The MUBI Weekly Digest | 31st August 2019
David Farnor | On 31, Aug 2019
Joanna Hogg takes the limelight this week on MUBI, with a double-bill of work from one of Britain’s most distinctive filmmakers – including one of her key efforts from her creative partnership with Tom Hiddleston.
Want to see something on the big screen? Use MUBI Go (which offers a free cinema ticket every week to its subscribers), to see her latest feature, The Souvenir, at participating theatres.
What’s new, coming soon and leaving soon on the subscription service? This is your weekly MUBI Digest:
This week on MUBI
A Bigger Splash – 31st August
Few films capture the madness of a breakup like this ground-breaking, semi-fictionalised account of Hockney’s harrowing creative process.
byNWR: Ears, Eyes and Throats: Restored Classic and Lost Punk Films 1976-1981 – 1st September
This collection of short films represents a hint of the tectonic shift in the underground film world in connection with the punk rock “movement.” Restored from original negatives, it showcases the reasonably well-known alongside the extremely rare, from music shorts to impressionistic documentary.
Joanna Hogg: Archipelago – 2nd September
Co-starring Tom Hiddleston, Archipelago sees how a family vacation pushes the limits of relationships and the spaces that define and confine them.
Joanna Hogg: Exhibition – 3rd September
A penetrating, impossibly elegant exploration not only of a marriage among artists but also of how your home shapes your life.
Viewfinder: Pig – 4th September
Iranian cinema tends to be associated to the poetic realism of Abbas Kiarostami, but MUBI uncovers a different side with this priceless dark comedy by maverick auteur Mani Haghighi. An intrepid, mordant, deliriously absurd look at a film industry marked by both censorship and narcissism.
Lawless – 5th September
Brutal action and brilliant performances make for a compelling gangster flick with above-average knitwear.
Almodovar: Law of Desire – 6th September
Pablo loves Juan but Juan is lukewarm about the relationship. Antonio becomes obsessed with Pablo after one evening intended to be a mere one-night stand. Paralleling this dangerous love triangle is the story of Pablo’s sister Tina, a transgender woman about whom Pablo is writing a play. All these lives collide in Pedro Almodovar’s 1987 outing,
Other new releases on MUBI
Music on MUBI: Junun
Paul Thomas Anderson joined Jonny Greenwood and Israeli musician, composer and poet Shye Ben Tzur on a trip to Rajasthan, where they were hosted by the Maharaja of Jodhpur. In the 15th-century Mehrangarh Fort, Greenwood and the musicians of the Rajasthan Express worked on Ben Tzur’s album. Read our review
Music on MUBI: Searching for Sugar Man
Though he faded into obscurity in the U.S., an early ’70s musician known as Rodriguez became a huge hit in South Africa and was widely rumoured to have died. Two obsessed fans set out to learn the man’s true fate. Read our review
Music on MUBI: Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life
Serge Gainsbourg’s life, from the young Lucien Ginsburg in 1940s occupied Paris, to the poet, composer and world-famous singer. The film spans his whole artistic career, and explores the evolution and recognition of his music and its avant-garde status, that made him a true icon of French culture. Read our review
Music on MUBI: End of the Century: The Story of The Ramones
Filmmaker Michael Gramaglia’s years-in-the-making biography of the legendary punk band the Ramones traces nearly all the various and sundry peaks and valleys which the seminal rockers experienced over the course of their 20-plus year career before disbanding in 1995.
Music on MUBI: The Needle
Enigmatic drifter Moro returns to his Asiatic hometown to attempt to get his ex-girlfriend off heroine. The couple escape to the Aral sea but find that the sea has all but disappeared. There Dina seems cured, but back in town everything starts anew, and the mafia are waiting for them.
Juliette Binoche: Elles
Anne, a mother of two and an investigative journalist for Elle magazine, is writing an article about university student prostitution. Her meetings with two fiercely independent young women are profound and unsettling, moving her to question her most intimate convictions about money, family and sex.
Juliette Binoche: Camille Claudel 1915
Before shocking us all with an unexpected skill for comedy, director Bruno Dumont was admired for his radically bleak explorations of human tragedy. Juliette Binoche teamed up with him for this exploration of three days in the life of troubled sculptor Camille Claudel, who was sent to a psychiatric clinic in 1913 – a stark, absorbing portrait of a tortured artist.
Juliette Binoche: Slack Bayt
Masterful slapstick, political horror and bourgeois family drama combine in Bruno Dumont’s enjoyably unpredictable comedy that sees Juliette Binoche as you haven’t seen her before. Read our review
The Student
With Leto available exclusively on MUBI UK, here’s a chance to catch director Kirill Serebrennikov’s 2016 drama, which follows teenager Veniamin, who studies the Bible obsessively and comes to believe that the world is nearing its end. His studies lead him on a path to religious fanaticism, drawing him into conflict with his mother, his classmates and his biology teacher Elena, who will alone challenge him on his own ground.
Almodovar: Dark Habits
Following her lover’s fatal overdose, Yolanda, a bolero singer and drug addict, seeks refuge in the Convent of Humble Redeemers, dedicated to the rescue of women with a past in drugs, prostitution, and murder. No redemption is in sight however as the convent turns out to house many vices and sins.
Almodovar: What Have I Done to Deserve This?
Overworked cleaning lady Gloria takes various jobs to make ends meet. Her unforgiving life is filled with eccentric characters: an abusive taxi driver husband, a drug-dealer teenage son, an unappreciative mother-in-law, and a prostitute neighbour who pays Gloria to sit in with exhibitionist clients.
Almodovar: Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Dumped by her partner, soap actress Pepa needs to track him down to deliver an important message. But her life is soon invaded by a series of distractions: Pepa’s friend Candela might have got involved in a terrorist plot, while Iván’s son, who is flat-hunting, ends up visiting Pepa’s apartment. Almodovar is at his award-winning peak with the deftly choreographed mix of farcical comedy and love letter to cinema in a post-dictatorship world.
Our House
There are two worlds in this house – the life of a mother and her daughter, and that of two women. As the two worlds start to merge, confusion develops. What will happen when they connect to each other?
Leto
A freewheeling snapshot of youthful rebellion in the underground scene of 1980s Leningrad, Leto is the feel-good movie we needed this summer. Set to a soundtrack of classics from David Bowie to The Sex Pistols, and filmed in stunning black-and-white, this is a rock’n’roll musical like no other.
Locarno: Dead Horse Nebula
When Hay was seven years old, he found a dead horse in an open field and watched his father and other adults struggle to get rid of it. Unsure of this memory, he is nonetheless influenced by this incident and, when he cuts himself during a sacrificial rite, everything comes flashing back.
Locarno: Yara
Young Yara lives with her grandmother in a valley in northern Lebanon, where most of the inhabitants have either died or moved abroad. One day Elias, a young hiker, passes by the two women’s farm. With him, Yara will experience the joys and pains of first love.
Locarno: Fausto
On the Oaxacan coast of Mexico, tales of shapeshifting, telepathy and dealings with the devil are embedded in the colonization of the Americas. Characters from the Faust legend mingle with the inhabitants, while attempting to control nature through a seemingly never-ending building project.
Dutch Angle: Chas Gerretsen & Apocalypse Now
After becoming world famous for his work as a war photographer, Chas Gerretsen was asked in 1976 by Francis Ford Coppola to capture everything on the set of his new film. This short documentary tells Gerretsen’s story through a candid interview and his photographs of the set of Apocalypse Now.
Christian Petzold: Barbara
In 1980s East Germany, Barbara is a Berlin doctor banished to a country medical clinic for applying for an exit visa. Deeply unhappy with her reassignment and fearful of her co-workers as possible Stasi informants, Barbara stays aloof, especially from the good natured clinic head, Andre.
Christian Petzold: Phoenix
After surviving Auschwitz, a former cabaret singer, her face disfigured and reconstructed, returns to her war-ravaged hometown to find the gentile husband who may or may not have betrayed her. Without recognizing her, he enlists her to play his wife in a bizarre hall-of-shattered-mirrors story.
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Last chance to stream: Titles leaving MUBI soon
The Wayward Cloud
Available until end of: 31st August
Enemy
Available until end of: 1st September
Certified Copy
Available until end of: 2nd September
Mr. Nobody
Available until end of: 3rd September
Too Early, Too Late
Available until end of: 4th September
Barbara
Available until end of: 5th September
Fausto
Available until end of: 6th September
The Devil and Daniel Johnston
Available until end of: 7th September