The Weekly MUBI Digest | 4th November
David Farnor | On 04, Nov 2017
Takashi Miike fans rejoice, as MUBI hosts a triple-bill of the director’s Dead or Alive trilogy this weekend, the climax of its long-running Miike retrospective. From one iconic filmmaker to another, this month also marks the beginning of a new partnership with Nicolas Winding Refn. The Neon Demon and Drive director will be launching his own online platform in February next year, featuring restored classics and extra material, from essays to music and photography.
That will kick off with the 1965 Bert Williams film The Nest of the Cuckoo Birds, a low-budget gothic horror from the Florida Everglades that vanished without a trace after a very limited release. Before then, you’ve got an exclusive chance to see it on MUBI this month, presented to audiences for the first time in over 50 years.
What’s new, coming soon and leaving soon on the subscription service? This is your weekly MUBI Digest:
This week on MUBI
Dead or Alive 2 – 4th November
Miike returns to his world of violence, masculinity, and pop surrealism with this sequel, as two contract killers cross paths in the middle of the same job and realise they are childhood friends. Together, they take a break from killing and visit the small island they once called home.
Dead or Alive: Final – 5th November
The ace cop of a totalitarian police force and a drifting android play their parts in a post-apocalyptic society. They are destined to fight. Their encounter will change them forever.
Historic Centre – 7th November
Pedro Costa, Manoel de Oliveira, Aki Kaurismaki and Victor Erice all join forces to direct parts of this toured through modern Guimarães, the founding city of Portugal.
Postcards From The Zoo – 8th November
Little Lana was three years old when she was abandoned, alone in the Zoo. Raised by a giraffe trainer, the Zoo is the only world she knows. Until one day, a charming magician arrives and Lana finds her love, for she is ready to leave.
The Cut – 9th November
The Cut tells the story of a father and a daughter, whose relationship fluctuates between proximity and detachment, at the moment of a haircut.
Under Electric Clouds – 10th November
A work of epic ambition, this vision of near-future Russia consists of seven vignettes centred on an unfinished building whose architect perhaps went mad.
Other new releases on MUBI
NWR: The Nest of the Cuckoo Birds
An undercover agent is sent to infiltrate bootleggers in the Florida Everglades, but winds up lost in the swamps and stuck in a decrepit hotel with a few of peculiar inhabitants. Bert Williams’ 1965 flick starts off as a police actioner, but quickly morphs into an unholy fairy tale of Southern Gothic melodrama and horror.
“After a very limited release, the film vanished without a trace, leaving only its ad campaign to back up that it ever existed. In the early 2000s, through a twist of fate, a print was discovered. Now, fully digitally restored, it is presented to audiences for the first time in over 50 years.” — NWR
NWR: Hot Thrills and Warm Chills
Rita Alexander stars as the towering gang leader of a trio of hoodlum gals looking to make one last big score, run away with a mess of diamonds and live the dream in paradise. Dale Berry’s eccentric 1967 gem from Texas wildcard director Dale Berry, underscored by a relentlessly brilliant Perez Prado soundtrack.
“Since the original negative of this film is lost, this restoration was carried out digitally from the only two 35mm prints known to exist. Painstaking digital correction, hand painting and repair work was done to provide the best result, still keeping a connection to the physical ‘artefact’.” — NWR
Dead or Alive
MUBI kicks off a triple-bill of Takashi Miike’s Dead or Alive films. A yakuza of Chinese descent and a Japanese cop each wage their own war against the Japanese mafia. But they are destined to meet. Their encounter will change the world.
The Driller Killer
An artist slowly goes insane while struggling to work on his paintings and care for his female roommates, which leads him taking to the streets of New York with a power drill.
Experiment in Terror
Kelly Sherwood is terrorised by a man with an asthmatic voice who plans to use her to steal $100,000 from the bank where she works in Blake Edwards’ 1962 thriler. He threatens to kill her teenage sister Toby, if she tells the police. However she manages to contact F.B.I. agent Ripley.
Four Flies on Grey Velvet
This homicidal frenzy completed Dario Argento’s revered ‘Animal’ trilogy (alongside The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Cat o’ Nine Tails) that dubbed him ‘The Italian Hitchcock’.
Bobbi Jene
Bobbi Jene is a love story, portraying the dilemmas and inevitable consequences of ambition. It is a film about a woman’s fight for independence, a woman trying to succeed with her own art in the extremely competitive world of dance.
NO
MUBI’s Pablo Larraín retrospective continues with the director’s modern masterpiece about the Chilean referendum, starring Gael Garcia Bernal.
The Club
Four men and the woman who tends to their needs live in a secluded house. All former priests, they’ve been sent to this quiet exile to purge the sins of their past. Their stability is disrupted by the arrival of an emissary from the Vatican who seeks to understand the effects of their isolation.
Neruda
Chile, 1948: Senator Pablo Neruda, diplomat and future Nobel Prize-winning poet, accuses the government of betraying the Communist Party and is swiftly impeached. Pursued by the police, Neruda and his artist wife are forced into hiding and an intimate game of cat and mouse begins in Pablo Larraín’s decidedly unconventional biopic.
A German Youth
At the end of the 1960s the post-war generation began to revolt against their parents. Jean-Gabriel Périot’s 2015 documentary captures a generation disillusioned by anti-communist capitalism and a state apparatus in which they believed they saw fascist tendencies.
Spell Reel
Fresh from its premiere at the London Film Festival, Filipa César turns his gaze to Guinea-Bissau, where at the beginning of the 1970s the advocates of a militant cinema captured the freedom struggle and the first years of independence.
Tripoli Cancelled
MUBI’s next pick from the BFI London Film Festival is a challenging experiment. A metaphorical take on the physical and mental isolation of the migrant, the film is inspired by director Naeem Mohaiemen’s father, who was trapped in Greece’s Ellinikon Airport without a passport in 1977. The film follows a week in the life of a man who has been living in limbo at an airport for a decade.
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Last chance to stream: Titles leaving MUBI soon
La Chinoise
Available until end of: 4th November
Shinjuku Triad Society
Available until end of: 5th November
NO
Available until end of: 6th November
Almost Heaven
Available until end of: 7th November
Spell Reel
Available until end of: 8th November
General Report
Available until end of: 9th November
General Report II: The New Abduction of Europe
Available until end of: 10th November
One Floor Below
Available until end of: 11th November
Rainy Dog
Available until end of: 12th November
All That Jazz
Available until end of: 13th November
The Club
Available until end of: 14th November