James R | On 30, May 2020

MUBI continues to build its Library this week with a typically controversial offering from Gaspar Noé, but the real highlight to watch out for its a double-bill of classic Marx brothers comedies – and the chance to catch Benedikt Erlingsson’s dark comedy Woman at War after its recent cinema release.

What is MUBI Library? With more than 400 former releases now available to stream at any time, read our full guide to how it works here.

Meanwhile, MUBI’s daily drops of new titles continues apace. What’s new, coming soon and leaving soon on the subscription service? This is your weekly MUBI Digest:

 

This week on MUBI

Love – 30th May

Gaspar Noé does exactly what you’d expect with this filmed-in-3D story of a guy reminiscing about a past love affair – a memory full of promises, mistakes, games and infamously unsimulated bedroom scenes. Read our review

Olla – 1st June

After answering an ad on a dating website for Eastern European women, Olla leaves Ukraine and heads to French suburbia to move in with Pierre, who lives with his elderly mother. However, the suburbia cannot temper her desires, and nothing goes as expected.

Marx brothers: Animal Crackers – 2nd June

Captain Spaulding, famed African explorer, is welcomed at a high society party at the estate of Mrs. Rittenhouse. Chaos ensues after a valuable painting disappears and Spaulding, along with his secretary Horatio, the anarchic Signor Emanuel Ravelli, and his sidekick The Professor help search for it. This slapstick satire is the Marx brothers’ brand of comedy at its best.

Marx brothers: Duck Soup – 3rd June

The Marx brothers are on hilarious form once again in this musical comedy which sees Rufus T. Firefly named president of the tiny nation of Freedonia after it goes bankrupt. When neighboring Sylvania is revealed to have designs on Freedonia and wealthy benefactor Mrs. Teasdale, the countries go head to head.

MS Slavic 7 – 4th June

A young woman discovers letters in a Harvard archive that her great-grandmother wrote to a fellow Polish poet.

Woman at War (2018) – 5th June

Behind the scenes of her quiet routine, fifty-year-old Halla leads a double life as a passionate environmental activist. She declares a one-woman-war on the local aluminium industry, and is prepared to risk everything to protect the landscapes she love – until an orphan unexpectedly enters her life. If you missed this in the cinema recently, don’t miss it this time.

 

Other new releases on MUBI

Frank

We all know the story. Guy joins unknown band. Guy discovers his inner creative self. Unknown band becomes famous. Frank is not that story. Inspired by the persona of Frank Sidebottom, Lenny Abrahamson’s film isn’t a straight-out biopic. It isn’t a comedy either. Or a drama. Or a musical. It’s a mix of all three – and, as a result, manages that to be that rare thing: original and unpredictable. Read our full review

Satyajit Ray: The Stranger (1991)

A well-off family is paid an unexpected visit by a man claiming to be the matriarch’s long-lost uncle. The initial suspicion with which they greet the man slowly dissolves as he regales them with stories of his travels, tales at odds with their conventional middle-class perspective of the world.

Wadjda

The first feature film to be shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, Haifaa Al Mansour’s remarkable debut is a fantastic, uplifting story about a girl who wants to ride a bike and wear purple trainers to school. Read our full review

Mia Madre

Margherita is a director shooting a film with the famous American actor Barry Huggins, who is quite a character. Away from the set, Margherita tries to hold her life together while feeling powerless when facing her mother’s illness and her daughter’s adolescence. Nanni Moretti’s moving drama stems from the death of his own mother. Read our review

Love & Friendship

Not just the tale of a widow (Kate Beckinsale) riding out the rumours of her romantic liaisons, while trying to find a suitor for her young daughter (Morfydd Clark), Love and Friendship is also a non-stop string of witty insults and catty shots – and Beckinsale is brilliant at firing them out. Whit Stillman’s hilarious period comedy is Jane Austen as you’ve never seen her before.

Around the World When You Were My Age

At age 30, Jiro embarked into a year-long trip taking in the Soviet Union, North Africa, and the United States. Nearly half a century later, her daughter makes use of various memorabilia to step back in time and explore to what degree such adventures have shaped the man’s take on the modern world. This 2018 documentary from Aya Koretzky is one of MUBI’s Undiscovered picks.

The Past

Following a four year separation, Ahmad returns to Paris from Tehran, upon his French wife Marie’s request, in order to finalize their divorce procedure. During his brief stay, Ahmad discovers the conflicting nature of Marie’s relationship with her daughter Lucie. Berenice Bejo and Tahar Rahim star in Asghar Farhadi’s drama, which won Best Actress at Cannes. Read our full review

Krabi, 2562

In the town of Krabi, a popular destination in Thailand, the local folklore and histories are promoted as attractions, while the labour force is hidden from the tourists’ eyes. A nameless character, whose identity continually changes, takes us around town to explore sites that capture Krabi now. This avant-garde offering from Anocha Suwichakornpong and Ben Rivers is a MUBI Exclusive.

Ema

Ema is a magnetic and impulsive dancer in a reggaeton troupe. Her toxic marriage to choreographer Gastón is beyond repair, following a decision to give up on their adopted child Polo. She sets out on a mission to get him back, not caring who she’ll need to fight, seduce or destroy to make it happen. Read our review

Passion

There is fierce competition between Christine, the boss of a multinational advertising agency, and her talented protégée Isabelle. Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace star in Brian De Palma’s game of seduction, manipulation and humiliation.

Cassandro, The Exotico!

After 26 years of spinning dives and flying uppercuts on the ring, Cassandro, the star of the gender-bending cross-dressing Mexican wrestlers known as the Exoticos, is far from retiring. But with dozens of broken bones and metal pins in his body, he must now reinvent himself, a process captured in Marie Losier’s documentary. Read our review

Our Daily Bread

A woman walks for miles every day to get bread for her truck driver husband, and waits for him to drive past the village. While he spends time with his friends and his mistress, she is concerned about their dying relationship. One day she needs to help her sister, and is late for her husband.

The Lunchbox

Charming in its simplicity, this dainty drama starring the late Irrfan Khan is a delectable treat worth savouring. Read our full review

Take Me Somewhere Nice

Alma is in between everything: raised in the Netherlands by Bosnian parents, no longer a girl, but not really a woman yet. She hardly knows her father, but when he is admitted to a Bosnian hospital she decides to visit him one last time. The directorial debut of Bosnian-born Dutch director Ena Sendijarević.

Our Little Sister

Hirokazu Koreeda’s eye for human relationships has never been more tender than in this delicate study of parenthood, absence and inheritance. Read our review

Fellini: I Vitelloni

Five young men, the not-so-young sons of middle class parents, linger in a postadolescent limbo, dreaming of adventure and escape from their small coastal town. Perpetually unemployed, they whittle their lives away by spending the money of their families on drink, women, and nights at the pool hall.

45 Years

Andrew Haigh’s drama starring Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay is a haunting study of relationships and memory. Read our full review

Vitalina Varela

When her husband leaves to find work in Portugal, Vitalina is left behind in Cape Verde. Years later, she finally makes the journey to Lisbon, but arrives three days after his funeral. Alone and isolated in her late husband’s home, she is determined to persevere and confront the ghosts of the past. Released on MUBI straight after its March cinema release, Pedro Costa’s 2019 drama won Best Actress at the Locarno Film Festival.

National Gallery

Frederick Wiseman’s three-hour visit to the National Gallery is a portrait of a hugely complex world painted as simply as possible. Completely absorbing. Read our review

Straub-Huillet: Antigone

A fearless Antigone, refusing to allow the dishonored body of her murdered brother Polynices to be devoured by vultures and dogs, defies the Thebian tyrant Creon by burying him. In punishment Creon orders Oedipus’s rebellious daughter to be entombed alive, lest she sow insurrection among the people.

Romantic Comedy

In Elizabeth Sankey’s Romantic Comedy, our most-loved romcoms are torn apart and scrutinised for their unrealistic pictures of male-female relationships and white, heterosexual, middle-class characters. Why does the woman always have to be saved by a man? Read our full review

Let the Sunshine In

Juliette Binoche is brilliant in this witty but episodic romantic comedy from Claire Denis. Read our full review

Céline Sciamma: Tomboy

There is definitely something boyish about ten-year-old Laure. It’s summer and she has recently moved to a new area with her parents and her little sister, Jeanne. Laure allows her new neighbourhood acquaintances to believe that she is a boy. That’s how Laure becomes Michael. Truth or dare? Celine Sciamma’s delicate exploration of identity and gender is a sweet, funny, moving gem. Read our review

Céline Sciamma: Water Lilies

The paths of three 15-year-old girls living in a modern Paris suburb cross at the local swimming pool, where love and desire make a dramatic appearance. The dynamics of their relationships gradually begins to shift as they come to learn the true meaning of arousal and the power of sexual attraction.

 

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Last chance to stream: Titles leaving MUBI soon

Diary of a Country Priest
Available until 4th June

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