Jasmim Talks Cinema

Noel - A Sweet Christmas Tale   An innocent and kind-hearted young man, Noel still believes in Father Christmas. After his Nana dies, he must cope with her death while holding onto his beliefs as he encounters the frivolousness and bitterness of first love, in a story that is both a coming-of-age story and, at the same time, not one. Christmas is probably the most celebrated holiday all around the world and, because of that, it’s probably the holiday with the most stories associated with it. Stories to make us feel warm in the cold winter nights. With Noel, Matthew Reynolds takes a dip at this sea of sweet and youthful stories to tell his own Christmas tale. But is he able to enchant us with his holiday fable?   Noel feels like a departure from Reynolds’s previous work, dominated by a corrosive satire. It’s a film filled to the brim with sweetness and naiveté, carefully baked into a warm Christmas pudding of a film. However, although with a naïve sugar coating, that d...

The Three Faces of Modern American Horror – A Reflection on Horror   We have entered the spooky month of October and, to celebrate this scary season, I would like to reflect on the current state of the genre of cinematic horror. More specifically, I would like to reflect on Modern American Horror and its recent tendencies. Horror is, in my opinion, one of the most fascinating genres of cinema and this is because it’s the genre that reflects most directly the concerns of people in a determined time and culture. An example of this is the dominance of horror films in the ’50s and '60s that dealt, one way or the other, with issues related to the nuclear threat and the Red Scare, both associated with the Cold War – examples of this are The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and Tarantula (1955), both tapping into the general paranoia of American society of the period. Horror films tap directly into people’s fears and that’s why they are so effective and interesting. In this s...

Why Frances Halladay is one of the most relatable film characters ever written (and maybe one of the most inspiring)  Frances Halladay is a 27-year-old woman living in New York. She was born in Sacramento, California, and she moved to NYC in the hopes of starting an artistic career as a dancer. She is light-hearted, funny and quirky. She is herself, yet, strangely, she is also all of us. Life seems to be putting her on the ropes, as everything bad that could happen to her always happens, from being "fired" from the Christmas show she was supposed to do to tripping as she is running to get some cash to pay for dinner with the cool boy she met. Not only that, but everyone else, including her best friend Sophie, seems to be getting on with their lives. Life really doesn't seem to be her thing, but is it really the thing for anyone? "I'm tired", she says, "I am always so tired" - and we can't help but connect with her when she utters those wor...

Shopping Bag 2: Back in Business - Back and Better than Ever!  "Our least worst film yet!", the tagline boldly states, preparing us for the wild ride that we are about to embark - a truly dementedly self-aware and entertaining one. Matthew Reynolds truly shows his directorial capacity in this corrosive crime comedy that has all the right amount of quirkiness and over-the-topness to make a perfect storm of entertainment and witty commentary that will leave you out of breath from laughter, all brilliantly condensed into a 40-minute short. If the two previous films of Some Guys with a Camera that I reviewed were outstanding achievements of zero-budget cinema, this is the crowning jewel of the incredible efforts by these young filmmakers from Liverpool. It's sleazy and absurd cinematic exploitation at its best, and it's such a joy to watch.  After spending 10 years in jail, Sergeant Ian Lynch finds that the world has changed a lot - new technology, Brexit, Climate ...

Brokeback Mountain and God's Own Country - Two Moments in Gay Liberation  Two romances between two men in the isolation of nature. One in the 1960s in the mountains of Wyoming, the other in the modern days on the hills of Yorkshire. Two similar stories, two different periods, two different outcomes. Brokeback Mountain and  God's Own Country are two films whose similarities are undeniable and they reveal and reflect two different moments in the history of gay liberation, and this is what I'll be trying to get at in this article. It's important to point out the fact that these two stories are about working-class people, which are the ones whose stories most reflect the social oppression of society. Through these two stories and the comparison between the two, we are able to understand the differences between the two periods they are set in and how gay liberation has progressed through the years. In Brokeback Mountain , we start when Ennis and Jack - played, respect...

Synonyms – A Frustrated Wanderer   A wandering man walks on the streets of Paris. He repeats words and their synonyms to himself, almost like a prayer. We watch this man. Who is he? Where is he going? What is he looking for? A deeply thought-provoking journey, Synonyms follows a man filled by frustration: frustrated identity, frustrated nationality, frustrated masculinity. Nadav Lapid, through this film, exposes bare the struggles that he and so many other people faced with his identity and questions the basis of nationality and traditional masculinity. He does this by creating an alternative younger version of himself – a wanderer of nations – and that’s the man that we see. Through this, we feel more intensely the inner turmoil inside this young man struggling with ideals of nationalism and masculinity. This is a frustrated young man looking for something that he isn’t able to find – a frustrated wanderer looking for the ideal nation.  We are introduced to this wa...

Capernaum - Is there hope in a world of chaos?  Buildings piled over each other in a chaotic pattern. A disordered world. A world where humanity has been forsaken in favor of greed. A world of chaos and disorder - that's what the titular world " capharnaum " means. This is what we see in this film. A world where children are exploited by those who should be protecting them. With an attentive and watchful eye, Nadine Labaki guides us through this heartbreaking world, never flinching at showing us its broken reality. Through a harrowing vision, she makes us question: How can a child grow in a world like this? A  world that doesn't show them love. A world that abuses them. A world that doesn't recognize their existence. A world dominated by an archaic definition of nation. A world of chaos. How can they grow up and become good human beings if everything that they face constant abuse? How can they grow up if all they know is pain and chaos? How can they grow up? ...

On Expectations  The first time I started questioning my sexuality was when I was 13. I remember that my best friend had found a porn channel in the TV box set of his grandfather. I remember the rush of adrenaline rushing through my bloodstream for doing something as transgressive and exciting. But I remember that watching those naked women flaunting their bodies wasn't as exciting as I thought it would and should have been. Yes, they were naked - but what about it? Yes, their breasts were exposed for us - but what about them? I also remember looking at my friends and seeing a different excitement on them. I think this is the first moment that I can pinpoint in my timeline where I started questioning my sexuality.  Then I think about moments before that one and I try to pinpoint when did I "become gay". I remember when I was about 6 years old, playing with a Harry Potter figure and an Action Man figure and making them kiss each other. I also remember the picture of...

We need to talk about internalized hatred "I am tired of feeling disgusted with myself." - from The Miseducation of Cameron Post    This is going to be a very different article. This is because I am not going to talk about any film in specific. I have something important to say that needs to be said, because I feel that, if I don’t say it, I’m going to implode. I have a confession to make - I suffer from a terrible condition, a condition that we all suffer from. That condition is called internalized homophobia. I am a homophobe. And we are all homophobes. What I want to talk about here is about my experience. I want to talk about the internal fight that I have been fighting for as long as I understood my sexual orientation. And I want people to understand what I and many other queer people go through every day in this society that we live in. I started writing in here because I felt the need to express my thoughts through what I think about films. Now I decided to writ...

The Favourite - The Distorted Reality of Power "Sometimes a Lady likes to have some fun."   The Period Drama is a very traditional and dignified genre. It's a genre that usually portrays the lives of monarchs and aristocrats, normally with a certain dignity and romanticization. The word "aristocrat" comes from the Greek word "ἄριστος" (aristos), which means "excellent". But were aristocrats really that excellent, as the name implies? Were they better than the rest of us commoners? In a corrosive satire, Yorgos Lanthimos bluntly shows us the true nature of these so-called "excellent people". Using the dignified characteristics of the Period Drama against it, Lanthimos shows us the rot hidden behind the glossy exterior of those who possess power and those who seek it, showing us the ugly truth of power. The Favourite  is a film about powerful people and is against them by showing us their strange, distorted reality - a reality ...