shutter Archives - Jeremy C. Processing

Director – Jiří Trnka – 1965 – Czechoslovakia – Cert. PG – 18m

*****

A potter’s quiet life is interrupted by a giant hand which wants him to remake his pots in its image – on the Blu-ray Jiří Trnka: Puppet Master, released in the UK on Monday, August 10th

He sleeps peacefully on his simple bed in his room. We hear footsteps as we move around the room – is someone watching him? If so, he’s blissfully unaware of the fact. In the centre of the room is a potter’s wheel. On either side of the door are numerous pots. In the corner, a mirror; below it, a watering can on a little table. Moving towards his bed, we pass a window with a flower in a pot on the window’s interior sill.

He gets up, does some basic exercises, checks his tongue in the mirror, waters the plant on the window sill. Birds can be heard singing. The he gets down to the business of the day: making pots on his wheel. He is absorbed. But, an interruption. A knock at the door. Nothing there.

Eventually, a giant hand pushes its way through the shuttered window, the impact knocking the plant to the floor and shattering its pot.… Read the rest

The Substance

Director – Coralie Fargeat – 2024 – US – Cert. 18 – 140m

****1/2

An aging movie star takes a wonder treatment which splits her into her current self and a much younger version – in cinemas in the UK on Friday, September 20th.

Hollywood star Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) hosts a network TV keep fit show, but she’s getting on in years – and so is her audience. The show’s producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid) has decided that younger talent is needed in order to attract a younger audience, and gives her the elbow. By a quirk of fate or screenplay, a mailshot about something called The Substance arrives in her penthouse apartment. It’s some sort of beauty product, although the high-end design of the blurb doesn’t explain exactly what it is or what it does. There’s a phone number.

Elizabeth’s identity is bound up with the former show. She calls the number. She engages in conversation with the unseen voice on the other end of the phone. She decides to give The Substance a try. She is told to write down an address. Later, she is sent locker card key number 503 and instructed to collect her package from that address.… Read the rest