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Feature Four Frames

Sensationalism vs. truth: Akira Kurosawa’s Scandal

In Akira Kurosawa’s Scandal (Sukyandaru, aka Shubun, 1950), the aspiring painter Ichiro Aoye (Toshiro Mifune) and the famous opera singer Miyako Saijo (Yoshiko Yamaguchi) become victims of the gutter press, with a magazine claiming that the two young people are lovers. A surreptitiously taken photo showing them together at an inn in the countryside is […]

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Double Bill Feature

Double Bill: The Ring & Demonlover

Several decades into its inception, the internet is the most prominent form of mass media. While today social media brain rot is the social concern du jour, twenty years ago the sheer expanse of accessible information online was an idea met with skepticism and fear. This paranoia was examined most patently in two films from […]

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Fashion & Film Feature

Impossible Not to Think of Her: Catherine Deneuve in Mississippi Mermaid

Catherine Deneuve graces this year’s poster for the Cannes Film Festival and in its honour, we are revisiting François Truffaut’s La Sirène du Mississippi (1969). It was the first time when François Truffaut depicted a genuine couple. “In Jules and Jim and in The Soft Skin, scenes involving two people are always presented with reference […]

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Feature Screengem

Screengem: Chance’s Remote Control in Being There (1979)

‘I Like to watch.’ So says simpleton Chance the gardener (Peter Sellers) in Hal Ashby’s filmed version of Jerzy Kosiński’s novel ‘Being There’; a story about the improbable rise of a holy fool from lone obscurity to vaunted celebrity through a series of fortuitous ‘chance’ events. Skewering the hollowness of political rhetoric, racial entitlement and […]

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Feature Four Frames

Using Deception for Good in Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox

Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) revolves around Mr. Fox (George Clooney), a cunning, somewhat egotistical bird thief. The film is a dry, witty comedy suitable for both children and adults; however, it’s greatest interest is the portrayal of a morally gray character. Anderson sets up expectations for Mr. Fox’s character in the opening scene, […]

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Feature Music & Film

Max Cooper: Creating Infinite Worlds of Awe and Wonder

As an audio-visual artist with a science PhD and an international reputation as a leading electronic musician, Max Cooper straddles a range of worlds in which he looks to create work that resonates emotionally and sensorially, often focusing on our place in the universe. With the release of his 6th studio album Unspoken Words, he […]

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Feature Screengem

Screengem: Harmonica’s Harmonica in Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968)

Spaghetti Western master Sergio Leone, and his maestro, Ennio Morricone, would employ individual, idiosyncratic musical motifs – quirky themes, linked or not to the movie’s main theme, sometimes little more than recurring sound effects, often played on particular or significant instruments ­– to help announce a character’s entrance, accompany or comment on his activities and […]

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Feature Four Frames

Secrets and Deception in Koji Fukada’s Harmonium

In Koji Fukada’s Harmonium (Fuchi ni tatsu, Japan, 2016), deception is a theme but also a narrative strategy involving both the characters and the viewers. This slow-paced film revolves around a family living in a suburb in Japan – the father Toshio (Kanji Furutachi), the mother Akie (Mariko Tsutsui) and their daughter Hotaru (Momone Shinokawa). […]

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Fashion & Film Feature

Solveig Dommartin Wears Yohji Yamamoto in Until the End of the World

Until the End of the World (1991) begins with a grim end-time scenario. A nuclear satellite threatens to crash through the ozone layer and wipe out the world’s communications system. It is said to be circling above like a bird of prey. Watching the film now, in 2023, it’s daunting to realise that the unrestrained […]