The Movie Waffler Argento, Cronenberg, Park Chan-Wook and More Coming to MUBI UK in October | The Movie Waffler

Argento, Cronenberg, Park Chan-Wook and More Coming to MUBI UK in October

Argento, Cronenberg, Park Chan-Wook and More Coming to MUBI UK in October
The arthouse streaming service has announced its October line-up.

MUBI UK's October roster includes retrospectives of Dario Argento, David Cronenberg and Park Chan-Wook, along the feature debut of Panah PanahiLucile Hadžihalilović's English language debut and more.


Free Chol Soo Lee

Free Chol Soo Lee
Award-winning journalists Julie Ha and Eugene Yi excavate the largely unknown yet essential history of Chol Soo Lee in their riveting Sundance selection Free Chol Soo Lee (2022). Combining rich archival footage, firsthand accounts, and narration drawn from personal writings, this poignant documentary paints an intimate portrait of the complex man at the centre of a movement and serves as an urgent reminder that his legacy is more relevant than ever.
 
In 1970s San Francisco, 20-year-old Korean immigrant Chol Soo Lee is racially profiled and convicted of a Chinatown gang murder. Sentenced to life, he spends years fighting to survive until investigative journalist K.W. Lee takes a special interest in his case, igniting an unprecedented push for social action that would unite Asian Americans and inspire a new generation of activists. Free Chol Soo Lee (2022) arrives exclusively on MUBI this October.


The African Desperate

The African Desperate
Palace is not going to the fucking graduation party! She hates the woods. If this were a reality show, she would be the person who was not here to make friends. Palace needs to get home, back to Chicago from upstate New York. But that means surviving a hazy, hilarious, and hallucinatory night-long odyssey, stumbling from academic critiques to backseat hookups.
 
The electrifying feature debut from renowned artist Martine Syms, The African Desperate (2022) brings her razor-sharp satire and vivid aesthetic invention to a riotous coming-of-age comedy. The African Desperate (2022) tracks one very long day for Palace Bryant (an expertly deadpan Diamond Stingily), a newly minted MFA grad whose final 24 hours in art school become a real trip. Arrives exclusively and globally on MUBI this month.


Earwig

Earwig
The English-language debut from acclaimed filmmaker Lucile Hadžihalilović (Innocence, Evolution), Earwig (2021) is a dark fairytale examining solitude and madness as hallucinations invade reality. Led by captivating performances from Paul Hilton (Lady Macbeth), Alex Lawther (The Imitation Game) and Romola Garai (Atonement) and featuring a hypnotic score from Augustin Viard and Warren Ellis (of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds), Hadžihalilović crafts a twisted nightmare in her adaptation of Brian Catling’s novel of the same name.
 
Albert is employed to look after Mia, a girl with teeth of ice. Mia never leaves the apartment, where the shutters are always closed. The Master rings regularly to enquire after Mia’s wellbeing until the day Albert is instructed that he must prepare the child to leave and he is finally confronted by a reality he has long repressed.


Hit the Road

Hit the Road
Panah Panahi’s sensational feature debut as writer and director, Hit the Road (2021) is an emotive comedy-drama perfectly balanced with joy and tenderness. A take on traditional Iranian cinema, Panahi offers a raw and authentic observation into the life of one family, where laughter is used to fight back the tears. Accompanied by a brilliant soundtrack, Hit the Road will be arriving exclusively on MUBI this October. 
 
Hit the Road (2021) follows a family of four as they navigate a road trip across the picturesque terrain of Iran. Remaining unnamed throughout, Dad (Hassan Madjooni) has a broken leg and a mood to match, while Mum (Pantea Panahiha) fusses over their two children (Rayan Sarlak and Bahram Ark) and the dog. The youngest son has an infectious energy and brings innocent humour to the difficult situations which begin to arise, as it quickly becomes apparent this is not a straightforward journey. 
 
As the journey twists and turns and their destination draws ever closer, the chaotic claustrophobia in the car grows as does the love and affection the family have for each other.


David Cronenberg: Love and Other Parasites

David Cronenberg: Love and Other Parasites
One of Canada’s most celebrated directors, David Cronenberg has carved out an indelible legacy with his string of “body horror” films that marry skin-crawling bodily transformations with psychological and philosophical concerns. Continuing this October, MUBI is serving up the Cronenbergian body in all its complexities digging deep into the auteur’s fascination with the sick and twisted.  
 
Cronenberg’s interest in questioning human instinct and debating morality is on full display in this dedicated season culminating in acidic social satires featuring blood-thirsty zombies, telepaths with a vendetta, broods of mutant children, sinister cabals, giant talking bugs and more.


Profondo Argento

Profondo Argento
Who better to celebrate the start of spooky season with than the Master of Horror, Dario Argento. This October MUBI is showcasing five of Argento’s greatest films, from his directorial debut The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) to his acclaimed masterpiece, Suspiria (1977).  

Argento is one of the most influential filmmakers in the genre and has had a profound impact on modern horror as we know it. His films have an identifiable style: erratic plots, bursts of psychedelia, outrageous violence and death scenes, with humour and romance interjected. But as well as sending shivers down your spine, Argento has a strong desire for his films to entertain and uses powerful and exuberant sounds and images. Never leaving audiences indifferent, the Profondo Argento series is not to be missed on MUBI in the run-up to Halloween.


Park Chan-Wook

Sympathy for the Devil: The Films of Park Chan-Wook
To celebrate the release of Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave (2022) in cinemas on October 21st, MUBI presents its Park Chan-wook series, featuring seven of his multi-award winning and nominated titles. 
 
Chan-wook has developed a recognisable style, infused with dark humour and violently-poetic narratives filled with uncertainty and suspense. His first critical success, Joint Security Area (2000),  arrives first on October 6th: a mystery thriller based on an investigation into a fatal shooting which breaks out in the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea. Shortly follows Park Chan-wook’s award-winning psychological thriller, The Handmaiden (2016): set in 1930s Korea, Sook-Hee  (Kim Tae-ri) is hired as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress (Kim Min-hee), but little does she know she was hired by a swindler to help seduce the Lady and steal her fortune. 
 
Nominated for the Palme d’Or and winner of Best Director at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, Decision to Leave (2022), a seductive romantic thriller that takes his renowned stylistic flair to dizzying new heights, concludes MUBI's Park Chan-wook series.


Morgan Quaintance

Artist Focus: Morgan Quaintance
British experimental artist, critic, and writer Morgan Quaintance explores cinema as collective memory. Through his texturally rich short films, Quaintance focuses on hidden or forgotten history through the reconstruction of archival materials, moving image, photographs, written text and disconnected sounds. His unique voice is showcased in MUBI's double bill, featuring his latest works: Surviving You, Always (2020), contrasting the proposed metaphysical highs of psychedelic drugs versus the harsh actualities of concrete metropolitan life in 1990s London, and A Human Certainty (2021), playfully following the neurotic ramblings of a death-obsessed romantic in the throes of post-breakup blues.


Rosa Rosae: A Spanish Civil War Elegy

Rosa Rosae: A Spanish Civil War Elegy
Legendary Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura recovers and manipulates more than thirty images, drawings and photographs to recreate the Spanish Civil War in his new animated short Rosa Rosae: A Spanish Civil War Elegy (2021). The montage of images set to the music of singer-songwriter José Antonio Labordeta pays tribute to those childhoods stolen by the Spanish Civil War, reflecting the horrors of universal warfare and resonating with the urgent topic of conflict in today’s world.


The White Reindeer

The White Reindeer
A landmark in Finnish cinema history as the first Finnish film in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, Erik Blomberg’s haunting exploration of female sexuality and desire, The White Reindeer (1952), arrives on MUBI this month. 
 
A newly-married young woman becomes frustrated as her husband, a reindeer herder for a small Arctic village, spends much time away in devotion to his work. Desperate for affection, she visits a shaman who makes her an irresistible object of desire, but to a terrible cost: she becomes a bloodthirsty shapeshifter who lures and kills men.



Spectre: Sanity, Madness and the Family
The debut feature from music producer and Céline Sciamma’s longtime collaborator Jean-Baptiste de Laubier (Para One), Spectre: Sanity, Madness and the Family (2021), is an intimate docudrama inspired by De Laubier’s own family history. The film mixes real and fictional archival footage with a mesmerising electro soundtrack.
 
Jean, the youngest of a large family, grew up in a community influenced by Chris, a spiritual guide. After receiving a tape from his sister, he rediscovers voices and sounds from his past. As memories begin to emerge, Jean decides to follow in Chris' footsteps, only to discover his father's secret.