Five years after the excellent 3 Signs Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Martin McDonough is back with an even better film based, again, on a stunning screenplay. The year is 1923, and civil war is raging in the interior of Ireland. On the contrary, however, on the (invented) island of Iniserin, everything is calm and predictably predictable. At least until Colm (Brendan Gleason) decides he doesn’t want to talk to his best friend Patrick (Colin Farrell) anymore and the tension starts to build. Soon, the environment will come into play, the first of which will be the clumsy young man Dominique (Barry Keoghan) and Patrick’s kind-hearted sister Siobhan (Kerry Condon), as the situation gradually spirals out of control and the first … blood is shed. .

McDonagh begins with a seemingly simple story, a misunderstanding between two friends, to take the viewer on a journey that takes on historical, philosophical, and even existential dimensions. Its spatio-temporal placement, reinforced by other elements, mostly symbolic, identifies the entire film as somewhere between reality and a kind of (very Irish) magical realism. The same goes for the actions and words of its protagonists, who converse admirably in a dark comedy setting that does not hesitate to flirt even with the confines of farce.

However, having mentioned the main characters, we have to focus on Oscar nominees Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, who meet again after “Mission to Bruges”, also written by McDonough, to form a duet for this special bromance. Farrell, in particular, manages to convey the innocence and sensitivity of his character, as well as the wounded ego that drives him to the final dramatic act.

On a secondary level, the film clearly reads like a parable about the woes of civil strife – and any civil strife – that we see only in the form of distant explosions opposite Inisherin. If now to go deeper, he will find the human cause – the nature of war, the horror of death, which dissolves social bonds, but at the same time gives birth to art and absolute tragedy. All this is more or less visible in McDonough’s film, which nevertheless seems quite “alien” in the modern cinematic landscape, on the contrary, it could well have been made (for example) in the 1970s, and today it is already considered a classic.

Sarah Polley’s Oscar-nominated film for Best Picture and Adapted Screenplay is based on the novel of the same name by Miriam Toews. According to him, somewhere in modern America, a group of women live apart within a strict religious community that, among other things, does not apply to technology. However, after a tragic incident that shattered the glass of abuse from men in the community, a group of men will come together to decide what position they should take next. Polly’s film depicts a shocking—but not gone across the Atlantic—situation in which a religious cult is used as a vehicle to deliver a strong feminist message. The latter is actually expressed by some of today’s leading actresses such as Frances McDormand, Rooney Mara, Claire Foy and Jessie Buckley. On the other hand, as is known, when (any) social message is fed to the viewer in the form of cooked food, it also loses much of its artistic value.

The award-winning French film at the Locarno Film Festival features a thirteen-year-old girl who sees her world crumble when her parents divorce. Solange’s story takes place in the 1970s as she slowly enters adolescence while struggling to understand why love can’t last forever. Axel Roper’s film is tender and sensitive, like its young hero, however without presenting us with something we haven’t seen (many times) in the past.

Missing
THRILLER (2023)
Director: Will Merrick, Nick Johnson
Interpretations: Storm Reid, Joaquim de Almeida

The team that created the rather interesting and original The Search is back with another movie that takes place mostly on computer screens. When June’s mother goes missing in the middle of a vacation with her new partner, the young girl starts looking for her everywhere. Trapped in Los Angeles, where an international bureaucracy hinders her efforts, June uses all the latest technology at her disposal to find her before it’s too late.

Argonauts: Wrath of Poseidon
ANIMATION (2022)
Directed by: David Alo
You can hear: Alexandra Lerta, Angelos Liagos

In a cartoon from France, the characters are (mostly) animals who go on an epic journey through the world of Ancient Greece. Accompanied by the elderly Jason, the cute company will go on a crazy adventure filled with the strangest and most dangerous creatures from mythology.