The MUBI Weekly Digest | 6th July 2019
David Farnor | On 06, Jul 2019
MUBI is at its most provocative this week, with the release in cinemas and online of Knife + Heart from Yann Gonzalez. It’s only fitting, then, that it should also be kicking off a double-bill of David Lynch movies to boot, while still continuing its Pride celebrations with Gonzalez’s short film, Islands. All of this builds up to the release of its other recent acquisition, Ali Abbasi’s Border – stay tuned for our interview with the director…
Want to see Knife + Heart on the big screen? Use MUBI Go (which offers a free cinema ticket every week to its subscribers), to see it 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
David Lynch: The Elephant Man – 6th July
With David Lynch taking over Manchester’s HOME this summer, MUBI presents a double-bill of his work, beginning with his first Hollywood picture: a historical drama that will surprise you with its tender melancholy and humanity—and scare you with its darkness.
Juliette Binoche: Mauvais Sang – 7th July
A hot blooded ‘80s potion of gangster cinema, AIDS fears, and giddy romance, Leos Carax’s second film features a young Juliette Binoche in one of her first major roles—next to Denis Lavant, Michel Piccoli and Julie Delpy. Watch out for David Bowie’s “Modern Love” in a now-iconic scene.
Pride: Islands – 8th July
A sexual reverie unfolds over the course of one ethereal night. Characters wander through an erotic maze of love and lust, blurring the lines between wet dream and lucid nightmare as a macabre, erotic stage performance sends a ripple of lustful desires through its audience and performers.
MUBI Release: Border – 12th July
Tina is a customs agent with a nose for trouble. She can literally smell human emotions, which is a handy talent for sniffing out suspicious border crossers. But when a mysterious male traveller’s odour confounds her, she’s faced with hugely disturbing insights about who she is and what she wants.
MUBI Auteurs: Buy Me A Gun – 13th July
In a world overcome with violence, where women are prostituted and murdered, a girl wears a Hulk mask and a chain around her ankle to hide her gender and help her dad, a tormented addict, take care of an abandoned baseball field where drug dealers play.
Other new releases on MUBI
MUBI Release: Knife + Heart
Vanessa Paradis stars as a gay porn producer in Yann Gonzalez’s titillating, neon-soaked giallo pastiche. With a retro-electro score by M83, and shot on 35mm & 16mm, it’s a provocative, kitsch throwback to vintage slasher films.
Attenberg
Greece’s Oscar-nominated and Cannes-winning Dogtooth grabbed everyone’s attention and made us hunger for more. That film’s producer, Athina Rachel Tsangari, has made a film that lives up to our feverish hopes for something just as unclassifiably weird, funny, and provocative.
Fortini/Cani
MUBI’s Straub-Huillet retrospective leaps into the 20th century to meet Franco Fortini and, through his writing, encounter Italian fascism, resistance, and the thread of violence extending beyond World War II. Along with his words, the verdant landscape is revealed as a site of struggle and death.
MUBI Debuts: Sarah Plays a Werewolf
Digging deeper into “teen angst” than most coming-of-age stories, Katharina Wyss’ debut weaves the horror of adolescence into the fabric of her film. Psychological tension and liberating performance blend in a claustrophobic yet engrossing look at the complexities of letting go in order to grow up.
Peter Strickland: The Duke of Burgundy
The Duke of Burgundy’s melancholic masochism makes for seductively good cinema.
Claire Denis: Bastards
After White Material, Claire Denis turned her sensuous storytelling to the black heart of contemporary film noir. We close our focus on the French master with this fascinating, sinister thriller starring Vincent Lindon and Chiara Mastroianni, and featuring an indelible score by Tindersticks.
Claire Denis: White Material
The collaboration between Isabelle Huppert & Claire Denis the world had been dreaming of, arrived with this powerful story about the death throes of white colonialism. Denis—who grew up in French Africa—returns to her roots with this sublime, poetic yet nightmarish exploration of racial conflict.
Peter Strickland: Berberian Sound Studio
“I’ve never worked on a horror movie before,” mumbles Toby Jones’ timid sound engineer, who goes to Italy to produce effects for a 1970s horror film. In between the chopping of cabbages and squishing of carrots, the tiny Brit loses himself completely. This is a brilliant demonstration of how sound can warp our fragile little minds, and the best on-screen use of a vegetable since 2002’s Mrs Caldicot’s Cabbage War. Foley crap, it’s awesome.
Ghost World
A generation-defining, endlessly quotable teen movie — and a big influence for Booksmart — Ghost World stars Thora Birch & Scarlett Johansson hilariously nailing the dynamic of a proudly misfit sisterhood. A cult indie classic about American loners, and an inspiration to sarcastic girls everywhere!
Pride: The Fish Child
Fusing magical realist flourishes with a steamy runaway thriller, Argentinian auteur Lucía Puenzo answered all of the promise in her debut XXY with this tale of young love on the lam. A tender treatment of sexual discovery, class, and female liberation woven into an uncanny yet intimate journey.
Oberhausen: Elvis: Strung Out
20th century pop culture wouldn’t be the same without Elvis Presley’s mutton chops and white jumpsuits. This short film—a roaring prize-winner at this year’s Oberhausen—deconstructs the myth of The King through a vibrant montage where wicked pelvis moves and audience lust collide in a feverish trip.
Oberhausen: Elvis: Imbued Life
Our next highlight from the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen is this gorgeous Croatian animation. Cleverly weaving together motifs of taxidermy, memory preservation, and the magic of celluloid, it is a gently surreal and sweetly wistful stop-motion animation with a tour-de-force climax.
Juliette Binoche: Damage
MUBI’s retrospective of Juliette Binoche begins with Louis Malle’s ardent erotic thriller, where the high-voltage forbidden passion between Irons & Binoche almost sets the screen on fire.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
A writing assignment lands a journalist and his sidekick on a business trip in Las Vegas. Before long, a suitcase of mind-bending pharmaceuticals and nonstop neon has them forgetting the business part of their trip. Based on Hunter S. Thompson’s legendary tale.
Toni Erdmann
Prankster Winfried doesn’t see much of his estranged, high-powered consultant daughter Ines, who lives in Bucharest. One day, he decides to surprise her with a visit, but this brings tension as Ines is working on an important project. To enter her corporate life, Winfried creates a fictional alias.
Straub + Huillet: Moses and Aaron
Moses and Aaron transforms Schoenberg’s opera on the familiar Biblical tale into a borderline-surreal cinematic opera of seemingly endless possibility. In expressive tones, the pair debate God’s true message and intent for His creations, a conflict that leads their followers towards chaos and sin.
Pride: Deep in Vogue
This revitalising act of resistance offers an insightful look at Manchester’s fascinating Voguing community, an invigorating paean to the power of minorities, and a timely reminder about the beauty of difference.
MUBI Luminaries: A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mysterye
After hosting the first-ever global retrospective of Lav Diaz, we’re thrilled to continue giving rare access to this essential Filipino storyteller with the online premiere of his prize-winning historical saga. Immerse yourself in this epic journey through the chaos of the Philippine Revolution.
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Last chance to stream: Titles leaving MUBI soon
Holiday
Available until end of: 6th July
A Single Man
Available until end of: 7th July
Mean Streets
Available until end of: 8th July
Mercuriales
Available until end of: 9th July
In Praise of Nothing
Available until end of: 10th July
Beau Travail
Available until end of: 11th July
Die Tomorrow
Available until end of: 12th July
Bad Hair
Available until end of: 13th July
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Available until end of: 14th July
Toni Erdmann
Available until end of: 15th July
Moses and Aaron
Available until end of: 16th July
Deep in Vogue
Available until end of: 17th July
Zombie
Available until end of: 18th July
China Not China
Available until end of: 19th July
A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery
Available until end of: 20th July