Broken Marriage (Ishmael Bernal, 1983)

Trench warfare

(Warning: the story of Ishmal Bernal's films Relasyon (The Affair, 1982) and Broken Marriage (1983) are discussed in close detail) 

Film available online (can't link to it directly though-- go look for yourself!), which is one reason why I'm reposting this. No English subtitles, alas.

You might say Ishmael Bernal's Broken Marriage (1983), his follow-up to the successful melodrama Relasyon (The Affair, 1982), isn't quite as commercially or critically successful (the film's star Vilma Santos managed to sweep all acting awards with her performance in the previous production). I suppose it's easy to see why: the earlier film looks at marriage from an unusual point of view (from the outside, or from that of the mistress); the earlier film has a relatively streamlined and somewhat titillating story (a man estranged from his wife moves in with his mistress) with a suitably dramatic finale (death by aneurysm, harrowingly shot and staged by Bernal in a single take). 

Reportedly Ms. Santos, buoyed by the many acting awards earned by Relasyon, was so eager to do well in the new production that Bernal got irritated, locked her in a bathroom, and delivered to her an ultimatum: she was not coming out till she got over her 'hysteria.'

The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, 2024)

The Fountain of Ew

Coralie Fargeat's The Substance (2024), about the decline of celebrity Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) and rise of her showbiz doppelganger Sue (Margaret Qualley), leans hard-- very hard-- into the idea that beauty is a daily impossible burden for women to aspire to sometimes fail to attain and if they do attain must maintain said beauty for as long as they can-- forever if possible. 

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice (Tim Burton, 2024)

And I'll never have that recipe again

How to do a proper sequel? Used to be a silly question but in this age of endless remakes, reboots, recycling in one form or another it's almost become a major artistic question, if art can or has ever been considered major (was there a time in the '60s and '70s, or were we just fooling ourselves?).

The Killer (John Woo, 2024)

Kill baby kill

So the conventional line is that John Woo's remake of his 1989 classic is handsomely mounted but has nowhere near the intensity and bravura style of the original.

Phantosmia (Lav Diaz, 2024)

A rose by any other name

Lav Diaz's Phantosmia turns on the simple conceit that a man who has experienced trauma will carry a trace of that trauma for the rest of his life, sometimes in the form of a smell. Doesn't have to be a real smell-- people have searched his surroundings at his behest looking for a dead rat or snake, find nothing; the stink is in his mind, a manifestation of guilt for committed sins.