New releases and coming soon to MUBI UK (2nd September 2017)
David Farnor | On 02, Sep 2017
This weekend, MUBI releases its latest exclusive acquisition, La Soledad, hot on the heels of its cinema release of the visually stunning, transcendent western, Mimosas. You can read our interview with director Oliver Laxe here – although there’s more than enough to keep you entertained in MUBI’s ever-diverse stream library.
What’s new, coming soon and leaving soon on the subscription service? This is your weekly MUBI Digest:
This week on MUBI
13 Tzameti – 2nd September
Winner of the World Cinema grand prize at Sundance 2006, this atmospheric nail-biter, etched in stark, grisly black & white, is a triumph of diabolical filmmaking imagination, using the most minimal of tools to tighten the screws on the audience.
We Won’t Grow Old Together – 4th September
Jean (Jean Yanne) and Catherine (Marlène Jobert) are a couple whose every move charts an advancement deeper into an emotional war zone. Theirs is the classic and the tragic case of an emotional abuse centred around a perplexing, but powerful, inter-dependency.
Hello Destroyer – TBC
A young junior hockey player’s life is shattered by an in-game act of violence. In an instant his life is abruptly turned upside down; torn from the fraternity of the team and the coinciding position of prominence, he is cast as a pariah and ostracized from the community.
Other new releases on MUBI
La Soledad
MUBI & ICA join forces to release Jorge Thielen Armand’s vibrant and vital film, which captures the lives of real people in Venezuela’s current social and political climate. The movie follows José, a young father who discovers that the dilapidated mansion he occupies is soon to be demolished. Desperate to save his family from homelessness, José begins a search for a cursed treasure that has long said to be buried in the house.
Layla Fourie
MUBI’s second film by Pia Marais finds the director returning to the country of her birth, South Africa. It’s another intimate character study like At Ellen’s Age, but this time doubly charged by the unique social and racial tensions of the new setting. The result, unexpectedly, is a thriller.
Hostel
Decried as gratuitous torture porn upon release, Eli Roth’s Hostel has outlived those reactionary assessments and stands today as a critique of American exceptionalism.
About Twelve
A defiantly unsentimental rendition of the all too familiar coming-of-age scenario, Martín Shanly’s debut film sheds light on the many complications that await at the gates of adolescence. As with the rest of the Argentine New Wave, this is crafted with an entirely unique ecstasy for the cinema.
Damiana Kryygi
MUBI closes its New Argentine Cinema series with a work at once apart from the films which precede it while also sharing similar political ambitions. This polemic on colonialism and its many victims honours the titular Damiana Kryygi, a young girl who suffered a tragic fate at the hands of settlers.
Moana with Sound
Robert Flaherty’s documentary, originally released in 1926, was restored by the Flahertys’ daughter, Monica, in 1980. She traveled back to the island of Savai’i with documentarian Richard Leacock to create a new soundtrack of authentic recordings of the sounds of the island.
Love Torn in A Dream
Raúl Ruiz on inventive top form, including narrative games about making a feature about pirates; old religious opinions; retired nuns who run a brothel.
In a World…
Lake Bell’s writing and directing debut is a brilliant indie gem set in the tough world of voiceovers.
The Romance of Astrea and Celadon
Eric Rohmer’s swansong is a tale of longing and cross-dressing in the 17th century, which follows a young shepherd, Céladon, who is being rebuked by his fiancée, Astrée, who suspects that he is cheating on her. Through utter desperation he throws himself into a roaring torrent river sweeps him away… Eric Rohmer’s vision of doubt, hazard and love.
Castro
MUBI’s New Argentine Cinema season continues with an Alejo Moguillasky triple-bill. This cockeyed semi-comedy’s unlikely basis is Samuel Beckett’s 1938 novel Murphy, but it preserves only the book’s central conceit: a set of characters constantly in pursuit of the title character ready to check out of the rat race and sever all ties with his past.
Suddenly, Last Summer
Elizabeth Taylor. Katharine Hepburn. Montgomery Clift. Joseph L. Mankiewicz brings Tennessee Williams’ scandalous play to life in this story of wealthy widow Violet Venable, whose only son dies while on vacation with his cousin, Catherine. What the girl saw was so horrible that she went insane; now, Mrs. Venable wants Catherine lobotomised to cover up the truth.
Extraordinary Stories
After Balnearios, MUBI’s Argentine season completes a double bill of Mariano Llinas’ work, with the film that saw him become a name overseas. The four-hour result entwines myriads of narratives and a celebration of storytelling, as three unconnected, voiceover-narrated tales each start off innocently enough and then veer into ever stranger, more fascinating realms – a tapestry imbued with the spirit of Robert Louis Stevenson and filtered through the sensibilities of Jorge Luis Borges and Thomas Pynchon.
The Truth
Henri-Georges Clouzot’s La Verite follows Dominique Marceau, on trial for the murder of Gilbert Tellier. The counsels duel relentlessly, elaborating explanations for why the pretty, idle woman might have killed her boyfriend.
The Event
Using only existing black-and-white footage from the time, Sergei Loznitsa (Maidan, My Joy, In The Fog) turns his exquisite, investigative eye to the failed coup of August 1991 which lead to the dissolution of the USSR.
On the streets of Saint Petersburg people gather waiting for news, improvising blockades and anxiously hoping for change, in a film which shines a light on a country in continued political upheaval.
A monthly subscription to MUBI costs £5.99 a month, with a 30-day free trial.
Last chance to stream: Titles leaving MUBI soon
The Event
Available until end of: 2nd September
Suddenly, Last Summer
Available until end of: 3rd September
District 9
Available until end of: 4th September
Balnearios
Available until end of: 5th September
Extraordinary Stories
Available until end of: 6th September
The Truth
Available until end of: 7th September
Impression of a War
Available until end of: 8th September
The Human Surge
Available until end of: 9th September
The Romance of Astrea and Celadon
Available until end of: 10th September
In a World…
Available until end of: 11th September