LAST CHANCE TO FALL IN LOVE
Other movies
EARLY DAYS
Director: Priyankar Patra
Filmmaker Priyankar Patra captures the zeitgeist of young love in this fresh-feeling romantic drama. The film follows the beginnings of a relationship between Preeti and Samrat, an aspirational couple in their mid-twenties who have just moved to the megalopolis of Mumbai. As they share their love story via reels on social media, where the immediate validation and promises of quick money initially seduces, and then propels them into the world of influencers. The film explores the impact of social media on contemporary relationships, while its cinematography creates an intimate and voyeuristic viewing experience, similar to that that of social media voyeurism. With its topical subject and natural performances, Early Days is a relatable watch.
THE SECRET AGENT
Director: Kleber Mendonça Filho
Fasten your seatbelts: Brazil is in the throes of a military dictatorship and left-leaning academic Marcelo (Wagner Moura) is on the run and headed to Recife with his young son. Once there, he has to get his papers — and best the rogue’s gallery of characters and scenarios strewn in his path by director Kleber Mendonça Filho. Set in 1977, The Secret Agent is full of surprises, cycling between B movie set pieces, some pointed satire and duelling timelines and perspectives. It is a sharp political drama that delivers an entertaining and suspenseful ride, which won best actor and best director at Cannes this year for Moura and Filho respectively. It is also Brazil’s submission to the US Academy Awards.
BLACK RABBIT, WHITE RABBIT
Director: Shahram Mokri
Iranian filmmaker Shahram Mokri develops multiple plot strands this engrossing, multilayered, playful and skilled drama centering around Sarah, the victim of a suspicious car crash who is swaddled in bandages and at odds with her controlling husband. What turns out to be a film-within-a-film-within-a-film zooms out to include the remake of a classic Iranian movie in Tajikistan, an armourer worried about a prop gun and an actress looking for her big break. Of course their fates collide through multiple fluid, bravura circular takes, often covering the same time frame, bold touches of magical realism — or are they sight gags? — and an eternal mystery. This spinning story is Tajikistan’s Oscar entry for this year.
PRIMAVERA
Director: Damiano Michieletto
Primavera is a haunting story set in a vividly recreated Venice, a tale of art and music, opportunity and repression. Damiano Michieletto’s drama transports us to the Ospedale della Pietà in the early 1700s, an orphanage where musically gifted girls perform new works as part of a lucrative orchestra. When Antonio Vivaldi is hired, he identifies Cecilia’s clear talent and makes her first violin, but her fate has been long-since foretold. Tecla Insolia plays Cecilia with a tenderness that cuts through time — her predicament reverberating across the ages. While not completely factual, Vivaldi did teach at the Ospedale for 40 years, and the film is based on a literary novel whose core truth resonates here.