Friday new releases: 17 January 2025
Emilia Pérez, Flow and Dragonkeeper are in cinemas.
Next Monday is a public holiday in Wellington so there’ll be no newsletter in your inbox. So, I’ve opted to bring forward Monday’s summary of new releases to today. All of these featured in RNZ’s At the Summer Movies on Wednesday and you can listen to the full show when it is rebroadcast on Sunday afternoon.
Emilia Pérez (Audíard, 2024)
Gascón and Saldaña are giving everything but Gomez seems all at sea and none of them are helped by the fact that - and this is the biggest miss of all - there are no decent songs in this film. Written by Clément Ducol (who also wrote the score) and his partner, French pop artist Camille, the lyrics were imagined in French, translated to Spanish on the set and then translated back to English for the subtitles we enjoy here.
But the songs of a musical are the scaffolding - everything else is built around them. If they don't work (or are unappealing, unremarkable, or unmemorable) the prospect of entertainment seems an awfully long way away. And the musical numbers don't really add very much to our understanding of the story, except their presence provides a kind of ironic distance that protects the filmmakers from any accusations of sincerity.
(I recommend listening to this review so you can get the full experience of some of the songs but the readable version is here.)
Flow (Zilbalodis, 2024)
Flow is a beautiful and deeply moving fable - a captivating reminder that survival requires cooperation and that our differences are what make us stronger. There are messages here - if you want them - about the environmental damage caused by human apathy but the film is a reminder that the planet is just as indifferent to us and will carry on regardless.
If I see a better animated film in 2025 then it will turn out to be a very good year indeed.
(Read or listen here.)
Dragonkeeper (Li/Simo, 2024)
As is so often the case with films like this, the climax is a noisy mess of fireballs, arrows and flying battles. There was some potential there in the apprenticeship of Ping and Danzi, but we simply don’t spend enough time with them both before the final fight kicks off and everyone loses interest.
There are seven books in Wilkinson’s Dragonkeeper series of novels, but I fear that lack of a tailwind for this first big screen adaptation is going to make it challenging to turn them a competitive franchise.
(Listen here.)
I’ll back on Tuesday. Thanks for reading.