September on MUBI UK sees the release of the latest from Chinese auteur
Zhang Yimou, Gaspar Noé's study of dementia, a focus on
David Cronenberg and more.
Hideous
Musician Oliver Sim – singer and bassist of The xx – joins forces
with filmmaker Yann Gonzalez (You & The Night,
Knife + Heart) for a three-part queer horror movie that features songs from Sim’s
highly-anticipated debut album.
The short film Hideous (2022), which premiered at the Cannes
Film Festival in this year’s Semaine de la Critique, stars Sim as the main
guest of a talk-show which slides into a surreal journey of love, blood
and homage to some of Sim’s favourite horror films.
This star-studded glam horror features appearances from queer icons
singer-songwriter Jimmy Sommerville as The Guardian Angel and drag
queen Bimini as The Queen of Doom – plus Jamie xx, long-time
collaborator of Sim and producer of the album.
One Second
The long-awaited latest feature from award-winning director
Zhang Yimou (Hero, House of Flying Daggers), One Second (2020), his beautiful, moving, and deeply
personal homage in the vein of Cinema Paradiso, arrives on MUBI this month.
The tragicomic tale follows an escaped convict in Northwestern China,
seeking out a film reel which contains footage of his estranged daughter.
After arriving in a nearby village, he crosses paths with a homeless girl
who is also desperate for the film reel and will steal it by any means.
The enigmatic film reel that sets them apart soon becomes the root of
their unexpected friendship.
Featuring stunning cinematography of the Gobi desert along the Silk Road
of Western China, Yimou’s heartfelt and often humorous feature is a
bittersweet love letter to the redemptive power of cinema on both a
personal and collective level.
Vortex
Following a near-fatal brain haemorrhage, cinematic provocateur
Gaspar Noé (Climax, Enter the Void) confronts his own health anxieties in his latest feature
Vortex
(2021) – his most reflective and personal work to date. Noé’s stylistic
departure from his previous work is a compelling and tender exploration of
love and loneliness. Having debuted to widespread acclaim at the Cannes
Film Festival, Vortex arrives exclusively on MUBI this September.
Starring film icons Dario Argento and Françoise Lebrun,
Vortex guides us through a few days in the lives of an
elderly couple as they struggle with the degeneration of their mental and
physical health. Presented in split-screen, the couple goes about their
daily routines both together and alone. As everyday tasks become more
challenging, forgetfulness shifts to something more troubling and they
struggle to care for each other.
Playground
Shortlisted for the Academy Award for Best International Film,
Laura Wendel’s stunning feature film debut,
Playground
(2021), is a deeply emotional work that grounds the viewer in the everyday
reality of a Belgian grade school, as 7-year-old Nora struggles to find
her place in the playground while her brother, Abel, contends with
schoolyard bullying.
A work of grim determination, Wandel transposes the realism of filmmakers
such as Jacques Audiard and the Dardennes Brothers to the inner world of
kids, while crafting an empathetic and visceral portrait of the cruelty of
children, and the failure of adults to protect them.
Spotlight on John Smith
This month MUBI shines a spotlight on the work of British video artist
John Smith, one of the best-known experimental filmmakers working
today. Rooted in everyday musings, Smith’s films playfully combine humour,
documentary, fiction and formal ingenuity to capture changes in English
society and London’s cityscape over time. His use of illusions, play on
words, and associations through sound and image create an unpretentious body
of work bound by a comedic thread.
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. Starting this month, 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.
Olivier Assayas: A Double Bill
From his earliest coming-of-age dramas to his reflexive studies in female
identity, Olivier Assayas has proven himself a multi-faceted
filmmaker and consistently exciting to follow and return to. The two
titles forming MUBI's double bill find him at his most stylistically agile
and exciting – Irma Vep (1996), a reflection on the state of
the French film industry through the eyes of the enigmatic
Maggie Cheung, and
Demonlover
(2002), a sleek techno-shocker set in the cutthroat world of business.
The One and Only: Tilda Swinton
Effacing the borders of gender and genre, the chameleonic
Tilda Swinton embodies the infinite possibilities of cinema. The One
and Only: Tilda Swinton continues this month with an additional five titles.
These films beautifully attest to Swinton’s uncanny ability to shift between
the strange and the ordinary, a flair that is central to her star appeal.
Charting the electric breadth of Swinton’s on-screen personas, MUBI's
retrospective celebrates the multi-hyphenated artist as not only a part of
the artwork, but a human work of art herself.
Destello Bravío
Filmmaker Ainhoa Rodríguez pays eccentric tribute to the suppressed
desires and dreams of women in rural Spain in her impressive debut feature,
Destello Bravío (2021). In a town suspended in time and
whipped by depopulation, Cita, Clara and Isa live between the apathy of
their daily lives where nothing extraordinary happens and a deep desire for
liberating experiences. This portrait of the Extremadura region, where
Rodríguez was raised, is a highly original drama oscillating between reality
and fantasy, naturalism and surrealism.
The Night
Tsai Ming-liang’s love letter to Hong Kong,
The Night (2021), arrives on MUBI this month. Carrying
Ming-liang’s signature observational, meditative style, the film captures
the late hours of Causeway Bay, Hong Kong’s bustling commercial district,
amplifying the city ambience with its magical subtleties of the mundane and
contemplating its changing landscape. Inspired by the 1940’s Chinese pop
song “The Beautiful Night is Slipping Away.”
Wood and Water
Wood and Water (2021) is a compassionate debut feature from
Jonas Bak which casts a sympathetic eye across
trans-continental family bonds, growing older, and finding connection in an
increasingly chaotic world. Anke, played by Bak’s own mother, retires from
her job and looks forward to reuniting with her children over the summer
holidays by the Baltic Sea. When her son Max is unable to join because of
the pro-democracy protests bringing Hong Kong to a standstill, she decides
to visit him. The sharp atmosphere of the film is captured on the intimate
grain of 16mm film and heightened by the work of Romanian cinematographer
Alex Grigoras and the New Space Music of Brian Eno.
