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W atching François Ozon’s Peter von Kant is something of a strange experience – like a funhouse that feels familiar while also being a bit deranged. From its very title, one can’t quite shake off the feeling of deja vu that comes with it explicitly playing off Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s seminal 1972 film and play, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, and that feeling persists throughout. With his latest feature, Ozon tries doing two things: loosely adapting Fassbinder’s play, complete with a gender swap; and creating a playful biopic of the iconic German filmmaker. Ozon turns his favourite filmmaker — one whose work he is not just inspired by, but has adapted in the past (2000’s Water Drops on Burning Rocks) — into Peter von Kant (Denis Ménochet), a successful filmmaker who shares his flat with his assistant Karl (Stéfan Crépon), with whom he shares a romantic/sadomasochistic relationship. Through Sidonie (Isabelle Adjani), an actress he considers a friend, he meets a handsome youn...

Y ou wait ages for one fictionalised detective story featuring Edgar Allen Poe during his cadetship years at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, and then two come along. Yet where Christopher Hatton’s Raven’s Hollow was so deeply engaged with the supernatural that it felt like something out of the Brothers Grimm (or perhaps Washington Irving), Scott Cooper’s The Pale Blue Eye is rooted in the rational (even if some of its characters dabble in Satanic ritual, and Poe himself claims as evidence messages sent to him in his dreams by his dear departed mother). Of course, both films are peppered with ravens, tell-tale hearts, gloomy cemeteries, references to Lenore, and other prefigurations (including the detective format itself) of Poe’s later writings, as if we were witnessing the making of the man, or at least a reimagining of his formative experiences and inspirations. Adapted from Louis Bayard’s 2006 novel of the same name, The Pale Blue Eye takes place in a...

M ovies, now more than ever! As another year draws to a close, it’s time to reflect on the films that stayed with us long after we left the cinema. We considered UK cinema and VOD releases from January 2022 until January 2023, so there might be a couple you’re yet to see, but rest assured every film here is a certified masterpiece. Looking for Licorice Pizza, Memoria, and a few other early 2022 releases? Check the 2021 list! Did your film of the year make the cut? Tweet us your favourites of 2022 @lwlies . 30. In Front of Your Face Only the second feature from prolific South Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo to receive a UK release, In Front of Your Face is one of the director’s more approachable character pieces, but one that doesn’t hold back when it comes to exploring his delectably obscure preoccupations with love, sex, family, God and social performance (particularly when soused). And in actor Lee Hye-young, Hong has found one of his most formidable collaborators who is very cl...

T horold Dickinson’s 1949 The Queen of Spades is the perfect winter ghost story. Based on Alexander Pushkin’s classic short story, the slim, sharp tale follows a young officer through shadowy streets, grand mansions, and seedy taverns as he seeks a devilish secret to win at cards. Over time though, 35mm prints and magnetic soundtracks degrade, even for films kept in relatively prestine storage. Digital restoration is a key new tool in addressing logistic challenges of film preservation and archive creation. John Rodden, Head of Film Entertainment at StudioCanal, and Jahanzeb Hayat, StudioCanal’s Technical Manager for Theatrical Restorations, explain the meticulous process and responsibilities of 4K restoration. LWL: Why restore The Queen of Spades in 4K now? John Rodden: For us, it’s always been a favourite. It’s one of those British films that we think resonates and is worthy of an audience. Even if you haven’t seen it, you will have seen its influence. Our work is about raising...

T he peculiarities of memory are such that the human brain doesn’t retain cinema as front-to-back narratives, but as indelible fragments: a shot, a scene, a costume, a song cue, or perhaps most frequently due to the simple pleasure of dropping a movie quote to someone who gets it, a single line of dialogue. Whether foregrounded in a trailer played ad nauseam or imprinted by an unforgettable viewing in the theater, speech sticks with us long after the memories of what actually happened in a film start to fade. Here at Little White Lies HQ, our motley crew of contributors have spent the past year with snippets of script flapping around in their brains like so many bats in a dank cave. And so in an effort to free ourselves of whatever we might call the spoken equivalent of an earworm ditty, we’ve shared the stickiest line-readings of 2022, from the erotic come-ons we can’t unhear to the accent work we can’t quite parse. “Suck me,” Stars at Noon Claire Denis is famed for her abilit...

W hat starts with a bathtub ends with the sea in Corsage, the latest from Austrian filmmaker Marie Kreutzer. Is it breathing techniques Empress Elisabeth of Austria is practising in the film’s opening scene, making her maids count how long she can spend under her bath water, or a dalliance with death? Is she looking for a way to end her life, or to save it? Kreutzer’s costume-drama is an invigorating take on the period piece, a vibrant film that rejects the staid conformity of the genre and finds its intimate angles. Ostensibly a film about a royal woman in crisis, not dissimilar to Pablo Larraín’s Spencer or Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette Marie Antoinette , Corsage revels in the personality and conviction of Empress Elisabeth – played with wit and verve by the brilliant Vicky Krieps. Nearing her 40th birthday, the monarch is well aware of how the public will look upon her as an older woman. She must both entertain and dismiss this – when she faints at a royal engagement there i...

I t’s been 25 years since the release of Titanic, James Cameron’s record-breaking epic that chronicles a doomed romance aboard the disaster-bound ship, and audiences still have a lot of opinions about it. ‘Jack could have fit on that door’, ‘Cal is a ridiculous villain’ – you know the drill. The most common complaint, though, is the film’s length. Titanic clocks in at an admittedly hefty 3 hours and 14 minutes, and naysayers suggest that the framing device – in which our protagonist Rose (played in her old age by Gloria Stuart) reflects on her past – should have been cut. I’ll acknowledge that it’s less immediately satisfying to spend time with this character. Unlike her younger self (Kate Winslet), she doesn’t get to do Irish jigs, have illicit sex in the back of a fogged-up car or hack through handcuffs with an axe. But the elderly Rose is the backbone of the entire film. Without her, and her connection to the present, the film’s emotional impact would suffer. As a reminder for ...

L ove, transformation and mysticism play key roles in Moonstruck, and at the heart of this offbeat romantic comedy released 35 years ago is Loretta Castorini (Cher), navigating Italian-American family dynamics, a marriage proposal, an unexpected turn of events, and metamorphosis—while the biggest celestial body closest to Earth affects the characters during a particularly brighter phase. “Look! It’s Cosmo’s moon!” exclaims Raymond (Louis Guss) to his wife, Rita (Julie Bovasso), as he peers out their bedroom window in Brooklyn Heights. It’s a moment where most characters in the film marvel at its mesmerizing effect: a spectacular orb of temporary beauty and natural light. As for Cher, it was as though the stars aligned for her role in Moonstruck. She had Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, Silkwood and Mask under her belt,as well as music and TV experience. This journey led her to Moonstruck, which was one of her critically acclaimed comebacks. In her acceptance s...

M oviemaking can be a shitshow – literally, if you’re Manuel ‘Manny’ Rayes (Diego Calva) who finds himself running errands for the rich and famous in 1920s Hollywood. When we first meet him in Damien Chazelle’s Babylon, this means transporting an elephant uphill to a fancy party – a task complicated when the elephant has a violent bout of diarrhea. It’s a slapstick sequence that feels more in line with Jackass than a film about the transition from silent films to talkies, and serves as something of a warning for what audiences are in for over the next three hours. Following the elephant incident, Manny is taken under the wing of Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), an A-Lister with considerable clout. At the same time, he makes the acquaintance of the vivacious Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), a fast-talking huckster who’s determined to fulfill what she believes is her preordained star status. It’s not the first time Chazelle has presented a couple of Hollywood dreamers with lofty aspirations, bu...

J ust as everyone prepares to tie a final ribbon on their personal list of 2022’s top films, already the process of compiling a watchlist for 2023 has begun. Today brings the first look at what’s sure to be one of next year’s standouts, and with it a reminder that despite the deluge of well-reviewed awards horses in the fall, the supposed dead zone of early spring also has a bounty of superb if less on-the-radar releases. Kelly Reichardt ‘s new feature Showing Up may have gotten a premiere slot at the tail end of last year’s Cannes Film Festival and cold-shouldered for any awards recognition from the jury, but the uniformly glowing reviews still marked the comedy as one to watch while it awaited a theatrical run. With the trailer uploaded by US distributor A24 this morning, the general public can start to see why its feather-light sense of humor and deeply accurate low-stakes frustrations have already won over a faction of ardent supporters. Michelle Williams , star of such Reicha...

W olfwalkers, the fourth film by Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon, is heavily rooted in the history of Irish subjugation by the English. Set in the Kilkenny of 1650, the self-proclaimed Lord Protector brings an influx of English military soldiers and settlers to “tame” the savage lands of wolves whilst plundering the forests of their resources. The locals and settlers are kept in line by fear, force and cultural/religious imposition. Its themes explore that destruction of, and ignorance against, native Irish culture by outsiders who wield their religion more like a puritanical crusade – patriarchal, domineering, capitalistic, power-making right, “work is prayer” – contrasting with the freedom and environmental harmony of Ireland’s mythical culture the English seek to repress. Its visuals, art style, and boarding take full advantage of the medium to communicate this dichotomy through gorgeous 2D animation. The English town settlement is rigid, tightly organised, heavily symmetr...

Y ou would be hard-pressed not to find something worth watching across myriad streaming platforms and traditional TV viewing options available. A glut of television excellence in 2022 means inevitable blind spots and missing titles from this line-up of new offerings and old favourites — it remains impossible to keep on top of everything. Long overdue pandemic-delayed high-profile productions made a triumphant return, while big-budget fare jostled for attention alongside more intimate stories. It is a snapshot of what this medium offers, whether adaptions, original narratives, spinoffs, or reboots that are deemed a must-watch. 25. Peaky Blinders (BBC/Netflix) The final season of the Birmingham gangster series entered the 1930s, pushing the now-sober Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) to the brink with a plan to infiltrate and stop British fascism. On and off screen grief informs the darker mood as creator Stephen Knight addresses the loss of Helen McCrory while still ensuring Polly’s ...