The main character, Chiron, looks meaningfully at the camera in three different points of his life

What Happened To Hope?: The Emotional Emptiness of Modern Cinema

By: Ceridwen Millington
Essay, Featured, Film, Opinion, , , , , , Leave a Comment on What Happened To Hope?: The Emotional Emptiness of Modern Cinema

Hope seems to have disappeared from modern cinema. Where has optimism for our future gone, and will things actually ever change?

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A school girl sits across from her high-school teacher. They are perhaps sat too close, with the girl’s outfit and stance somewhat suggestive.

Biting the Apple: Female Autonomy, Desire and Danger in ‘Margaret’ (2005) and ‘YES’ (2004)

By: lrostant
Essay, Featured, Film, Opinion, , , 1 Comment on Biting the Apple: Female Autonomy, Desire and Danger in ‘Margaret’ (2005) and ‘YES’ (2004)

Between 2004-2005, two audacious films sought to explore the long-mythologised concept of female desire.

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Mike (Mark Duplass) and Hannah (Greta Gerwig) as they're next to each other. Captured from the waist up, Mike is wearing casual clothing, including a dark marine t-shirt, while Hannah is wearing a green triangle bikini halterneck top. Mike is lightly leaning towards Hannah, while Hannah's hands are resting casually on her stomach. They're both looking deeply into each other's eyes. Hannah is wearing a pair of coloured (pink and black with white straps) swimming goggles over her eyes and nose, and Mike is wearing a similar pair (in light neon green with transparent straps) on top of his forehead.

Tolerate the Uncertainty: Intimacy, Human Connections and Everyday Messiness as Found in Joe Swanberg’s Work

By: Rebecca Rosén
Anniversaries, Essay, Featured, Film, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment on Tolerate the Uncertainty: Intimacy, Human Connections and Everyday Messiness as Found in Joe Swanberg’s Work

To celebrate Joe Swanberg’s 40th birthday, we look back at his career to discuss the fearless and original ways he explores intimacy, communication, and the general strengths and weaknesses of human behaviour.

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Two young boys wearing colourful summer clothes, with big smiles and holding branches. A man stands beside them, wearing a hat and an excited expression while holding up moss. All three of them are in front of a body of water.

The Unrelenting Optimism of Taika Waititi’s ‘Boy’ (2010)

By: Katie Coxall
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Nostalgic and warm, ‘Boy’ is a film that centres around youthful optimism and never wavers from the belief that life can be both hard and happy.

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Julianne Moore as Julian in Children of Men stands in front of a newspapered window. A yellow lamp illuminates her from behind.

‘Children of Men’ (2006) and the Birth of Hope

By: Emily Gett
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As we follow Kee and Theo’s journey, ‘Children of Men’ shows us what a little hope can do to a person’s whole outlook on life, and the extent that they will go to to keep that hope alive.

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A yellow van with its doors open on a stretch of road. Two men are seen inside, while a woman and a young girl run beside it. The girl is wearing a bright red top and jean shorts, while the woman wears a white jacket and pink jeans. Two men run behind the van— one wearing white and one wearing black— helping to push it.

The Ties that Bind Us: Hope and Family in ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ (2004)

By: Mariana Delgado
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“It takes the entire Hoover family pushing a bright yellow van, a few stops along the way, and a dead body in the back of the trunk for them to gain back what they lost.”

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The Nightmarish and Sublime Beauty of the Undiscovered in ‘Annihilation’ (2018) and ‘Interstellar’ (2014)

By: Jenna Kalishman
Essay, Featured, Film, , , Leave a Comment on The Nightmarish and Sublime Beauty of the Undiscovered in ‘Annihilation’ (2018) and ‘Interstellar’ (2014)

These two films elegantly unravel what it means to experience things as inconceivable as they are alluring, which continually pull at and dismantle human instinct.

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Image is from the film 'Melancholia' (2011). In front of a pink, cloudy sky that is lined with trees, a young woman holds her hands up. Lightning is erupting from her fingertips.

‘Melancholia’ (2011) and How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Planet

By: Jennifer Lee Maxwell
Essay, Featured, Film, Mental Health, Personal, , , , , , , , 1 Comment on ‘Melancholia’ (2011) and How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Planet

How Lars Von Trier portrays mental illness as a superpower in Melancholia.

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