Film

Think of Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, but minus the hybrid human-swan CGI and more scenes about how an excessive pursuit of artistic perfection ruins family relationships – that’s The Audition, or in its original German name, Das Vorspiel. Director Ina Weisse’s drama film begins realistically enough: middle-aged, middle-class music teacher Anna (Nina Hoss) takes a student Alexander (Ilja Monti) under her wing and gives him violin lessons in preparation for an audition. Yet, it is precisely this ordinariness that anticipates an unsettling storyline. We soon learn that because of Anna’s upbringing, she carries a parenting psyche that would prove to

What is the value of the Academy Awards? Nobody can quantify the value of art, especially not a bunch of Hollywood elites. Many great auteurs (Hitchock, Kubrick, Kurosawa) never won Best Director, and only last year did a non-English-language film (Parasite) finally win the top prize. This year, the movie about the making of Citizen Kane received more nominations than Citizen Kane did! Indeed, I can’t blame you for dismissing the Oscars out of hand.  However, I would argue that the ceremony is redeemed by those rare moments when the Academy gets it right, when the hard work and genius

Reviewed by Jaclyn Holland The idea of cell-grown meat has gained a huge amount of traction since Dutch scientist Mark Post dished out the first in vitro grown hamburger in 2013. With the promise of providing an environmentally friendly way to continue eating meat, without any associated loss of animal life, it’s easy to see why the media are so enthralled. At the same time, however, there is a prevailing discomfort with what some call “frankenburgers”, as well as opposition to the product even using the name “meat”. With this in mind, renowned Canadian filmmaker Liz Marshall’s documentary Meat the

Watching The Pickup Game as a girl is an unsettling experience. If you aren’t already aware, there exists a ‘pickup industry’ that, in a nutshell, teaches men how to charm and manipulate women to reach their ultimate goal: taking them to bed. The pickup industry is one that generates millions per year. Its followers, mostly men, are willing to pay up to thousands of dollars for online courses, masterclasses and week-long boot camps to pursue the promised Casanova lifestyle. For certain men, this is seductive. But for women, it is dangerous. And in their compelling documentary, directors Barnaby and Matthew

Netflix’s Pandemic is a prophecy of the eeriest kind: watching it at present, living life under the exact kind of virus foretold in the documentary series is distressing. Preparedness, research and development were core themes that carried the series. From 2018 to 2019, Pandemic’s production team trotted around the globe and followed the lives of nine individuals — including frontline medical professionals in New York, scientists who travel back and forth from Guatemala, and experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Congo — in fighting seasonal flu, Swine Flu and Ebola. Ordinarily, one would be in awe of the

Reviewed by Ong Jie Yee   You have run out of excuses to not watch Netflix’s American Factory; it was produced by Barack and Michelle Obama, it won the Oscar for Best Documentary this year, and now you are stuck at home with all the time in the world.  If you are looking for a documentary about the US-China trade war and President Trump’s endless tirade against China, American Factory is about more than that. The documentary is interested in the cultural side of work ethics.   American Factory follows the entrance of a Chinese automobile glass manufacturing company, Fuyao, into the state of Ohio. Blue-collar Chinese and

Reviewed by Xenia Sanut Every person’s idea of heaven is different, which makes finding it a difficult task. We often search for heaven far from our homes and away from all that is familiar to us. However, in a world that is overrun with feelings of anxiety and paranoia, heaven seems even further from our reach. So, is there a paradise that frees us from the problems of our daily lives? And how do we get to it? Palestinian director and screenwriter, Elia Suleiman, explores heaven and home in his newest comedy, It Must Be Heaven. Suleiman not only directed