Cinephiles are the big winners in this week’s new streaming offers, according to Dan Slevin.
Our hero in the pokey. Photo: P&Co Ltd. / SC 2017
It’s been a while since I had a look at the feature films that have been added to our local streaming services and, I confess, to being a bit underwhelmed. Serialised television seems to be taking up an increasing amount of our literal and metaphorical bandwidth these days.
There is one recent addition to Netflix in NZ that absolutely mustn’t be missed by anyone: Paddington 2 made it into most critics’ best of 2017 to the extent that many were (unironically) calling for it to be recognised by the Academy. Yes, it is that good.
In this instalment of our favourite bear’s adventures, Paddington (Ben Whishaw) wants to buy a birthday present for his Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton) back in Peru. Spotting a beautiful and rare pop-up book in Mr Gruber’s antique shop, he resolves to save his pennies for it. Unfortunately for Paddington, the book carries a secret and ham actor Phoenix Buchanan (Hugh Grant – never better, ever) wants it.
Framed for the book’s theft, Paddington finds himself in jail with hardened criminals including Brendan Gleason and Noah Taylor. Only his marmalade sandwiches can save the day! I’ve seen this film three times now and it never fails to delight. In these dark and cynical times we have never needed a good-hearted hero like Paddington more.
Irène Jacob in Kieślowski’s The Double Life of Véronique (1991). Photo: Canal+
Pickings are a lot better for arthouse and classic fans. Mubi (the specialised service that plays a rotating roster of titles that only last for 30 days) has films by the great Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski including the wonderful The Double Life of Véronique (1991), A Short Film About Killing (1988) and A Short Film About Love (1988). That last one is only around for another 11 days so get cracking.
Mubi also has a rare film from a pioneer woman director, Ida Lupino: B-movie thriller The Hitch-Hiker (1953). I saw that one at the Wellington Film Society last year and it crackled with tension as so many of those cheap noirs can do. You have 13 days (at time of writing) to watch Agnieszka Holland’s 1990 classic Europa Europa (1991) – I wrote about that one for RNZ here.
Marco Hofschneider plays Salomon Perel in Agnieszka Holland’s Europa, Europa which was an arthouse hit in 1991. Photo: Umbrella
If you are lucky enough to belong to a library that subscribes to the free arthouse film service Kanopy, you’ll be thrilled to know they’ve just added a couple of early films by Peter Greenaway including The Draughtsman’s Contract and A Zed and Two Noughts. There are also films by another British director of the same era: Derek Jarman.
Géza Röhrig as Saul Ausländer in László Nemes’ Academy Award-winning Son of Saul. Photo: Sony Classics
Apple has just added a few great recent titles to their rental service – pictures I had assumed would already be there. Todd Haynes’ atmospheric lesbian drama Carol (2015) stars Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara and Son of Saul manages to find a new and upsetting way to present the horrors of the Holocaust.
Here’s what I wrote for this column back in 2016: “The horror is unrelenting but first-time director László Nemes uses a shooting style that on one hand makes the horrors more palatable for an audience but also diminishes the lives of those background characters. By focusing so intently on Saul – to the extent that almost the entire film is one big shallow focus close-up of him – the audience is encouraged to identify with him but almost everything else about his story does the opposite.”
Every so often, Dan Slevin highlights some of the best and most interesting movies that have recently been added to Kiwi streaming services.
