In a decade—it won’t be more as nothing ever lasts longer—in which offences are read everywhere except where they really are, Girl could have not but ignited an interesting debate. To have raised a fuss like cinema rarely does in our century and aroused the susceptibility of the most conformist souls in different ways, is a film that doesn’t simply delve into the difficulty of accepting oneself, but into the literal impossibility of recognising oneself into a mirror. Girl is about different forms of obsession and the physical synergy their clashing can dangerously lead to.
Lukas Dhont’s surprising debut is a wonderful story of private courage that doesn’t mean to judge or teach. Whoever saw not more than an overly anatomical portrayal of a category, that’s exactly where they proved their incapability to see anything else than that, a category. But Girl takes us beyond all that, and it does with the red eyes of a father, the embrace of a demanding guide, and the breath of a child trying to wake us up. Nothing but the silent power of life.

Foxtrot is a series of dreams, three, each one with its own protagonist, distinctive mise en scène, and direction. In one, the sudden sense of void is portrayed with distressing cynicism, elegant geometrical compositions, and meticulously designed camerawork. In another, it switches to an ironic, almost fairytale-like, visual language—the camera hardly moving as the framing becomes flat, square, two-dimensional. In the final one, as if overwhelmed by an unbearable weight of existence, it seems to free from any stylistic filter and embrace a more natural, intimate, approach. As in its Samuel Maoz’s words, the film is meant to ‘shock and shake, hypnotise, and move.’ Mission accomplished.
A mistaken name, an empty can, a camel in the street—Foxtrot’s portrait of a fate tragically written by the most insignificant events is excruciating, but at the same time its manneristic aesthetic ultimately muffles its creative identity letting the intuitions be prevailed by an excessively perfect cerebral cage.

I watched it many years ago on the telly, I think as I wait for my drink at bar of the BFI. I can’t say I loved it, which makes me even more eager to experience it on a screen of its size. Less than a minute in I wonder, where the hell was I looking the first time. Simply put, The passenger is a wonder. My friend, the wise architect of this night out on the South Bank compares it to Camus’s L’Ètranger. Maybe he’s right. Maybe that’s way it immediately resonated with me.
Antonioni’s favourite work—as he said once in an interview—is an enigmatic cinematic piece which tension is slowly cooked under a torrid sun. All is dusty and sticky and sweaty. So is the human threat as it ominously closes in.

‘I've seen so many of them grow up. Other people look at the children and they all imagine a new world. But me, when I watch them, I just see the same old tragedy begin all over again. They can't get away from us. Is boring.’

While Fritz Lang as himself and Michel Piccoli as a promising screenwriter discuss Ulysses, Godard tells with the irony of genius and the severity of beauty of an impossible return, of a borderline crossed forever. C’est la vie, as the fragile muse with the voice and body of Brigitte Bardot often reminds us, convincing everyone but herself.
This is the film that marks my defeat. It is the film that makes me feel the weight of my arms hanging down to my sides even though they are resting on my lap, my legs crossed. Yet still, it’s not discouragement what I feel. And if tears are coming, they are of utter enchantment. As only those who have common sense deceive themselves by thinking that despair and hope are two different emotions. And while I think back to that quote of John Berger that haven’t known for a long time what to do with—‘What remains of our hopes is a long despair which will engender them again’—I turn off the light and madly in love I say to myself, so it will be!

I pause for a moment. I am looking for a way, even a tiny little door like that of Alice because Dogtooth, which in its own deviated fashion is no doubt a land of wonders, has left me as any Yorgos Lanthimos film—with a blurry sense of curiosity and fascination.
My fingers touch weightlessly the keyboard as if pleading for collaboration—sometimes it works. The word ‘experimental’ appears on the white page. I read it once or twice. Wrong suggestion, I conclude—never trust the machines. I glimpse my reflection in the mirror with the corner of my eye. Back to the screen, I type ‘surreal,’ which I seem to find a little more convincing—and yet so generic. Thus I delete it but slowly, going backward letter by letter, thinking that after all it is not that off. By now I’m a little annoyed because I’ll be soon run out of time and energy. It’s very late, but on the nth tragic yawn some clearer ideas finally start to take shape.
Pitching a brilliant, if eccentric, solution Dogtooth hints at Plato’s cave while delving into the delicate themes of education and parenthood. Raising a family ceased to be a natural task as our century began to put pressure on the individual, exposing him more and more to the manipulative compulsions of society. As any clever satire, Dogtooth lets us build the bridge from its allegoric aberrations to our own weaknesses, our own neuroses, our own fixations—which is scary, and profound, and now I am definitely tired. But there’s one last thing I can't help wondering—if Lanthimos has any clue of the expressions he puts on his viewers’ faces. As I am sure he wouldn’t mind, mine is currently that of a ‘little yellow flower’. That said, I switch off the light, but keep my eyes open.