Tag: mother’s death

The Stranger
(L’Étranger)
(2025)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 10 April 2026
No Comments on The Stranger
(L’Étranger)
(2025)
Sticky post

Director – François Ozon – 2025 – France – Cert. 15 – 120m

*****

A Frenchman living in French Algiers with an attitude of detachment is arrested following a violent incident with an Arab – adaptation of Albert Camus’ existentialist novella is in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, April 10th

Albert Camus’ 1942 novella is a character study of a non-conformist to the widely held ideals of the day. Ozon’s film adaptation roughly follows its template, making some subtle changes which alter its overall stance and meaning.

The following synopsis contains spoilers, but, to be honest, given that this is an adaption of a significant work of French literature, and that you’ll get just as much if not more out of it if you read the book beforehand, I’m not convinced that knowing the plot in advance is a bad thing.

The novella has a two-part structure. First, it follows the life of its main, French Algiers-based protagonist Meursault from his receiving news of his mother’s death and taking time off work to attend her funeral, through his embarking on a relationship with the besotted Maria, to his involvement with his friend the local pimp Raymond Sintès and Meursault’s fatal shooting of an Arab, who has been following Raymond with murderous intent after Raymond mistreated his sister.… Read the rest

Tags absurdist world view, adaptation, Albert Camus, apartment building, Arab, Arab name, Arabic, Arabic language, argument, arrest, beats his dog, Benjamin Voisin, black and white, boss, Camus, care home, chaplain, character study, crime, criminal, cruelty to animals, deadpan, death sentence, death sentence of, Denis Lavant, detachment, dog-beating, elderly neighbour, existentialism, existentialist, France, François Ozon, French Algiers, French colonial racism, friend, funeral, girlfriend, going through the motions, grave, headstone, human dignity, imprisonment, Joël Cudennec, Killing an Arab, knife, L'Étranger, lack of ambition, low life, mannered performance, marry, misogyny, moral scruples, mother’s death, mourner, murderous intent, non-conformist, novella, period newsreel, Pierre Lottin, pimp, police, prison, prison chaplain, promotion, punishment, racism, Rebecca Marder, relationship, revisionist, sex scenes, shooting, spiritual matters, testify, The Stranger, time off work, trial, unpleasant sort, violent incident, wronged sister, wronged woman

Animation Features Movies

Savages
(Sauvages)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 1 August 2025
No Comments on Savages
(Sauvages)
Sticky post

Director – Claude Barras – 2024 – Switzerland – Cert. PG – 87m

French with English subtitles.

*****

An indigenous pre-teenage girl stands up to loggers destroyingthe local rainforest – stop-frame animated feature from the director of My Life as a Courgette is out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 1st

From its opening moments in darkness following unsettling creature noises suggesting a jungle forest, followed by jungle forest establishing shots – a frog jumping across a river via a series of stones, a snake slithering around a tree, a baby orangutan (non-verbal voice: soundtrack composer and co-sound editor Charles de Ville) swinging on a branch – it’s clear that this has high ambitions indeed. All the above would be one thing to execute in live action – a few location natural history shots… possibly library footage. In model – or stop-motion – animation, you need to physically build everything in terms of miniature model sets, so to achieve such images is a major undertaking.

Having already set the production bar high, this then pushes it up further with the rasping sound of a chainsaw, as the tree heights on which the baby orangutan and its mother (voice: de Ville again), who has just rescued the infant from the attentions of the deadly snake, are resting suddenly topples into a camp of workers who are going about their allotted task of destroying the creature’s natural habitat.… Read the rest

Tags 11-year-old, 3D animation, ancestors, animation, animator, Babette De Coster, baby, backing of the authorities, Benoît Poelvoorde, Borneo, bulldozer, capitalism, chainsaw, Charles de Ville, child-eating monster, children struggling to cope, Claude Barras, compromise, contemporary life, cousin, darkness, digitally immersive environment, economics of deforestation, embarrassment, environment, environmental theme, fathers and children, film activities, financial gain, followed by jungle, forest, frog, grandfather, grandfathers and children, habitat destruction, hands-on physicality, harvest fruit, heritage, incoming call, indigenous, infant, jungle forest, learned survival skills, loggers, loss of a parent, loss of the mother, Martin Verset, maternal instincts, miniature, model, model animation, model sets, modern technology, monster in the forest, mother’s death, mothers and children, myth making, native, natural habitat, natural outdoors world, nuclear family, orangutan, orphan, ostracise, Oxbridge graduate, palm oil extraction, peer group, Penan, perceived societal norm, Pierre-Isaïe Duc, police, pre-teenage, puppets blink, rainforest, rampage, rasping, resistance, ringtone, rucksack, Sauvages, savage, Savages, school, single-parent families, smartphone battery died, smartphone obsession, smelly boy, snake, spoken language, stop-frame, stop-motion, struggling to cope, swinging on a branch, Switzerland, trauma, tree, tropic, true to his roots, venomous snake, viral video

Features Live Action Movies Music

Elvis

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 21 June 2022
No Comments on Elvis
Sticky post

Director – Baz Luhrmann – 2022 – US, Australia – Cert. 12a – 159m

***

Elvis Presley’s career from the mid-1950s through to his death in 1977, and his complex business relationship with his manager Colonel Tom Parker – out in cinemas on Friday, June 24th

Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks), having a heart attack, reminisces to himself about his career. Many considered him the abuser and exploiter of the singer Elvis Presley, but that wasn’t the way it was. In the early 1950s, when Parker was managing the touring show of country singer Hank Snow (David Wenham), he heard Presley’s first recording on Sun Records though Hank’s son Jimmie Rodgers Snow (Kodi Smit-Mcphee), a singer in his own right who Parker didn’t think was anything like as good as his father.

Parker, an old time carnival showman, is always on the lookout for that one act that’s a little bit different, affects audiences and might well clean up at the box office. When he first sees Elvis (Austin Butler) perform, and notices young girls and older women going wild at the singer’s dance moves, he is convinced there’s money to be made and determines to sign him before someone else does.… Read the rest

Tags abuser, Alton Mason, Arthur Crudup, artistic integrity, Austin Butler, Australia, Baz Luhrmann, Beale Street, Black, black musicians, black neighbourhood, Black Pentecostalism, bogus identity, box office, business relationship, career, carnival, Col. Tom Parker, country, dance moves, David Wenham, degenerate, degenerate black rock and roll, devil’s music, drugs dependency, Elvis, Elvis Presley, establishment, excesses, exploiter, fake identity, fame, first ever global TV broadcast concert, free line of credit, gambling addiction, Gary Clark Jr., GI, gigs. B.B. King, Hank Snow, heart attack, identity theft, International Hotel Las Vegas, Jimmie Rodgers Snow, Josh McConville, juke joints, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Kodi Smit-Mcphee, Las Vegas, lewd behaviour, Little Richard, male establishment, marriage, meal ticket, Memphis, military service, money-spinning, mother, mother’s death, movie star, movies, music, officer’s daughter, older women, Olivia DeJonge, overweight, performance, Presley, Priscilla Presley, recording, residencies, revivalist gospel tent, rock and roll music, rockabilly, Sam Phillips, separation, showman, singer, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, songs, Spirit-led, stardom, Sun Records, Tennessee, Tom Hanks, tone back, tone down, US, voice, white, white-designated house, Yola, young girls