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Beau Is Afraid 2023
A Jewish Odyssey. This is arch stuff and the mother-son dynamic is steeped in Jewish specificity but lands as something universal (in my case, Turkish), which is both the point and the sting. It’s mean-spirited, intentionally off-putting, and those qualities work. Aster, not particularly a favourite of mine, showcases undeniable ambition here, even if the formal aspects—the mise-en-scène, the stylistic experiments—don’t always land. Still, credit where it’s due: he goes for it. I have what I call the Led Zeppelin…
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Aguirre, the Wrath of God 1972
A portrait of ambition teetering on absurdity, framed by an environment too immense to care. This is a masterpiece of juxtaposition anyway, but this time I was struck by the peculiar friction between its stiff, almost affected theatricality and the overwhelming rawness of the Amazonian backdrop. The performances, with their deliberate artifice, clash against the sheer, unrelenting indifference of nature, which looms vast and unconcerned, as if mocking the folly—both narrative and meta-textual—of such a quixotic venture.
