The MUBI Weekly Digest | 1st February 2020
David Farnor | On 01, Feb 2020
MUBI’s awards season gets into full swing this week, with everything from Joe Wright’s Anna Karenina to MUBI’s exclusive On Body and Soul. There’s still time, though, for an intriguing debut, a dose of Godard and – best of all – a chance to go back to Bong Joon-Ho’s The Host ahead of the release of Parasite.
Looking for something on the big screen? Use MUBI Go (which offers a free cinema ticket every week to its subscribers) to see Talking About Trees at participating cinemas.
What’s new, coming soon and leaving soon on the subscription service? This is your weekly MUBI Digest:
This week on MUBI
Number 37 – 1st February
With Hitchcock’s Rear Window on MUBI, don’t miss the chance to catch this gritty South African remake. Randall is a low level criminal recently crippled in an illicit deal gone wrong. Randall, wheelchair-bound in his apartment in Cape Town, is heavily indebted to a loan shark. The gift of a pair of binoculars gives him an opportunity to get the money he so desperately needs, but at great risk.
Awards: Anna Karenina – 2nd February
In Imperial Russia, Anna, the wife of the officer Karenin, goes to Moscow to visit her brother. On the way, she meets the charming cavalry officer Vronsky to whom she is immediately attracted. But in St. Petersburg’s high society, a relationship like this could destroy a woman’s reputation. Kiera Knightley stars in Joe Wright’s arch, lavish adaptation of the Tolstoy classic.
Godard: First Name Carmen – 3rd February
Carmen X, the female member of a terrorist gang, asks her uncle Jean if she can borrow his beachside house to make a film with some friends. In reality, her clan is planning on robbing a bank. During the burglary, Carmen falls in love with a security guard and will attempt to escape with him…
Awards: Missing – 4th February
After civil war breaks out and martial law is imposed by the military government of a South American country, American journalist Charles Horman is taken away by soldiers. His desperate wife and father are left to attempt to find out what has happened to him, with no help from embassy officials.
Awards: On Body and Soul – 5th February
When a man and woman who meet at work begin to know each other, they discover that they have the same dreams at night, and they decide to make them come true. Subtly moving and brutally raw.
A Family Submerged – 6th February
Marcela’s world becomes strange after her sister dies. While she grieves, Marcela also purges her sister’s flat. When a friend of her daughter’s offers to help, she finds unexpected comfort, and their relationship deepens. During these confusing days, Marcela’s past and present become intertwined.
Bong Joon-ho: The Host – 7th February
Bong Joon-ho’s barnstorming yet highly original monster movie follows an eccentric family’s attempts to rescue the daughter snatched by a huge amphibious creature.
Other new releases on MUBI
Baden Baden
After a failed attempt at working on a film set, Ana, 26, returns to Strasbourg. Over the summer that follows, she decides to replace her grandmother’s bathtub with a walk-in shower, harvest plums, lose her driver’s license, and get back with her ex. In short, Ana tries to get her life together. With echoes of Frances Ha, this drama is a mundane but vibrant coming-of-age tale.
Ether
A story of a military medical doctor experimenting with science at the beginning of the 20th century in order to get power over other people
Godard: Made in USA
Paula Nelson, a hard boiled detective, goes to Atlantic City to meet her lover. Once there, she learns that he is dead and decides to investigate. In her hotel room, she kills a man whose body is later found in the apartment of writer David Goodis. Paula will soon be arrested and interrogated.
Rear Window
James Stewart plays a professional photographer confined to his Greenwich Village apartment after breaking his leg. He looks in on the intimate dramas at play in his neighbours’ apartments and, eventually, he becomes convinced that a salesman murdered his nagging wife. Alfred Hitchcock’s seminal thriller is a masterclass in suspense, claustrophobia and perspective.
Rotterdam: The Beast in the Jungle
Weatherend House, 1903: John and May circle each other. She says they met, some 11 years ago. His voice-over describes his sense of being predestined for something, a premonition about ‘the beast in the jungle’ striking. What is it though? Love? Death?
Rotterdam: Mute Fire
In 1906, four men were executed for attempting to assassinate Colombia’s president. Years later, director Federico Atehortúa Arteaga discovers the strange and improbable relationship between the failed assassination, his mother, and the origins of cinema in Colombia: a long history of violence.
Bergman: The Devil’s Eye
The devil has a stye in his eye, caused by the purity of a vicar’s daughter. To get rid of it, he sends Don Juan up from hell to seduce the 20 year old Britt-Marie and to rob her of her virginity and her belief in love. However, she resists him, and in turn Don Juan falls in love with her.
Rotterdam: Maggie
After a radiologist is snapped having sex in the X-ray room, the image swiftly circulates in the hospital. A nurse fears that she might be one of the randy skeletons depicted. Together with her boss, the woman embarks on a mission to determine whether human beings are ever really worth believing.
Clockers y
Strike, 19, is a small-time street drug dealer for Rodney Little, who wants Strike to kill a former dealer who stole from him. When the man turns up dead, Strike is suspected. But before homicide detective Rocco Klein has a chance to investigate, Strike’s brother, Victor, confesses to the crime. Spike Lee’s 1995 crime drama is an easily overlooked gem.
MyFFF: To the Ends of the World
Indochina, 1945. Young French soldier Robert Tassen is the only survivor of a massacre in which his brother has perished. Blinded by revenge, Robert rejoins the forces in search of the assassins. But meeting the young Indochinese Maï will change his beliefs and disrupt his mission.
The Spoilers
Set against the backdrop of the Nome Gold Rush in Alaska, this tale of corruption follows honest miner Roy Glennister who gets swindled out of his gold mine claim. He then turns to the seductive saloon singer Cherry Malotte for assistance in his battle with crooked commissioner Alexander McNamara.
Safe
Carol White, a 1980s Los Angeles housewife, comes down with a debilitating illness in Todd Haynes’ 1995 drama. After the doctors she sees can give her no clear diagnosis, she comes to believe that she has frighteningly extreme environmental allergies. Welcoming retreat, she finally ends up in a New Age healing centre.
To The Wonder
Neil is a man torn between two loves: Marina, the European woman who comes to the United States to be with him, and Jane, the old flame he reconnects with from his hometown. Neil’s doubts about his life and loves are reflected in the crisis of faith experienced by Father Quintana.
Awards: Capturing the Friedmans
The Friedmans are a seemingly typical, upper-middle-class Jewish family—but their world is instantly transformed when the father and his youngest son are arrested and charged with shocking and horrible crimes.
Awards: Imitation of Life
A young, struggling widow and single mother takes in a black housekeeper and her light-skinned daughter. The two women start a pancake store which becomes a successful business, however they face familial, identity, and racial issues along the way.
Awards: Death Becomes Her
After losing her man to a movie star and friend years prior, a novelist returns home to confront them, looking radiant. Her ex-husband’s new wife wants to know her secret, and discovers the existence of an elixir which grants eternal life. But she soon finds out that immortality has a price.
Awards: Pillow Talk
Who can resist the delightful silver screen chemistry of Rock Hudson and Doris Day? A charming romance is created around the anonymity of a phone conversation in this first collaboration of the duo, a perfectly timed comedy-of-errors and winner of an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Kawashima: Suzaki Paradise: Red Light
A jobless young couple, Yoshigi and Tsutue, wind up at the outskirts of the Suzaki red-light district in Tokyo. Tsutue talks her way into a job pouring sake for male customers at a small bar, while Yoshigi is shunted off into a nearby noodle shop.
Bergman: Smiles of a Summer Night
In turn-of-the-century Sweden, four men and four women attempt to navigate the laws of attraction. During a weekend in the country, the women collude to force the men’s hands in matters of the heart, exposing male pretensions and insecurities along the way.
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Last chance to stream: Titles leaving MUBI soon
The Sugarland Express
Available until end of: 1st February
River of Grass
Available until end of: 2nd February
The Pleasure of Being Robbed
Available until end of: 3rd February
The Last Battle
Available until end of: 4th February
Unrelated
Available until end of: 5th February
The Cow
Available until end of: 6th February
Alphaville
Available until end of: 7th February
Pierrot Le Fou
Available until end of: 8th February
The Beguiled (1971)
Available until end of: 9th February
Dazed and Confused
Available until end of: 10th February