With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Dear Comrades! (Andrei Konchalovsky)
The gears of oppressive government bureaucracy are designed to crush homegrown opposition before it becomes too threatening. In that sense, institutions and policies put in place by Hitler’s Third Reich and Trump’s MAGA cult have a lot in common with those of 20th century Communist Russia, an ideological rope-a-dope that publically posited figureheads like Stalin and later Khrushchev as warriors of the people while privately undermining any citizen-led resistance with brutal force. Andrei Konchalovsky’s great new film Dear Comrades! depicts such a response with the sobering understanding that historical events of any magnitude can be easily manipulated to match the motivations of those in power. – Glenn H. (full review)
Where to Stream: Hulu
Earwig and the Witch (Gorô Miyazaki)
Those familiar with Diana Wynne Jones’ children’s book Earwig and the Witch will be surprised to find Gorô Miyazaki’s cinematic adaptation beginning with a chase scene pitting a red-headed woman on a motorcycle against a yellow Citroën on her tail. They weave in and out of traffic with impossible speed and maneuvering before we see the first bit of magic used to create some extra distance. That’s when a cut occurs for us to watch the unknown redhead walk through a cemetery towards a large orphanage. With a rushed goodbye she leaves a baby at the door. All that’s with her to give any sign of identity is a cassette tape and a note asking for shelter until her mother’s promised return … even if it takes years. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: HBO Max
Falling (Viggo Mortensen)
Carving out a career that seems wholly based on personal taste rather than following the whims of what an audience may enjoy, Viggo Mortensen earned ubiquitous recognition as Aragorn, and then followed it with no shortage of fascinating projects, from his stellar David Cronenberg collaborations to Lisandro Alonso’s masterful Jauja to John Hillcoat’s pitch-black, bleak tale The Road. He’s now embarked on his feature writing and directing debut Falling, telling the story of a man’s difficult, life-long relationship with his asshole of a father. Hewing more towards the simplistic nature of Mortensen’s recent acting roles, the drama is undeniably earnest in its approach, both when it comes to the one-note script and the plain yet tender direction. Mortensen is clearly attuned to the emotional toll of maintaining such a relationship—loving someone even if they don’t show any love back—but once this idea is firmly laid out early on, the repetitive narrative doesn’t expand to reveal more layers of complexity. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
A Glitch in the Matrix (Rodney Ascher)
I often wonder what influential film theorist Andre Bazin would make of VR and simulations, especially when this year’s Sundance has virtualized the festival experience in a way that benefits from a longer runway than most cultural events pivoting likewise. It’s only fitting that Rodney Ascher’s mind-bending A Glitch in the Matrix would premiere alongside the festival’s virtual avatar party taking place in a computer-generated “space station” that lets us keep a healthy distance. Ascher’s film, which unfolds through a series of virtual interviews, edges towards and backs away from explaining what it could’t have predicted: a virtual end to American democracy during the final days of the Trump administration. If ever there was any point for an experiment to fail in chaos, we broached it while the movie’s virtual print was virtually wet––as the old expression goes. – John F. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Joan of Arc (Bruno Dumont)
Where Jeannette had effectively represented a stylistic and tonal departure from old Dumont, Joan of Arc is a detour to familiar, more somber moods. Part of this owes to the simple fact that for the martyr-to-be, now in her late teenage years, things have taken a dramatic turn. Opening in the year of the Lord 1428, Joan of Arc finds its eponymous heroine at the helm of the French army, besieging English-occupied Paris. It’s a war neither church elders nor the high military echelons seem all too optimistic about, and Joan of Arc’s first act follows the then-17-year-old struggling to rally a patriarchy behind her vision. Acts two and three chronicle the price she paid when, having kicked the English out of France and helped reinstate the monarchy of King Charles VII, said patriarchy eventually punished her act of defiance. It’s a neatly divided triptych: Joan at war with the English; Joan at war with the church elders who declare her a heretical; Joan’s last prison days ahead of her death at the stake. – Leonardo G. (full review)
Where to Stream: OVID.tv
Little Fish (Chad Hartigan)
Following his breakout film, the affecting character study This is Martin Bonner, and his follow-up, the vibrant fish out of water tale Morris In America, director Chad Hartigan had a prescient, ambitious vision for his next feature. Set during a global pandemic in which a growing portion of the population is affiliated with memory loss, Little Fish tenderly follows the relationship between a couple (Olivia Cooke and Jack O’Connell) as they must face this scary new world and the personal strife they are forced to reckon with. As Hartigan elegantly jumps between the past and the present to show all facets of the bond at the film’s center, he contends with the universal fear of having those closest to you drift away. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Malcolm & Marie (Sam Levinson)
Staying busy during lockdown, Sam Levinson shot three projects thus far: two Euphoria specials and Malcolm & Marie, one of the first major productions shot in compliance to COVID-19 restrictions. His new feature is a single location acting showcase that sees a film director (John David Washington) and his long-suffering girlfriend (Zendaya) argue in the wake of his movie premiere. The project was dreamed up by Levinson and his Euphoria collaborator Zendaya during a period of lockdown restlessness, and the screenplay was apparently written by Levinson in just six days. That hastiness shows somewhat in a script that doesn’t quite coalesce—although it’s a film with a lot on its mind, bolstered by two compelling performances. – Orla S. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
M.C. Escher: Journey to Infinity (Robin Lutz)
Despite Graham Nash’s words at the conclusion of Robin Lutz’s documentary M.C. Escher: Journey to Infinity stating that the world is destined to reappreciate the artist’s work, the fact that it’s taken three years for the film to become available in the United States seemingly proves the opposite. As the pop culture footage during the end credits reveals, however, it might just be that Nash was underestimating how important Escher’s art already was. From Labyrinth to Inception and tattoos to YouTube make-up tutorials, the Dutchman’s optical illusions and tessellations have been captivating and inspiring future generations for a century now. Just because his prints aren’t hanging next to Picassos doesn’t mean they’re any less ubiquitous or awe-inspiring. Like all great graphic design, their conceptual ingenuity transcends aesthetic categorization. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Virtual Cinemas
Possessor (Brandon Cronenberg)
The almost wordless prologue to Possessor Uncut boldly establishes Cronenberg’s skill at provocative, compelling visual storytelling. From the very first scene, he challenges us to look away: a woman named Holly (Gabrielle Graham) stares at herself in the bathroom mirror and calmly sticks a needle into her brain (and yes, we see it in full detail). She turns up the dial of a machine attached to the needle, which puts her through intense pain, and then turns it down, which relieves it. We’re left wondering what the hell is going on––and eager to find out––as she returns to her job waitressing for an expensive party and then, out of the blue, stabs one of the guests repeatedly. You’d think she was relishing his murder if it weren’t for the fact that her face remains completely expressionless. – Orla S. (full review)
Where to Stream: Hulu
Red Post on Escher Street (Sion Sono)
There are, believe it or not, more good films than any single distributor can supply. But with our new era of virtual streaming offering unique opportunities to expand the frame, Grasshopper Film have launched Projectr Movie Club, “a bi-weekly series showcasing rare, lost and unreleased films.” It’s begun, as part of 21st Century Japan: Films From 2001-2020, with the U.S. debut of Sion Sono’s Red Post on Escher Street, a comedic nuts-and-bolts look at chaotic film production—more the absurd realities of Day for Night than 8½’s flights of fancy, but because Sono can’t help being Sono there’s room for shades of surreality. If you think movies about movies are played out, fear not: Red Post bears hardly a dull moment over its 148 minutes. Future installments include Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s never-released The Depths and a Straub-Huillet program.
Where to Stream: Projectr
Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley)
Sarah Polley’s third film as a director is many things, all of them brilliant. It is a moving study of an atypical (to say the least) father-daughter relationship, a detective story, a treatise on the power of family secrecy, and an audacious commentary on “non-fiction” cinema. But above all else, it is a wildly entertaining quasi-soap opera. Watching Polley interview her siblings, share old films and photographs, and, ultimately, discover where she came from, is one of the most insightful cinematic experiences in recent memory. There is a specific moment near the film’s end that leaves the viewer confused, breathless, and exhilarated. That’s the power of Sarah Polley, and Stories We Tell. – Christopher S. (full review)
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
Two of Us (Filippo Meneghetti)
When Two of Us begins, we meet Nina (Barbara Sukowa) and Madeleine (Martine Chevallier) a couple whose comfort with each other is palpable through their silences, a way of intimate communication only developed through years of relationship. As they discuss their plans to relocate from France to Rome while talking about children, we first assume they have always been together, and are finding a way to break the news to the kids. As Nina becomes a bit more impatient, reminding Madeleine she needs to take care of herself as well and that her children are adults, we wonder: is she their stepmom? – Jose S. (full review)
Where to Stream: Virtual Cinemas
The Wanting Mare (Nicholas Ashe Bateman)
The Wanting Mare, the directorial debut of Nicholas Ashe Bateman, can feel overwhelmingly beautiful and purposefully abstract. Its billing has compared it to The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones for its fantasy-building, lauded for its technical achievement on a shoestring budget and referenced as a darker fable akin to Pixar’s Onward. These analogies at once credit the movie’s ambitious aesthetics and exemplify its vague storytelling, bound with potential and challengingly little detail. – Jake K.S. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Also New to Streaming
Amazon Prime
The Criterion Channel
Directed by John M. Stahl
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
Celebration
The Killing Floor
Three by Madeline Anderson
Directed by Gordon Parks
HBO Max
After Hours
The Matrix Trilogy
The Shining
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Hulu
MUBI (free for 30 days)
VOD