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Daily Mirror
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
'Hollywood's most romantic film' with 'magnetic' couple has near-perfect 99% rating
Casablanca is a romance film for the ages. The iconic movie sees two former lovers, masterfully portrayed by old Hollywood legends Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart, reunite against the backdrop of World War 2 Casablanca is a timeless romance film. The classic movie features two former lovers, brilliantly played by old Hollywood stars Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart, reuniting amidst the turmoil of World War 2. In the film, Rick, a nightclub owner in Casablanca, encounters his past love, Ilsa, who is now married to a dashing fugitive fleeing from the Germans. As one of the most memorable lines in cinema history goes: "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." Ilsa pleads with Rick for assistance in escaping the country, compelling him to make a heart-wrenching choice between love and sacrifice. Interestingly, the film was released in 1942, three years before the war ended when victory was still uncertain. Why is Casablanca so beloved? Casablanca won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay. Over seven decades since its release, the film reigns as one of the greatest ever made. The film boasts an impressive 99% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. As the website's critics consensus states: "An undisputed masterpiece and perhaps Hollywood's quintessential statement on love and romance, Casablanca has only improved with age, boasting career-defining performances from Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman." The actors' chemistry and the film's unforgettable lines are two major points of praise for viewers and critics. "Casablanca is one of the most romantic films that Hollywood has ever produced," penned film critic Wendy Ide for The Times UK. "Michael Curtiz's film is a classic for a reason - it's crafted with the precision, detail and beauty of a Fabergé egg; the dialogue is hauntingly memorable and, in Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, it has one of the most magnetic screen pairings in history." The movie is endlessly watchable, wrote Sheila Johnston for the Daily Telegraph: "There are some of the very finest character actors that Warner Brothers could muster and a rich, detailed screenplay studded with an indecent number of sparklingly quotable lines. It is a movie to play again, and again." During World War II, French-occupied Morocco served as an escape route for refugees fleeing from Axis powers. Film critic Serena Donadoni, writing in The Village Voice, noted: "Casablanca was filmed in the safety of the Warner Bros. lot, but the cast of immigrants and exiles who had fled the Third Reich conveyed their visceral fear. While the future was uncertain, the resolute characters of this exquisite wartime drama found peace through love and resistance." Writing for Cinephilia Beyond, Sven Mikulec explored why Casablanca remains so revered: "The main reason why Casablanca still holds a place in film theory books, popular culture and oral tradition lies in its powerful storyline that easily gets through to people, featuring characters easy to relate to, dealing with a theme that has for centuries been the artists' inspiration for creating the best of stories: love and sacrifices we make for a greater cause. "Set in the backdrop of the Second World War, evoking the notions of honor, loyalty, friendship and duty, Casablanca is a classic which represents the very best the old Hollywood had to offer, and it's no surprise the film managed to stay afloat and still be celebrated three quarters of a century since the premiere." Why viewers say it's 'perfection' Casablanca has bagged an impressive 95% rating from Rotten Tomatoes audiences. One viewer called Margaret gushed: "Best movie ever made. I never miss the chance to see it on the Big Screen. Perfect cast. Perfect storyline. SUPERB ACTING. Some of the greatest lines in the history of the movies. Just perfection." Over on Letterboxd, punters have given the flick an average of 4.3 out of 5 stars. The most popular review on the platform, which has racked up over 10,400 likes, said: "I hate it when people say stuff like: 'You should watch this because it's a masterpiece!' Those people are annoying idiots. Also: You should watch this because it's a masterpiece!" One viewer humorously pointed out: "the two main men in this movie look exactly the same. she didn't really have to choose, could've just picked either one and used her imagination a bit". On IMDB, where it boasts an impressive 8.5 out of 10 rating, the top review hailed it as "One of the greatest", stating: "As innovative as Citizen Kane was, I'm gonna put this one ahead of it. But in one way this film beats all others - the dialogue. Yes, the cinematography is great, the acting is second to none, but how many eternal lines of dialogue came from this?" Play it, Sam.
Yahoo
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The 12 Most Seductive Movies We've Ever Seen
Here are the most seductive movies we've ever seen. We aren't just talking about movies in which someone is seduced. There are lots and lots of movies about seduction that are not, in themselves, seductive. A seductive movie is subtle. Seductive movies draw you in like a warm bath... then changes the temperature. By the times it's gotten too hot (or too cold) you're in, and find yourself unable to get out. The movie has seduced you. Related Headlines Scarlett Johansson Becomes Top Box Office Star in the World With Jurassic World Rebirth Success The 7 Sexiest Movies About the Amish 13 Shameless TV Shows That Don't Care If You're Offended Some of these movies are about seduction, sure. But some aren't. You'll see what we mean in this list of the most seductive movies we've ever seen. The most seductive movie ever made about insurance, Double Indemnity starts absolutely cracking from the moment Fred MacMurray queries Barbara Stanwyck about her anklet — and gets a lecture about local traffic laws. It's one of those magical moments where one characters seduces another and the movie seduces its audience. We wonder if anyone wonders if he'd do anything for her after that point. One of Alfred Hitchcock's best (and shortest) films, Notorious is the story of Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman), the daughter of a German spy. When American agent Devlin (Cary Grant) asks her to go undercover, he — and we — must constantly question her loyalties. What makes the movie so seductive is that all the plot machinations depend on Alicia's character, and Hitchcock and Bergman don't make her easy to love. Which only makes us love her more, and terrified of the heartbreak that feels inevitable. Start watching Notorious and you won't leave it until it leaves you. Contempt is about seduction, but also about falling out of love. Its visuals, and especially its music, are so engrossing that it's a very hard movie to stop watching once you've started. Paul Javal (Michel Piccoli) is invited by a swaggering American movie producer Jeremiah Prokosch (Jack Palance) to write a new adaptation of the Odyssey for a German director (Fritz Lang, playing himself). But Prokosch has his eye on Javal's stunning wife, Camille (Brigitte Bardot), who is quickly losing interest in her husband. Georges Delerue's "Theme de Camille" is so passionate and engrossing that Martin Scorsese used it in Casino, where it provides a kind of cinematic shorthand for the crumbling marriage of Robert De Niro's Sam "Ace" Rothstein and his wife, Ginger (Sharon Stone). Richard Gere's Julian is undoubtedly seductive — he's the gigolo of the title, after all — but what's even more seductive is the movie's bracing, early '80s SoCal aesthetic. Giorgio Moroder's score tells us to unclutch our pearls and get with the program as writer-director Paul Schrader masterfully speeds us through the moral desert. The movie hooks us completely, makes us question all our loyalties, shames us, and then turns all sincere at the end. Or is it just another of Julian's lines? One of the most gorgeously shot movies ever made, Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love isn't so much a love story as an out-of-love story between two people — played by Tony Leung and (Maggie Cheung — who realize their spouses are having an affair. The setting alone — 1962 Hong Kong — feels impossibly romantic. And the melancholic misery of the leads is strangely intoxicating. Sofia Coppola's hypnotic Lost in Translation should not work. Very little happens, the plot is slight, and even the instigating incident — the first meeting of Scarlett Johansson's Charlotte and Bill Murray's Bob — is murky. (Do they first meet in the bar? Or the elevator? They aren't sure.) Also, are we really supposed to sympathize with two people who can't find anything to do while staying in a luxury hotel in magical Tokyo? And yet it all works. Every tiny gesture takes on heartstopping importance, and the exquisite soundtrack imbues every moment with hope, passion or loss, often all at the same time. What feels like a seduction story turns out to be a much better story about the small comfort of friendship in a foreign land. You're overwhelmed with feeling at the end, even wondering what just happened. It's not only on this list of the most seductive movies we've seen, but is also on our list of Excellent Movies Where Not Much Happens. A Woody Allen movie that feels different from every other Woody Allen movie, Match Point invites you to embrace the coolly amoral worldview of its protagonist, Chris (Jonathan Rhys Myers), an ex-tennis pro who marries into a wealthy family but finds his new status threatened by an affair with his brother-in-law's girlfriend, Nola (Scarlett Johansson, who had had an excellent run of seductive movies about seduction). You feel every temptation Chris does, even as you know he's objectively wrong. And knowing all the things you know about Allen, you wonder if Chris' worldview in any way reflects the filmmakers, especially since Allen is too great a director to let you off the hook with cheap moralizing. During the difficult shoot for his excellent 1994 film Barcelona, director Whit Stillman found rare joy in a scene of young women dancing at a disco, and wondered: Why can't this be a whole movie? The result was Last Days of Disco, which turns out to be about much more. It's about the dance between dreams and commerce, who you want to date versus who you do, and what kind of dog you want to be. The totally beguiling cast (let by Chloe Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale and the wildly underrated Chris Eigeman) are transfixing, and the soundtrack is as pleasing to the ear as Whitman's pitch-perfect dialogue. The sad, seedy, very funny story of Mikey Sabre, a man on the outs from the adult entertainment industry who sees a 17-year-old named Strawberry (Suzannah Son, actually 26) as his ticket back in. While Mikey tries to win over Strawberry, director Sean Baker's stellar DIY filmmaking wins us over, too. We know that since Mikey is the boyishly handsome lead character of the movie, facing incredible odds, we're supposed to root for him. Can he be redeemed? We slowly realize that almost any outcome is going to be incredibly destructive for someone... but by then Red Rocket has hooked us. What seems like a story of Millennial malaise turns into a Gen X reckoning in this at-first apparently confectionary story of a talented by adrift young woman named Julie (Renate Reinsve, excellent) who suddenly finds herself very much over her head. It's a sheer pleasure, until it becomes something much deeper — and director Joachim Trier and his co-writer, Eskil Vogt, have a light, deft hand in navigating a very surprising journey. Director Richard Linklater does romance better than almost anyone — watch Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and/or Before Midnight. And Glen Powell is wildly adept at leading-man charm. They combine their talents as co-writers of this Netflix knockout, based on the true story of Gary Johnson, a professor who moonlights as a fake hit man to help cops catch people looking to have someone killed. Gary's job is seducing people into thinking he's a real hit man — so cops can catch them on tape. It's all fun and games until he meets Maddy (Ariana Arjona), a woman who wants her controlling husband dead. Soon he's the one being seduced. And so are we. The movie is relentlessly charming and agreeable, always staying a step or two ahead of us. It has the remarkable quality of being totally escapist and deeply philosophical. We love the unrelenting, unapologetic pulpiness of Wild Things, about two high schoolers (Neve Campbell and Denise Richards, above) who accuse a teacher (Matt Dillon) of graphic misconduct — but only as part of a complicated con. Wild Things almost encourages the audience to feel smugly superior to its tabloid subject matter — then outsmarts you again and again, in the best seductive noir tradition. It has so many twists and turns you find yourself Everglades-deep in its world of unrepentant, glorious tawdriness. It's a lot of fun. Kevin Bacon is outstanding as a complicated cop, and Bill Murray has one of his most fun roles as a sleazy lawyer. Think we forgot one? Let us know in the comments. And you might also like this list of the Strangest Movies We've Ever Seen. Main image: Contempt. Marceau-Cocinor Related Headlines Scarlett Johansson Becomes Top Box Office Star in the World With Jurassic World Rebirth Success The 7 Sexiest Movies About the Amish 13 Shameless TV Shows That Don't Care If You're Offended
Daily Mail
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE The surprising 1930s origin of the word 'gaslighting' revealed
It's a term every internet user has likely heard countless times, used to describe manipulative behaviour that leaves someone questioning their own reality. But 'gaslighting' is far more than just a buzzword thrown around online - its chilling origins lie in a 1938 play that explored psychological torment with eerie precision. The term comes from Gas Light, a stage play by British playwright Patrick Hamilton. Set in Victorian London, the story centres on a husband, Jack Manningham, who convinces his wife Bella that she is going insane. While he searches their attic for hidden jewels belonging to a woman he murdered, he repeatedly dims the gas lights in the house. When Bella notices and questions the change in lighting, her husband insists she's imagining it. This sinister act of manipulation, along with his other lies and dismissals, chips away at her grip on reality. The play was later adapted into the 1944 Hollywood film Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman, which solidified the concept in the cultural imagination. The story follows a husband as he slowly convinces his wife of her insanity by dimming the gaslights in their home and then denying it But it wasn't until the 1960s and 70s that it began to appear in psychological literature. Mental health professionals used 'gaslighting' to describe a specific form of emotional abuse, often in intimate relationships, where one partner systematically undermines the other's confidence and perception of reality. And the term gained further traction in discussions of narcissistic abuse and controlling behaviours. Multi-award winning narcissistic abuse recovery coach Ronia Fraser told FEMAIL that gaslighting is a highly effective form of 'manipulation and psychological torture.' 'The abuser distorts and undermines the victim's reality to such an extent that they think they are losing their mind, which in some cases literally happens,' Ronia said. 'Everything they remember doesn't seem to be true, leading to potentially severe confusion and self-doubt.' And while it may start out with small instances and appear initially harmless, it can very quickly snowball. 'Once destabilised, it becomes very easy for the abuser to erode the victim's boundaries and even identity, to a point at which they not only lose their mind but themselves.' Fast-forward to the social media age, and 'gaslighting' has exploded in popularity - so much so that Merriam-Webster declared it the Word of the Year in 2022. From TikTok relationship advice to impassioned X threads, it's become shorthand for everything from subtle deceit to outright lying. But as its use has spread, so too has concern that it's becoming watered down. Today, accusations of gaslighting can be found in contexts as mild as disagreements over dinner plans - diluting the gravity of what is a serious form of psychological manipulation. GASLIGHTING IN RELATIONSHIPS Gaslighting is a term that refers to trying to convince someone they're wrong about something even when they aren't. Most commonly, it takes the form of frequently disagreeing with someone or refusing to listen to their point of view. Many of us might be guilty of some mild form of gaslighting from time to time – refusing to hear what our partner has to say even if they're in the right or persistently disagreeing over some minor quibble, even when you aren't sure of your position. It can be a real form of abuse. When it's done repeatedly, over a long period of time, it can have the effect of making someone doubt their own ideas about things – or even question their sanity. Source: Relate According to Ronia, gaslighting is very common and can be found in abusive romantic relationships, as well as in dysfunctional family dynamics, friendships and the workplace. 'In the age of pop-psychology and social media terms like gaslighting, narcissist and trauma are mindlessly thrown around,' said Ronia. 'The terms are often used completely out of context and as an excuse for people's own issues and behaviours, so they don't need to take responsibility for themselves, which is ironically a very narcissistic thing to do.' But the effect of minimising such terms is felt most profoundly by victims. 'The consequence of this is that people are getting fed up with it, they lose interest, they stop listening,' Ronia continued. 'Words lose their true meaning and therefore it diminishes the importance of the topic to the very detriment of actual victims.' Although the stigma surrounding abuse has drastically lessened since the inception of the term 'gaslighting', public awareness is not always positive. 'Not much in the real world has changed since I started this work as the UK's first Narcissistic Abuse Recovery Coach back in 2017,' Ronia said. 'Real survivors are still struggling with their mental health. Real survivors are still finding it impossible to get help. 'They are still fighting for their lives, they are still labelled "crazy" and put on medication for the rest of their days.' Ronia says the first indication of gaslighting is starting to feel like you're losing your grip on reality. 'Narcissistic abuse remains one of the most common, yet least acknowledged, forms of abuse with very little effective support available. 'It's emotional and psychological abuse on the most sophisticated level.'
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How real-life Rick's Café resurrects Casablanca's legacy as a waystation for Americans
I arrived in Casablanca a couple of weeks ago, toward the end of a month-long trip through West and North Africa, fulfilling a dream of visiting a city whose name had evoked images of romance and intrigue ever since I was a boy. My first question was, 'Where is Rick's Café Américain?' That's the name of the iconic gin joint immortalized by Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in the classic 1942 film 'Casablanca.' 'Casablanca' tells the story of American cafe owner Rick (Humphrey Bogart). His old flame Ilse (Ingrid Bergman) appears in Vichy-controlled Casablanca with her Czech-resistance leader husband seeking letters of transit to escape the Nazis. Rick must decide what to do. Despite the sweeping allure of its title, most of the main action takes place inside this bar, which quickly carved itself a prominent place in 1940s pop culture. Rick's offered a window to the world, providing viewers (but especially Americans) a glimpse of the effects of Nazi occupation. I should have known better, I guess, but I was still astonished to learn that Rick's (for the most part) was a figment of Hollywood imagination. For more than 60 years, tourists and film buffs visiting Casablanca tried to find Rick's Café, only to learn that Warner Bros. had built the entire set on a studio backlot. The smoky, intrigue-filled nightclub was a Hollywood fantasy ‒ until former diplomat Kathy Kriger came along and decided after 9/11 to bring the imaginary bar to life. Her version of Rick's Café opened in 2004 to rave reviews, and that's the tale I am sharing in this column. The Pearl Harbor attack had happened less than a year previously. American ground troops had not yet engaged Axis forces in the European Theater when 'Casablanca' began filming in May 1942. American emotions were still raw, and the politics of Western Europe had become especially confusing since the fall of France. In 1942, Casablanca was a waypoint for European refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe. From Casablanca, they could seek passage to Portugal and then on to the Americas. To travel, they needed papers, and it was at places like Rick's where many such documents, both real and forged, changed hands. The screenplay is based on 'Everybody Comes to Rick's," an unproduced stage play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison. The writers visited a small town in southern France. At a nightclub, a Black pianist played jazz for a crowd of French and Nazis patrons and many refugees. That real bar became the inspiration for Rick's. Editor Irene Diamond convinced Warner Bros. to purchase the film rights in January 1942. She sensed the message would resonate with a post-Pearl Harbor movie audience. Principal photography began on May 25, 1942, and ended Aug. 3. Producers had to contend with wartime rationing; Ingrid Bergman's clothes had no metal fastenings and were fashioned from extraneous scraps of silk. As they say, timing is everything. The Allied invasion of North Africa began the second week of November in 1942, and Gen. George Patton captured Casablanca on Nov. 11. Warner Bros. had planned to release "Casablanca" in 1943 but moved up the premiere date to ride the wave of current events. The film premiered at New York's Hollywood Theater on Nov. 26, 1942. The nationwide release of "Casablanca" in January 1943 coincided spectacularly with the announcement that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was meeting with Winston Churchill in Casablanca from Jan. 14 to 24, demanding 'unconditional surrender' from the Axis powers. Locally, the movie opened at the Majestic Theater in Providence on Jan. 26. On the same day, my father landed at Oran, in neighboring Algeria, with the second wave of Allied troops participating in the North African invasion. Dad never made it to Casablanca, and I'm not sure when he and my mom first saw the movie. As a boy growing up, however, I knew it was one of their favorite films. On Jan. 27, Bradford Swan, The Journal-Bulletin's famed art and movie critic of a generation ago, penned the following: 'Casablanca is a distinguished photo play. It has a highly capable cast, excellent direction and a story that is refreshingly original. … Casablanca is something choice, highly recommended.' The movie was held over at the Majestic, and the U.S. Navy band played as part of the daily show. For months afterward, "Casablanca" could still be seen at second-run houses all over the state. When Academy Award nominations were announced in February 1944, 'Casablanca' was still showing at the Avon in Providence. Its reputation has only grown over time. In 2005, the American Film Institute polled the industry to come up with a list of the best 100 movie lines of all time. Six of them came from "Casablanca," double the number from any other movie. The current-day and real-life Rick's Café Casablanca was developed by Kathy Kriger (1946-2018), a diplomat posted to the U.S. Consulate in Casablanca in 1998. She worked there for the next 13 years as a commercial attaché. When she arrived, she was surprised to learn (as had many thousands before her) that there was no real-life Rick's Café. She sensed a missed marketing opportunity and tucked that seed away for the future. The 9/11 attacks caused her to reassess her life. She wrote in her autobiography, 'I decided to leave the government, stay in Morocco and do something that demonstrated true American values. Developing a Rick's Café in Casablanca seemed like a perfect way to do this. "I thought Casablanca was missing a big bet by not having a Rick's," said Kriger. She cashed in her 401(k) and invested her savings in the purchase of a 1930s mansion that had seen better days. But the waterfront location was perfect, and the interior architecture was sound and representative of the era. When money ran out, she solicited investors from all over the world. Kriger set an opening date for Rick's Café: March 1, 2004, "after 62 years of renovation." Our Moroccan contact wangled us a table for four at Rick's, which is usually sold out for dinner. Two palm trees flank an impressive entrance, featuring heavy wooden doors like those in the film. This gem of 1942 authenticity boasts columned white arches framing the main dining room under a three-story domed skylight. Hanging brass chandeliers cast a soft light on the palm trees in the corners. Round tables feature white tablecloths, brass lamps with beaded shades, and dinnerware discreetly and elegantly marked 'Rick's Cafe.' Of course, there is an authentic 1930s piano tucked under an archway, where the reincarnation of Sam plays it 'once more for old time's sake.' To our pleasure, the food and wine were excellent, capably served by waiters in white dinner jackets and red fezes. Prepared for a kitschy disappointment, we were impressed instead. This is an authentic time machine, not a tourist trap. Even more important, I was reminded that the tinderbox of 1942 was not necessarily a one-off experience. Wherever I went, I sensed concern and fear ‒ perhaps similar to the stresses affecting those who visited the Rick's Cafés of the world more than 80 years ago, trying to escape the unchecked power of Adolf Hitler. At every turn, worried faces asked in halting English, 'What is happening in America?' These were poor people, trying to eke out a living ‒ not the wealthy elite. World events did not normally affect the lives of these fishermen, vegetable sellers and craftsmen. But they were all aware of America's internal conflicts. Yes, it was self-serving ‒ many depended on American largesse for support with basic necessities. But that's human nature, is it not? Stepping from that world into Rick's brought me full circle. Perhaps we need another 'Casablanca' to shake things up today, the way the original film did in 1942. The original play, 'Everybody Comes to Rick's,' was not produced for the stage until after the war. In August 1946 the Casino Theatre in Newport did just that. Performances ran for a week, and at the time the Casino announced this was a stage adaption of the popular movie. The opposite was actually true. RI's role in the Civil War to be highlighted at April 5 event. From 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, April 5, the Varnum Armory Museum in North Kingstown will host Civil War historians and buffs marking the 160th year since the end of the conflict, as well as the major role played by our state. Rhode Island sent some 25,000 men to fight, of whom 1,685 never returned. R.I. units included eight infantry regiments, three cavalry regiments and 14 artillery elements. The program, organized by the Rhode Island Commandery, Military Order of the Loyal Legion, starts with tours of the Varnum's fabulous military collection, to include cannon from Bull Run and Gettysburg. The principal speaker will be Frank J. Williams, retired chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court and one of the country's top experts on Abraham Lincoln. The Providence Brigade Band will play Civil War period music. Admission is free and dress is casual. For more information, email Dennis Morgan at dmorganltc1@ This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Where is the real-life Rick's Café in Casablanca?
The Guardian
19-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Kontinental '25 review – scattergun satire on a tour of Romania's social ills
Once again, Romanian film-maker Radu Jude has given us a garrulous, querulous movie of ideas – a scattershot fusillade of scorn. It is satirical, polemical, infuriated at the greedy and reactionary mediocrities in charge in his native land and wobbling on an unstable cusp between hope and despair. Like his previous film Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World (whose lead actor Ilinca Manolache appears briefly in cameo here), Jude takes aim at bad faith and bad taste and takes us on what is almost a kind of architectural tour of Romanian malaise – this time in Cluj – in which he shows us the racism, nationalism, and a pointless obsession in the country's governing classes with real estate and property development as a kind of universal aspiration. The movie closes with an acid montage of seedy public housing juxtaposed with gated private estates. And like the previous film, there is a repeated visual trope of a woman driving in a car, shown in profile, driving, driving, driving, looking for something – anything. Kontinental '25 is loosely inspired by Roberto Rossellini's Europa '51, in which Ingrid Bergman's character is radicalised by a tragedy in her own life – a poster for this is shown in one scene in which our heroine is getting drunk in a cinema bar. Eszter Tompa plays Orsolya, a former law professor who has apparently lost her job and now humiliatingly works as a bailiff. She is now tasked with evicting a homeless, depressed man holed up in the squalid basement of an apartment building bought by a German property firm who intend to raze it to the ground and replace it with a luxury boutique hotel called the Kontinental (a building much bigger than the original and clearly conceived with minimal interest in the existing architectural forms). This man, Ion (Gabriel Spahiu) is to be seen at first wandering chaotically through the city in various locations that we will come to recognise when other characters wander through them as well. Overwhelmed with despair at the bailiff's appearance Ion takes his own life and Orsolya is stricken with guilt of a strangely neurotic kind; tearfully asking friends and colleagues if she was morally at fault, clearly expecting and receiving the answer no. She is further aghast to learn that the homeless man was a Romanian former Olympic athlete fallen on hard times and so, as an ethnic Hungarian, she may well be abused in the right-wing press for having driven this tragic patriot to his death. (She has already been abused online for having evicted some student radicals from a squat.) So Orsolya refuses to go on a booked holiday with her husband and children; they go off without her and she instead goes on a midlife crisis tour of the city, having anguished encounters with everyone she knows, in a series of two-shot dialogue scenes, asking them for … what? Understanding? Absolution? She doesn't quite have the dignity of Ingrid Bergman but an old friend wryly sympathises – noting that incidentally the Romanians stole Cluj and Transylvania from the Austrian-Hungarian empire. Orsolya's elderly mother manages to steer the conversation around to how thoroughly admirable she considers Viktor Orbán's Hungary and when Orsolya indignantly calls Orban a fascist, her mother throws her out, calling her a 'whore'. She then gets drunk with one of her old law students who is working as a food delivery cyclist with a sign on his back saying 'I'm Romanian' because racist drivers will run over the Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans doing this job. After having alfresco sex with him, Orsolya talks earnestly to a priest who assures her that suicide is a terrible sin for the individual themselves and no one else is responsible. It is a bizarre, clamorous tour of anxiety, disclosing a panorama of indifference, of dyspeptic lack of interest in the idea that other people's suffering (or wellbeing) is of the smallest significance or interest. It's not an easy watch, but Jude's film-making has such energy and punch. Kontinental '25 screened at the Berlin film festival.
