Simple Passion
Contemporary Cinema
•
1h 38m
Directed by Danielle Arbid | 99 mins | 2020
To make an adaptation of Annie Ernaux’s 1992 auto fictional novel of the same name—exploring the author’s year-long obsession with a younger Russian diplomat—that is as bold and bracing as the source material is no mean feat. Putin-loving Ukranian ballet dancer Sergei Polunin’s restrained performance in the role of lust object is complemented by the voluminous nuance of Laetitia Dosch as Ernaux’s stand-in.
Up Next in Contemporary Cinema
-
Strawberry Mansion
Directed by Kentucker Audley and Albert Birney | 91 mins | 2021
In the near future of Kentucker Audley and Albert Birney’s psychedelic sci-fi adventure, mild-mannered Dream Auditor James Preble (played by Audley) gets in way over his head when he’s sent on assignment to the eponymous Strawberry M... -
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
Directed by Park Chan Wook | 116 mins | 2002
Fired from his factory job, the deaf, gentle Ryu finds work in the underworld—and begins on a path that will end in an explosion of visceral violence. A brutal, claustrophobic film of escalating desperation, illustrating with grim logic how an ordinary... -
Time of the Wolf
Directed by Michael Haneke | 108 mins | 2003
A family flees to the countryside because of an unexplained crisis in the world and finds that societal breakdown is well underway. Haneke’s lacerating, under-seen portrayal of civilization collapse was a bellwether for the cinema’s all-consuming 21st-...
