David Farnor | On 05, Sep 2020

MUBI brings back MUBI Go this week, offering a free cinema ticket to see Les Miserables in participating cinemas. But there’s more than enough reason to stay in this week too, with a triple-bill showcasing the work of Naomi Kawase, a prominent and prodigious figure on the contemporary Japanese cinema landscape – and the youngest winner of Cannes’ Caméra d’Or award for best new director in 1997. There’s also Apocalypse Now and another chance to relive a terrific performance by Isabelle Huppert.

And, of course, there’s MUBI Library to peruse. With more than 400 former releases now available to stream at any time, read our full guide to how it works here – or our list of recommended starting points for browsing.

What’s new, coming soon and leaving soon on the subscription service? This is your weekly MUBI Digest:

 

This week on MUBI

Naomi Kawase: Still the Water – 5th September

On the Japanese island of Amami, despite lacking parental guidance, 16-year-old Kaito and his girlfriend Kyoko try to find their place in the world. While Kaito suffers from the absence of his father, who moved to Tokyo after his birth, Kyoko must come to grips with her mother’s terminal illness.

Apocalypse Now – 6th September

Vietnam, 1970. Captain Willard takes a journey upriver to assassinate Colonel Kurtz, a once-promising officer who has gone completely mad. In the company of a Navy patrol boat filled with street-smart kids, an Air Cavalry officer, and a freelance photographer, Willard ventures into enemy territory.

Brazil: Seven Years in May – 8th September

Affonso Uchôa’s follow-up to the great Araby_, which he co-directed, is a fierce indictment of police violence. His new film catches up with a displaced victim and listens to his story—a lived, personal experience—with profound compassion. A devastating finale evokes resistance in the face of death.

Le Navire Night – 9th September

Each night in Paris, hundreds of men and women anonymously use telephone lines that date from the German Occupation and are no longer listed to talk to each other, to love each other. These people, shipwrecked lovers, are dying to love, to escape the abyss of solitude.

Space Dogs – 10th September

The golden age of the Soviet space programme is full of cosmic brutality, also towards man’s best friend. The most famous of them all is the street dog Laika, who according to local legends is still roaming the streets of Moscow like a ghost to forever remind us of systematic animal testing.

Huppert: Home – 11th September

A family’s peaceful existence is threatened when a busy highway is opened right next to their isolated property. As the sounds and fumes of the modern world begin to fill their home, the family becomes disorientated, and each of its member finds themselves pushed to dangerous extremes.

 

Other new releases on MUBI

Huppert: The Trout

Have you ever dreamt of a film where Isabelle Huppert, in the guise of a youngster heroine, sweeps through bowling alleys and ritzy Japanese hotels? This late work from Joseph Losey is for you.

Isadora’s Children

American dancer Isadora Duncan is famous not just for her groundbreaking work, but also for the tragic death of her two children in 1913. She processed her grief in “Mother”, a choreography about loss and emptiness. A century later, a trio of women attempt to understand and bring this piece to life.

Marguerite Duras:Baxter, Vera Baxter

Opening MUBI’s focus on Marguerite Duras’ hypnotic cinema is her radical, enclosed melodrama with Delphine Seyrig and Gérard Depardieu. Fixating

Indian Cinema: 3 Idiots

Farhan and Raju go on a quest to search for their long lost friend and classmate, Rancho. They encounter a forgotten bet, a wedding they must crash, and a funeral that goes out of control. As they make their way through the perilous journey, Farhan and Raju recall the memories of their college days.

Exclusive: Matthias & Maxime

Xavier Dolan’s latest follows Matt and Max, two childhood best friends, are asked to share a kiss for the purposes of a student short film. Soon, a lingering doubt sets in, confronting both of them with their preferences, threatening the brotherhood of their social circle, and, eventually, changing their lives.

The Mourning Forest

A triple bill of films by Naomi Kawase kicks off with this gentle yet wholly absorbing look at the passage through grief and the bonds that unite us.

Apiyemiyeki

This cinematographic portrait originates in 3,000 drawings made by the Waimiri-Atroari, a people native to the Brazilian Amazon. The drawings are animated onto landscapes and sights, serving as a visual memory of the violent attacks they were submitted to during Brazil’s military dictatorship.

The Brand New Testament

God lives in a dilapidated flat in Brussels with his wife and young daughter. One day his daughter decides to rebel against her vindictive father by hacking into his computer and leaking to everyone on earth the time of their death, before setting out to write her own gospel with her six disciples.

Anbessa

A big condominium promises thousands of Ethiopians a better life. Constructed on the farmland of 10-year-old Asalif and his mother, it leaves them just a tool shed with no water. While the city keeps growing, the young boy battles forces beyond his control thanks to his imagination and sharp wits.

A Couch in New York

A screwball rom-com from Belgian auteur Chantal Akerman featuring Juliette Binoche? Yes please.

The Commune

The Hunt director Thomas Vinterberg turns to the 1970s in this drama about a commune in a larger house in Copenhagen. Erik and Anna set up the community, but their dream is shattered when a love affair puts it to the test. Read our full review

Wonders in the Suburbs

Emmanuelle Joly, the new mayor of the underprivileged town of Montfermeil in the suburbs of Paris, starts working with her extravagant team to implement the wonders she promised during her campaign. But Joëlle and Kamel, two of the team members, are in the process of divorcing.

Technoboss

A surreal musical comedy road trip from Portuguese auteur João Nicolau? Sign us up.

The Trial

Working against the conventions of non-fiction cinema, this courtroom drama unveils the pros and cons of modern democracy. With Brazil’s past and present politics facing each other, The Trial offers an eye-opening ‘behind-the -scenes’ look at the double-edged nature of leadership.

Sicilia!

After many years away, Silvestro returns from northern Italy to the Sicilian countryside of his childhood to visit his mother. On his journey, he has conversations with strangers in a port, fellow passengers on a train, his mother, and a knife-sharpener.

Lolita (1997)

Humbert Humbert, a British professor coming to the US to teach, rents a room in Charlotte Haze’s house, but only after he sees her 14-year-old daughter, Dolores (Lolita), to whom he is immediately attracted.

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

In this unprecedented look at Ai Weiwei, Klayman’s camera captures his forthrightness and unequivocal stance. She gives a larger picture of the artist as an individual, a symbol of China’s oppression, and a powerful voice against a country that still denies its citizens many basic freedoms.

Correspondences

Two Portuguese poets, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen and Jorge de Sena, exchanged letters during de Sena’s exile. Their correspondence is a testimony to their quest for freedom during Portugal’s fascist regime, but also offers an insight into the profound affinity between two human beings.

Brazil: Seducao da Carne

A tenacious writer, Siloé gave up on leaving her home after her husband’s death. While engaging in frequent conversations with a parrot, she’s always observed by a large portion of raw meat: her erotic relationship with it illustrates metaphorically the arduous realities of agriculture in Brazil.

Brazil: The Blue Flower of Novalis

Marcelo, a dandy of about 40 years, has a memory like no other. Monologuing between coffee and hookups, he holds court on a wide range of topics: his HIV status, his Catholic grandmother, and his unusual sexual fantasies. At times, he takes himself for Genghis Khan or poet-philosopher Novalis.

Ozon: Swimming Pool (2003)

A British author seeks inspiration and solitude at her publisher’s holiday home in in the South of France. Her quietude is soon disrupted by the reckless, erotic lifestyle of his daughter. Their tumultuous interactions set off a series of disturbing events.

Ozon: Frantz

In 1919 Quedlinburg, Germany, a young woman named Anna is still mourning the death of her fiance Frantz in the Great War, while living with his equally devastated parents. One day, a mysterious Frenchman, Adrien, comes to town to pay his respects to Frantz’s grave, and slowly enters Anna’s life. Read our review

Almodóvar: All About My Mother

Following the tragic death of her teenage son, Manuela travels from Madrid to Barcelona in an attempt to contact the long-estranged father the boy never knew. She reunites with an old friend, an outspoken transgender sex worker, and befriends a troubled actress and a pregnant, HIV-positive nun.

Almodóvar: Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!

Hot off the major success of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Almodóvar switched gears to take his melodramatic style into more dangerous territory – accompanied by by a score from the late, great Ennio Morricone.

Almodóvar: Live Flesh

Víctor falls hard for Elena, but she doesn’t reciprocate his feelings. She does, however, have feelings for David, a policeman who arrives to break up an argument between her and Víctor. That encounter however takes an unexpected turn that leads these characters down a dark, twisty path in Almodóvar’s 1997 drama.

Almodóvar: Bad Education

Two boys, Ignacio and Enrique, know love, fear, and abuse in a Catholic boarding school in the 1960s. Father Manolo, the headmaster, is witness to and part of these discoveries. The three meet again many years later, and their past actions and new lives intertwine in creative and destructive ways.

Almodóvar: Talk to Her

Benigno is infatuated with Alicia, a dancer he watches from the anonymity of his apartment. After an accident, she is brought to the hospital where Benigno happens to be her caregiver. When wounded bullfighter Lydia is brought into the same ward, her companion, Marco, bonds with Benigno in the most unexpected, moving, disturbing ways.

So Long, My Son

China’s one-child policy is the historical backdrop for this sweeping chronicle of family and loss, a journey at once intimate and epic between a tragic past and a resilient present. Read our full review

The We and the I

In The We and the I, visionary director Michel Gondry gets on a Bronx schoolbus and hits the road! The result is a vivid snapshot of the fears and ecstasy of being a teenager, as well as a sharp impression of race and identity in contemporary America.

Brazil: Once There Was Brasilia y

In 1959, disgraced intergalactic agent WA4 receives a mission: to come to the Earth and kill the president Juscelino Kubitschek on the day of Brasília’s inauguration. But his ship is lost in time and lands in 2016 in Ceilândia—a Black suburb of Brasília—on the verge of Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Based on true events, this film tells the story of wealthy magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who after a stroke is left almost entirely paralyzed. Unable to move or speak, he retreats into his mind, but after learning to communicate by blinking his left eye, he begins to tell his story. Read our full review

Again Once Again

Romina, on a break from her boyfriend, stays in Buenos Aires with her mother and her son. Trying to figure out who she is after three years of all-consuming love for her boy and a demanding relationship, she sees friends, discovers the possibilities of new love and reflects on her German heritage.

Awaara

After feuding with his dad, a judge, Raj Raghunath leaves home and falls in with criminal Jagga. Once he realizes that his new friend is a key figure from his family’s past, Raj kills Jagga. As the crime happened in the elder Raghunath’s jurisdiction, Raj’s case is set to be heard by his father. Raj Kapoor’s watershed film belongs to the Golden Age of Hindi cinema.

Selma

David Oyelowo is unrecognisable in Ava DuVernay’s stirring, powerful biopic of Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975

From 1967 to 1975, fuelled by curiosity and naïveté, Swedish journalists traversed the ocean to film the black power movement in America. The Black Power Mixtape mobilises a mosaic of images, music, and narration to chronicle the movement’s evolution. This eye-opening documentary was rediscovered 30 years later. Though told from an outsider perspective, this is a revelatory portrait of American systemic racism that remains of the utmost relevance today. Essential.

Showgirls

Paul Verhoeven’s sleazy showbiz drama about a dancer trying to make it in Vegas is terrible or brilliant, depending on who you ask – or is it both?

Villa Empain

Villa Empain was conceived by Belgian philanthropist Louis Empain as a private home. After its completion in 1934, he donated the property to the state. Since then, it has served as a Soviet embassy, a TV studio, etc. Only since 2008 does it fulfil its original destination: a haven for art.

Brazil: Good Manners

Set in São Paulo, the film follows Clara, a lonely nurse from the outskirts of the city who is hired by mysterious and wealthy Ana to be the nanny of her soon to be born child. Against all odds, the two women develop a strong bond. But a fateful night marked by a full moon changes their plans. MUBI’s focus on new Brazilian filmmaking continues with Marco Dutra and Juliana Rojas’s excellent 2017 fantasy horror. Read our full review

Brazil: Let It Burn

This tender portrait of drug users residing in a hostel-turned-social housing project is a tough yet hopeful act of cinematic communion. Deeply devoted to its subjects, but also providing space to bring them closer to each other, Let It Burn absorbs great emotion, culminating in musical release.

Brazil: Breakwater

A group of friends from São Paulo go on a trip to a remote beach. While they wait for the new year’s eve, they build a safe and pleasant environment through music and friendship. They take care of themselves, they own their bodies, their sexuality, their memories and they feel free. MUBI continues its spotlight on new Brazilian cinema with this 2019 short documentary.

King Hu: Dragon Inn

During the Ming dynasty, the emperor’s minister of defense is framed by a powerful court eunuch and executed, and his family is pursued by secret police. In the ensuing chase, a mysterious band of strangers begins to gather at the remote Dragon Gate Inn, where paths (and swords) will cross.

King Hu: A Touch of Zen

Hot on the heels of Dragon Inn comes King Hu’s 1971 martian arts flick, which follows Ku Shen Chai, an artist in his early 30s who still lives with his mother. But he is suddenly shaken by the arrival of Yang Hui-ching, a mysterious princess on the run. Yang brings Ku into her circle of protectors, including a nameless monk whose spiritual guidance transforms him into a valiant fighter.

 

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Last chance to stream: Titles leaving MUBI soon

Gol Maal
Available until: 5th September

Too Late to Die Young
Available until: 10th September

Thursday Till Sunday
Available until: 10th September

Mar (2014)
Available until: 10th September

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