Book of genesis
George Miller's Furiosa may bill itself as a 'Mad Max Saga' but don't be fooled: it's less an action epic than an origin fable, a myth made in the telling. Where Fury Road was a hurtling bristling juggernaut of armor and wheels smashing everything in its way, Furiosa is more like a decades-long odyssey, of a woman seeking revenge, her home, and finally herself.
Evil never dies
Rysuke Hamaguchi's Evil Does Not Exist grew out of a collaborative project with his longtime composer Eiko Ishibashi, who had asked for a film to accompany her live concerts. The concert film-- GIFT-- ended up running seventy-four minutes long; the source footage however apparently took root in Hamaguchi's head and sprouted into a 106 minute film (relatively short for Hamaguchi-- Drive My Car was 179 minutes and Happy Hour 317 minutes) that Hamaguchi released as a separate but not necessarily independent feature.
Bona, 44 years later
There's a lovely symmetry to having the restored print of Lino Brocka's Bona (1980) screened in the 2024 Cannes Classics section, in the same city where the film had its world premiere (at the parallel Director's Fortnight) decades ago. Feels like a combination homecoming, resurrection, revelation all at the same time.
