BFI Southbank Programme Notes

Let the Right One In

According to Mexican maestro Guillermo del Toro, creator of the award-winning Pan’s Labyrinth, it’s ‘a chilling fairytale, as delicate, haunting and poetic a film as you’ll ever see’. For Hollywoo...

December 6, 2022 | IN DREAMS ARE MONSTERS

Happy Valley

+ Q&A with James Norton, Siobhan Finneran, Will Johnston and Jessica Taylor Sally Wainwright’s multi-BAFTA award winning hit Happy Valley features Sarah Lancashire in her iconic role of Sergea...

December 6, 2022 | TV PREVIEWS

Elephant Man

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away the film’s ending. In 1884, the ‘freak’ John Merrick was discovered in a booth in the Mile End Road by Frederick Treves, chief surgeon at the London ...

December 5, 2022 | OVER THE RAINBOW

Nightwatching

Like Nicolas Roeg and Ken Russell, Peter Greenaway is a cinematic adventurist who for several decades wowed the British arthouse with a succession of challenging and deeply idiosyncratic films, onl...

December 3, 2022 | FRAMES OF MIND
THE FILMS OF PETER GREENAWAY

Blue Velvet

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Contemporary reviews In terms of David Lynch’s work, Blue Velvet marks a huge leap forward, almost magically establishing him as the...

December 3, 2022 | OVER THE RAINBOW

Night of the Eagle

Growing up with a fascination for the macabre, I sat up alone watching every horror film that turned up on late night TV. My education included the Universal horrors of the 1930s and 40s and Jacque...

December 2, 2022 | IN DREAMS ARE MONSTERS

Lynch/Oz

A fascinating, multi-perspective documentary that looks at the influence of The Wizard of Oz on the thoughts and working methodology of David Lynch. From The Alphabet to Twin Peaks: The Return the ...

December 2, 2022 | NEW RELEASES

Haunted Generations - The Lingering Legacy of the Public Information Film

Introduced by author and Fortean Times columnist Bob Fischer Lingering eerily in the imagination of those who grew-up haunted by the warnings of danger and death, public information films occupy a...

December 2, 2022 | FRAMES OF MIND
THE FILMS OF PETER GREENAWAY

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

+ Q&A with directors Peter Baynton and Charlie Mackesy, and producer Cara Speller When Charlie Mackesy published his book The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse in October 2019, he started a...

December 2, 2022 | PREVIEWS

Bones and All

‘Whatever you and I got, it’s got to be fed,’ Lee (Timothée Chalamet) tells his lover Maren (Taylor Russell) in Luca Guadagnino’s deliciously dark cannibal road movie, something of a return to the ...

December 2, 2022 | NEW RELEASES

The Uninvited

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. The Uninvited was, famously, Hollywood’s first authentic ghost story. It’s a slick, romantic, sometimes even campy potboiler that, i...

December 1, 2022 | IN DREAMS ARE MONSTERS

Mulholland Dr.

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. For all its mood shifts from black wit to sheer terror (Peter Deming’s camerawork creeps around corners and into darkened rooms to d...

December 1, 2022 | OVER THE RAINBOW

Kwaidan

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. From Masaki Kobayashi, best known for his socially conscious dramas (Black River, 1957; The Human Condition, 1959-61) and intense sa...

December 1, 2022 | IN DREAMS ARE MONSTERS

The Fly (Relaxed Screening)

+ intro and discussion. David Cronenberg’s heart-breaking horror about a man who realises ‘the insect is awake’ is a dark dissection of scientific optimism and the limits of the human body. Seth...

November 28, 2022 | RELAXED SCREENING

Good Manners

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. Directors Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra on ‘Good Manners’ With Good Manners you take your cinematographic approach to a new level in...

November 27, 2022 | IN DREAMS ARE MONSTERS

What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?

About 20 minutes into Alexandre Koberidze’s enchanting, meandering and unclassifiable second feature, a caption appears on screen, imploring the audience to close our eyes at the sound of a signal ...

November 25, 2022 | NEW RELEASES

She Said

+ Q&A with screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz Two-time Academy Award® nominee Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman, An Education) and Emmy nominee Zoe Kazan (The Plot Against America, The Big Si...

November 24, 2022 | PREVIEW

Under the Shadow

There’s nothing new about a ghost story in which a lone mother must protect her child or children from supernatural forces, but there is something new about its context in this film. Under the Shad...

November 23, 2022 | IN DREAMS ARE MONSTERS

Big Monster Energy

Where do we draw the line between the terrifying and the titillating? Scary films aren’t supposed to be sexy, and yet, there is a very thin line between the titillating and the terrifying. Romantic...

November 22, 2022 | IN DREAMS ARE MONSTERS

The Pillow Book

SPOILER WARNING The following notes give away some of the plot. The Pillow Book, it is clear, gathers up the two concerns that have driven so many of Peter Greenaway’s films: the question of sex a...

November 18, 2022 | FRAMES OF MIND
THE FILMS OF PETER GREENAWAY