James R | On 27, Apr 2019

MUBI gives us a double-bill of taut thrillers this weekend, with both Cold in July and Match Point back-to-back. The first-ever complete UK retrospective of the important husband and wife filmmaking partnership Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet continues, as does Nicolas Winding Refn’s quest to bring back forgotten films from cinema’s seedy past.

For those wanting something fresh and new, you can also use MUBI Go (which offers a free cinema ticket every week to its subscribers), to see Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade at participating cinemas. And, speaking of coming-of-age movies, don’t miss your chance to catch David Robert Mitchell’s directorial debut, The Myth of the American Sleepover, on MUBI before it departs.

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

 

This week on MUBI

Match Point – 27th April

Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Rhys Meyers are on steamy form in this Dostoevskian thriller about luck, fate and British society – watch out for a scene-stealing turn from Matthew Goode.

Cold in July – 28th April

Michael C Hall stars as a man who shoots a low-life burglar in 1989 Texas. He’s hailed as a hero by the town, but his father is soon out for revenge… (Read our full review)

byNWR: Olga’s House of Shame – 1st May

The notorious exploitation entry that jumpstarted an entire “roughie” genre of S&M-tinged exploitation films. Audrey Cambell plays Olga, a sadistic jewel-thieving madame who hides in an abandoned mine and exacts all kinds of misery upon those who defy her—all told in oddball semi-documentary style.

Of Horses and Men – 3rd May

In a remote valley in Iceland, where neighbours follow each other closely and people have deeply intertwined relationships with their horses, a couple’s first official visit is keenly monitored. Spring is coming and, with it, the dangerous force of nature. This cannot end well.

 

Other new releases on MUBI

The Road

“Soon all the trees in the world will have fallen… I think it’s October, but I can’t be sure. I haven’t kept a calendar for years.”

The post-apocalyptic world is a grey place. Drowned in decaying ash, it sits in ruins, foraged by the few who survived. Among them are a father (Viggo Mortensen) and his boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Shot in a morbid monochrome, the film’s depressing palette only lifts in the flashbacks, showing us the life that was destroyed by the fire. Glowing off-screen in threatening flickers, we never see the destruction first-hand – John Hillcoat’s framing is perfect throughout, unflinching yet resolutely enigmatic. Despite its weighty content, the result is a precise and poignant piece of film-making. One that demands to be seen, even if you won’t enjoy it.

The Breakfast Club

“Don’t you forget about me…” (Read our full review)

Pina

Between Buena Vista Social Club and The Salt of the Earth, Wim Wenders struck gold with Pina, an Academy Award-nominated documentary profile of Pina Bausch. A fitting tribute to the iconic dancer and choreographer, a cinematic spectacle of bodies in motion on-stage and off.

Straub + Huillet: Machorka-Muff

Relishing his political and sexual prospects in postwar Germany, a former Nazi colonel muses on the stupidity of the bourgeoisie, who can be easily duped in the voting booth and in the bedroom. Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet direct this vision of post-war German society, which is by turns wry and ruthless.

The Fire

Perhaps one of the most intoxicating portraits of the “neither with nor without you” romantic scenario, The Fire is a tale of self-destructive love taking place over the course of 24 hours in Buenos Aires.

The Double Life of Veronique

One of the most acclaimed films by Polish master Krzysztof Kieslowski (Dekalog, Three Colors), Veronique is a haunting, mysterious tale of connection, separation, and yearning.

The Last Temptation of Christ

Jesus, a humble Judean beginning to see that he is the son of God, is drawn into action against the Roman occupiers by Judas—despite his protestations that love is the path to salvation. As he is put to death on the cross, Jesus is tempted by visions of an ordinary life married to Mary Magdalene. Scorsese and Schrader team up for this controversial drama that tells the story of Jesus Christ with passion, faith, doubt and fear.

Black Dynamite

Shot in 16mm, this faithful throwback to the politically-charged blaxploitation film impressively doubles as a tribute and a tonic: a comprehensive (and revisionist!) run-through of all this dubious genre’s tricks and tropes. An intelligent, hilarious pastiche no doubt destined to be a cult classic.

Factotum

Matt Dillon embodies the perfect Bukowskian doppelgänger in this irresistibly cynical adaptation. Derived from the tales of the writer’s early working life, Factotum captures all of the vulgar poeticism that was this man’s essence.

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief

Prolific documentarian Alex Gibney takes on one of the hot button subjects of modern times: Scientology and its alleged cult-like methods of control and abuse. Through a series of tell all interviews with reformed believers and banished members, Going Clear unravels the Church’s uncanny practices.

Straub + Huillet: Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach

A chronicle of Johann Sebastian Bach’s life, using correspondences and texts written by the composer, and read by his wife, Anna Magdalena Bach. Eschewing drama to focus almost entirely on his music, it consists largely of expansive scenes of Bach conducting or playing his brilliant compositions.

MUBI Luminaries: Love Education

MUBI’s new strand dedicated to works from the established masters of cinema begins with Sylvia Chang’s 2017 drama. A dying old lady reminisces about her happier moments. Her daughter decides to move her father’s grave from his hometown to beside her mother’s grave. However, his first wife, who has looked after the grave for years, doesn’t approve.

On the Road

Director Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries) brings Jack Kerouac’s definitive Beat novel to the big screen. Kristen Stewart, Sam Riley and Garrett Hedlund star in the tale of aspiring writer Sal Paradise, who meets Dean Moriarty, a charming ex-con married to the liberated and seductive Marylou. Sal and Dean bond instantly, and the three take to the road. Travelling across the country, they encounter a mix of people who impact their journey indelibly.

Fifi Howls from Happiness

Bahman Mohassess was a celebrated artist at the time of the Shah in Iran. But audiences often took offence at the pronounced phalli on his sculptures and his work was regularly censored. Director Mitra Farahani discovers he is living in Rome and begins to craft a final biography, in his own words and on his terms. As Poetry in Motion, a season showcasing emerging voices in contemporary Iranian cinema through Persian poetry, kicks off at the Barbican, MUBI joins in with this portrait of an artist dubbed by some as the “Persian Picasso”.

MUBI Auteurs: Fugue

MUBI pays tribute to the distinct voice of emerging director Agnieszka Smoczynska with this 2018 drama about Alicja, who suffers from memory loss and has rebuilt her own free spirited way of life. Two years later, she returns to her former family to assume (against her will) her role as wife, mother and daughter.

The Irish Connection: The Image You Missed

After travelling around festivals worldwide in 2018, Donal Foreman’s documentary essay film sees the director go in search of his estranged father’s life through his footage of the Northern Irish conflict. Foreman draws on three decades of unique, never-before-seen archive, deftly weaving together a history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland with his own search for the dad he barely knew, Irish-American political filmmaker Arthur MacCaig.

The Irish Connection: The Patriot Game

Arthur MacCaig’s 1978 partisan and radical documentary, tells the story of the Northern Irish conflict, covering Ireland’s history from British colonisation to the territory’s division in 1922. It then details the events of the decade beginning in 1968, witnessing street riots, police violence and firebomb attacks, while analysing the rebellion.

Luis Buñuel: Belle de Jour

Frigid, beautiful young housewife Séverine cannot reconcile her kinky, sadomasochistic imagination with her everyday life alongside dutiful husband Pierre. She starts an afternoon job in a local, high-class brothel under the name Belle de Jour while her husband is away at work. Luis Buñuel’s dark comedy about desire is one of his biggest successes.

Luis Buñuel: That Obscure Object of Desire

MUBI closes its retrospective on Luis Buñuel, the cinema maestro of Surrealism, with his last film: an impiously perverse take on hypocrisy and human desire within a patriarchal society.

Luis Buñuel: The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

Six guests, endless possibilities! Luis Buñuel’s Oscar-winning classic is a fiendishly witty comedy bouncing through reality, dreams, faith, sex, and revolution with the lightest, cheekiest touch.

Luis Buñuel: The Phantom of Liberty

Following his Oscar win for The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Buñuel landed his biggest production, which birthed one of his most incendiary films of subversive hilarity. Bourgeois convention is demolished in the surrealist gem, which features an elegant soirée with guests seated on toilet bowls, poker-playing monks using religious medals as chips, and police officers looking for a missing girl who is right under their noses…

 

A monthly subscription to MUBI costs £9.99 a month, with a 30-day free trial.

 

Last chance to stream: Titles leaving MUBI soon

Life During Wartime
Available until end of: 27th April

Le Bonheur
Available until end of: 28th April

Vagabond
Available until end of: 29th April

She-Man: A Story of Fixation
Available until end of: 30th April

Tristana
Available until end of: 1st May

Drift
Available until end of: 2nd May

The Myth of the American Sleepover
Available until end of: 3rd May

The Beat That My Heart Skipped
Available until end of: 4th May

 

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