The most powerful movie of the awards season, nominated for both the Oscar and the Golden Globe, 'The Father' does not follow the basic formula of stories about Alzheimer's Disease - such as 'Simply Alice' and 'Ella & John'. Directed, written and based on Florian Zeller's play, the feature film follows the routine of an elderly man (Anthony Hopkins) who is beginning to have his memory affected by the degenerative disease. In the middle of this, the protagonist's daughter (Olivia Colman from 'The Favourite') enters, who must deal with this new unstable moment of her father. It is a smart and daring film, which plays with temporality and the notion of things around. We do not see the degeneration of this man's memory from afar, as if it were a zoo. Quite the contrary. Zeller, with a clever and original script, puts the viewer in the mind of this man, with all his confusions and weaknesses. Hopkins ('The Silence of the Lambs') is spectacular, in one of his best performances in two decades. He swallows the movie, takes it for himself and gains ownership. It's hard not to shed a few tears. Great movie.
Walking a thin line between documentary and fiction with The Mole Agent, Chilean filmmaker Maite Alberdi has demonstrated an impressive sensitivity and compassion in approaching subjects dealing with end-of-life illnesses. The Eternal Memory is no different. This documentary delves into the intimacy of journalist Augusto Góngora and his wife, Paulina Urrutia. He, however, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's eight years ago, and they now live with tenderness and patience, but fearing the day when he will no longer recognize her. The story is not only devastating – in the best sense of the word – for its inherent drama but is also an essay on memory itself and its fragility, as well as on the role of cinema as a document to preserve historical memory and raise awareness about the disease.
The Substance is a horror film directed by French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat (Revenge), winner of the Best Screenplay award at the Cannes Film Festival 2024. It borrows the premise from The Picture of Dorian Gray, the classic novel by Oscar Wilde, but uses it to comment on issues such as ageism, beauty standards, and body dysmorphia, specifically in the context of Hollywood. The plot follows Elisabeth (Demi Moore), a successful actress who, in the latter years of her career, has become the host of a fitness television show. That is until a studio executive (Dennis Quaid, in a grotesque caricature of Harvey Weinstein) decides she is too old for it and ends her contract. Desperate, Elisabeth turns to the mysterious drug of the title to "activate" a younger and improved version of herself, "Sue" (Margaret Qualley). Both women must maintain a delicate balance for seven days, which begins to unravel when Sue achieves success and starts to resent Elisabeth as a burden. With waves of blood, mutilations, pus, and other bodily fluids that words can't begin to describe, The Substance is a delirious and clever satire of the arbitrary yet predatory and exploitative frivolity with which the media imposes and perpetuates unattainable beauty standards. At the same time, it is an astute representation of the self-destructive extremes many women are willing to subject their bodies and self-esteem to in order to fit into the system and play the game. Regardless of the conclusions, one thing is for sure: you will experience a whirlwind of emotions and have an incredible time... if the nausea doesn't defeat you halfway through.
The Blue Trail (O Último Azul, original title) uses the premise of a compulsory exile for the elderly as the spark for a sensory fable about the rediscovery of desire and freedom, set in a dystopian Brazil. Winner of the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, the film is a testament to the power of Gabriel Mascaro's (Neon Bull) cinema. Featuring a masterful performance by Denise Weinberg and Rodrigo Santoro in a deeply sensitive role, the feature is a powerful and visually stunning example of recent Brazilian cinema—following in the footsteps of I'm Still Here and the yet-to-be-released The Secret Agent.