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Love and Cannibalism in 'Bones and All'

 One way of thinking about eating, is as taking away a part of the world in order to keep ourselves going. ‘Bones and All’, the 2022 film about cannibals directed by Luca Guadagnino, takes this idea to its logical end. The two main characters, Lee and Maren, are part of a group of people called “eaters”, who have strong desires to eat other people. For Lee and Maren, to survive is to take someone away from the world. Ultimately, the film explores the destruction inherent in relationships: asking how far we will go to survive.  Lee and Maren are drifters, who because of their desires cannot integrate into society. They have both left home, and most of the movie follows them travelling across America together. It is essentially a road trip film; they move from state to state with no real purpose or goal. At first, their relationship is a pragmatic one. They are both alone and are simply looking to survive; they recognise their solitude in each other and decide to help each other...
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'The Brutalist' review

  At the end of ‘The Brutalist’ we are told that it is not the journey that matters, but the destination. As we look at the result of László’s work across the 3.5 hour runtime, a concrete and marble tribute to a dead woman, with a cross made of light shining at its centre, this becomes the question.   Was it worth it?   Is everything he went through, everything he did to the people around him, justified by beauty? More generally speaking, how much of these experiences are contained in the work?  Throughout the film we see people struggling with dilemmas. Harrison Lee wants to create something beautiful, but cannot handle how ugly the process of creating that thing is. Similarly, he celebrates modernity and forward-thinking but is held back by his prejudice. Erzsébet is torn between her love for her husband and the dark path his ambition is taking him down; she sees the importance of his work but struggles to cope with the toll it takes on them.  For László,...
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Progress and Absurdity in 'Babylon'

 Damien Chazelle, after his directorial successes ‘Whiplash’ and ‘La La Land’, made his passion project ‘Babylon’ in 2022. The film follows two characters, Manny and Nellie, as they rise to prominence in Hollywood, and Jack Conrad, a silent film star, during the introduction of sound to films. The film is a story of ambition, the damage that progress leaves in its wake, and raises the question of whether the end result is worth it. It was a massive commercial failure and received mixed reviews. Critics tended to either hate it or love it. I fall into the second camp. I want to explore the way the film explores the theme of progress.   These themes are exemplified by the story of Jack Conrad. The opening scene of the film is set at one of his parties during the peak of his fame, before the introduction of sound to movies. It is characterised by excess and self-absorption: it includes an elephant, an energetic jazz band, blaring lights, and piles of cocaine. For Jack, and m...
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