Weekly visions - week 4, 2026

After the Quake/アフター・ザ・クエイク, directed by Tsuyoshi Inoue, written by Takamasa Oe, based on Haruki Murakami’s book 神の子どもたちはみな踊る, Japan, 2025 - ⭐⭐⭐

Disclaimer: I watched this film in multiple sessions, one section at a time, so, when it ended, I thought it was my fault that I couldn’t put together the different parts into a single narrative. It turns out there is no connecting story or characters: it’s composed by a few short chapters, each linked in one way or the other to the terrible 1995 earthquake that hit the Kobe area (which was also the background for Isola - Multiple Personality Girl).
Also, the author of the short stories is Haruki Murakami, which explains the surrealist moments, including the giant talking frog fighting to prevent a worm from destroying Tokyo in another earthquake (a legend that reminded me of the similar one in Suzume).
I don’t like anthology films, so all in all, this one is fine.
The couple in the first segment - Masaki Okada and Ai Hashimoto were both in Confessions.

The Night Eats the World/La nuit a dévoré le monde, directed by Dominique Rocher, co-written with Jérémie Guez and Guillaume Lemans, based on the novel by Pit Agarmen, France, 2018 - ⭐⭐⭐

First thought: this is 28 Days Later, or upside-down Rec, but in Paris. With a poster soooo similar to the one for As Above, So Below.
It’s the story of Sam, who wakes up one morning in a friend’s apartment to find out everyone else in the French capital has suddenly turned into a zombie. And he has to try to leave the apartment to find food and safety.
It’s interesting at the beginning, then as the protagonist begins to get bored, so did I. There are one-sided discussions with the undead (including one portrayed by Denis Lavant), electricity and water, dreams and visions, survival skills and ill-advised musical performances.
I was a bit confused why everyone in Paris speaks English, but that’s (maybe) because the lead is Norwegian actor Anders Danielsen Lie, who looked familiar but whom I couldn’t recognise from Sentimental Value, nor from The Worst Person in the World.

Smoking Causes Coughing/Fumer fait tousser, written and directed by Quentin Dupieux, France, 2022 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Every time I watch a film by Dupieux I text a friend to tell her that I’m watching a movie by the director that made the one about the killer tyre (she was very amused by that film, and by the plot of every Dupieux work).
This one is about a quintet of Power Rangers-like heroes who defeat man-in-a-suit creatures by shooting different types of smoke which, combined, have the same toxicity as cigarette smoke. And they are led remotely, a bit like Charlie’s Angels or maybe the Ninja Turtles, by a disgusting puppet rat who has the voice of Alain Chabat and is very successful with women. To prepare for their next mission and strengthen their bond as a team, they are sent to a secluded location.
Maybe this synopsis doesn’t do it justice, but this is the silliest (by design) film I’ve watched in a long time, and it was a lot of fun on all fronts: the absurdity of the premise, the deadpan attitude of the leads (including Gilles Lellouche), and the madness of the horror stories that are told within the film (one featuring Adèle Exarchopoulos suffering from a case of clear thinking).

Sick of Myself/Syk pike, written and directed by Kristoffer Borgli, Norway, 2022 - ⭐⭐⭐½

A Norwegian comedy in the vein of The Worst Person in the World I would say, if only I remembered anything about that film. Maybe it’s just because the lead characters really are the worst people in the world: a couple whose relationship dynamics consist of competing for everybody else’s attention. It’s a very dark comedy, and it works probably thanks to the anyway charming performance of lead actress Kristine Kujath Thorp.
In a cameo as ‘doctor’, I noticed an actor who looked familiar but I couldn’t recognise: it was him again, Anders Danielsen Lie from two films above.
Director Borgli would move on to write and helm Dream Scenario with Nicolas Cage the following year, and has a Darkest Secret coming out soon with Zendaya and Robert Pattinson.

Hamnet, directed by Chloé Zhao, co-written with Maggie O’Farrell, based on her novel, United Kingdom/US, 2025 - ⭐⭐⭐

It happens, now and then, that I’m forced to conclude that I have no heart. Case in point, my eyes only watered a little by the end of Zhao’s new film, while most other people in the cinema were still drying their tears long after the credits had started rolling.
This dark companion to Shakespeare in Love has an undisputedly powerful last section, preceded by two very well acted, shot and directed hours that didn’t move me enough. Maybe it’s the fact that I find period stories difficult to relate to. Rationally, this could have deserved one star more.
Paul Mescal is great, and Jessie Buckley is, was, and always will be incredible in every single role, in saecula saeculorum, amen.

Bianca, directed by Nanni Moretti, co-written with Sandro Petraglia, Italy, 1984 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Going backwards in Moretti’s filmography after La messa è finita, I revisited Bianca. When I say ‘revisited’, I mean that I have seen this film so long ago that I only remembered it was about shoes and the solution of its ‘murder mystery’. Well, there are murders, but the whodunnit part is really lightweight: the film is essentially a comedy (more than his next work) about the real world being unable to satisfy the lead character’s (Moretti as ‘Michele Apicella’) vision of what a couple relationship should be. And on this aspect I found it also quite poignant.
This made me remember there was a period in my life when people who don’t know me used to say I look a lot like Moretti (I don’t, we just have the same beard).

Never Say Never Again, directed by Irvin Kershner, written by Lorenzo Semple Jr., based on an original story by Jack Whittingham, Kevin McClory and Ian Fleming, United Kingdom/US, 1983 - ⭐⭐½

You always know you’re in for a good time when the first credits state that it is produced by a consortium of banks.
This is another film I watched ages ago, and since it’s a non-EON production, it’s not included in the 007 box set I used for my complete Bond re/watch in 2019. For the same reason, it doesn’t have a gun barrel sequence, nor Monty Norman’s James Bond Theme.
In every other aspect it’s a full-fledged 007 film: a remake of Thunderball, featuring Sean Connery back (again) in the role that made him famous, which is the only reason why anybody ever cared about this movie. He looks a bit too old in this film - and there are a few jokes to point this out -, and, it turns out, just one year older than I am now.
Actually, despite my propensity to write it off because of its non-official status, it’s not a terrible film, at least until the last half hour, when it ramps up the sexism and racism and delivers the underwater sequences that were already boring in the original Thunderball (also shot by the same underwater director, Ricou Browning aka the Creature from the Black Lagoon). But let’s keep in mind that Bond fans at this point would otherwise have been stuck with Octopussy (and Roger Moore’s even older 007), so it’s all relative.
Empire Strikes Back’s director helmed the project, pre-9½ Weeks Kim Basinger plays Bond Girl Domino, Max von Sydow takes over for Blofeld (equipped with white cat but with a look more similar to Anthony Dawson’s almost-invisible Thunderball performance than Donald Pleasance’s villain). In place of Adolfo Celi’s Emilio Largo, we have a terrifying Klaus Maria Brandauer as Maximillian Largo (leading young me to mix up real Max von Sydow and fictional Max - Brandauer - for quite some time).
Twin Peaks’ corrupt Canadian Mountie and lost Cunningham brother Gavan O’Herlihy plays the ‘weak link’ USAF Pilot Jack Petachi (although it’s pronounced like ‘Petacci’, but Italian viewers will never know because in the dubbing his name was changed to a Romanian one - maybe to avoid confusion with Mussolini’s mistress, or to avoid suggesting that Italians can do bad things).
A young, pre-Blackadder and definitely pre-Johnny English, Rowan Atkinson provides the comic relief.