s too little in the characterisation to really buy in to, a severe lack of pace, and an ending that betrays it. Nonetheless, as failures go, it’s an interesting one, playing with plenty of ideas, and featuring more than enough good jokes to support it. Our recommendation of Mickey 17 is far from whole-hearted, but you ought to give it a whirl.

Listen on the players below, Apple Podcasts, Audible, Spotify, or YouTube Music.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1975)

March 18, 2025UncategorizedBest Films of All Time, Chantal Ackerman, Defiant Muses, Delphine Seyrig, Jeanne Dielman, Second Wave Feminism, Sight & Sound, Slow CinemaNotesonFilm1

The BFI’s screenings of JEANNE DIELMAN, 23 QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES were all sold out. Luckily, we were both able to see it on a big screen elsewhere. In this podcast we discuss why this is a film to see on a big screen, how it remains a radical film, how the first scene sets a context, how Jeanne Dielman lives in a pimped world where the very same money she gets from men she gives to men. We discuss how the bare bones of the story could have been done as melodrama or noir and the significance of rendering it as ‘slow cinema’, including all that’s been left out of cinema previously (the various kinds of women’s work). We admire the three-day structure as well as the formal rigour and precision which creates Dielman’s world and Akerman’s point-of-view on it; how the film puts into play elements that are never rendered explicit (is the son gay?). We also discuss Delphine Seyrig, the muse insoumise, in the light of her art-house and activist careers (the program for the Queen Sofia exhibition on her work and career is in the blogpost); the film itself in the context of Second Wave Feminism; how the film remains radical in that it is simultaneously a depiction of what Tate brothers bros think women should be, a refutation of those ideas, and women’s frustration/ explosion/ revenge in response. A film that is almost half a century old and feels continuously relevant. We also discuss the 2022 Sight and Sound poll where the film was voted the ‘Best Film of All Time’ ….and much more in the podcast below:

The podcast may also be listened to here:

The podcast may also be listened to on: Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

The Defiant Muses programme and José’s observations on it may be seen here:

New publications:

blu-ray boxed set:

The “Semiotics of the Kitchen” (1975) by Martha Rosler which Richard mention as a comparison to Jeanne Dielman may be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuZympOIGC0

José Arroyo

Thinking Aloud About Film: Shanghai Blues (Tsui Hark, 1984)

March 9, 2025UncategorizedKenny Bee, Sally Yeh, Shanghai Blues, Sylvia Chang, Thinking Aloud About Film, Tsui HarkNotesonFilm1

Tsui Hark’s SHANGHAI BLUES (1984), starring Kenny Bee, Sylvia Chang and Sally Yeh, is currently playing on MUBI. A commercial romantic comedy with musical numbers galore and lots of screwball and slapstick, the film is easy to like. We discuss the pleasures in the performers, the interwar Shanghai setting, the beauty of its look and design, the inventiveness of its shot design and composition. We note how rare it is to see a look designed purely to please instead of to evoke, convey and signify in contemporary cinema. Might this also be a limitation? The film feels like a quickly executed trifle. It’s very broad and the execution feels a bit clunky. We were nonetheless both charmed by it though Richard rated it a bit higher than I did. Where we intersect and where we diverge is the subject of the podcast.

The podcast may be listened to here:

The podcast may also be listened to here:

The podcast may also be listened to on: Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/2zWZ7Egdy6xPCwHPHlOOaT

and on itunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-impressions-thinking-aloud-about-film/id1548559546

José Arroyo

THINKING ALOUD ABOUT FILM: Bellissima (Luchino Visconti, 1951)

March 1, 2025UncategorizedAnna Magnani, Bellissima, Luchino Visconti, Marital relations, Mother Love, neo-realism, Thinking Aloud About FilmNotesonFilm1

We didn’t manage to get to much of the recent Luchino Visconti retrospective at BFI South Bank but we somehow wanted to mark the moment, and how better than a discussion of BELLISSIMA (1951), particularly through the great Eureka/ Masters of Cinema blu-ray. We discuss its themes of obsession, mother love, fantasy, cinema, the effects of media on private and collective aspirations; how it’s a film that announces its fluency from the opening shots; its relation to neo-realism through on-location shooting and the use of non-professional actors; Anna Magnani’s tour de force performance, drawing particular attention to the scene where she gets the neighbours involved in the beating by her husband; we note how it’s an unusual film for Visconti in that it’s central role is a woman’s role, a vehicle for Magnani; we discuss the elements of camp, something not usually associated with Visconti; a very entertaining film of great depth; a critique of cinema by one of its greatest exponents; a film one can’t imagine bettered; a film worth seeing.

The podcast may be listened to here: