Film Picks: Close, National Theatre Live: Henry V, Oscar-nominated films still in cinemas
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Eden Dambrine, Emilie Dequenne and Gustav De Waele in Close.
PHOTO: THE PROJECTOR
Close (PG13)
105 minutes, now showing at The Projector, 4 stars
The seemingly unbreakable bond between two 13-year-old boys (Eden Dambrine and Gustav De Waele) tragically ruptures in this 2022 Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix winner, which is also a current Academy Award nominee for Best International Film.
How serendipitous that Belgian film-maker Lukas Dhont discovered Dambrine on a train journey. Both the first-time actor and De Waele are heartbreaking in their emotional purity, co-starring as best friends Leo and Remi respectively.
When the boys start the new school year, they are teased by classmates asking if they are a couple. Leo becomes self-conscious. He begins to distance himself, leaving Remi hurt and bewildered, as he takes up ice hockey with other boys to fit in.
Dhont’s previous film Girl (2018), about a trans ballerina, was another Cannes award winner – a Camera d’Or, for Best First Feature – that critiqued the way identity is defined by gender and sexuality. WHANG YEE LING
National Theatre Live: Henry V (NC16)
The Projector
Kit Harington takes the title role in this recording of a live performance of Shakespeare’s Henry V at the Donmar Warehouse theatre.
In this 2022 recorded performance of Shakespeare’s account of the English king’s military adventures in France, the setting is modern. Henry, as played by Game Of Thrones actor Kit Harington, is a combination of chief executive and military leader, according to a review in The Guardian.
It says: “Every performance is polished but Harington absolutely stands out: He begins quietly and while he never raises the volume, his transformation in victory is monstrous.”
Director Max Webster’s updates include visual effects projected on a back screen, choral singing and reminders that Henry’s foreign campaigns are being watched by nations around the world.
This production was filmed at the Donmar Warehouse, a theatre in Covent Garden, London.
Where: Projector X: Picturehouse, 05-01 The Cathay, 2 Handy Road
MRT: Dhoby Ghaut/Bras Basah
When: Sunday, 2.30pm, and March 11, 2pm
Tickets: $18 for standard tickets, $16 for concession tickets
Info: https://str.sg/wvQD
Oscar-nominated films still showing in cinemas
The Fabelmans stars (from left) Paul Dano, Gabriel LaBelle and Michelle Williams.
The Academy Award winners will be announced on March 12 in Los Angeles (March 13 morning in Singapore), so there is still time to catch them on the big screen before they bow out.
Must-sees include the Colin Farrell-Brendan Gleeson black comedy about tall poppies in an Irish village that hates people who stand out, The Banshees Of Inisherin (M18, nine nominations, including for Best Picture and Best Director for Martin McDonagh), as well as the character study of a celebrated musician who abuses her power in Tar (M18, six nominations, including Best Actress for Cate Blanchett in the title role).
The comedy-drama Babylon (R21, three nominations, including Best Original Score) by acclaimed film-maker Damien Chazelle is an exploration of Hollywood in the 1920s, a time of legendary excess.
A gay English teacher eats his grief in The Whale (M18, three nominations, including Best Actor for Brendan Fraser as the morbidly obese title character) and in film-maker Steven Spielberg’s boyhood memoir, The Fabelmans (PG13, seven nominations, including Best Director for Spielberg), a kid discovers that when he was distracted by making stories for the screen, a bigger drama was building in his own family.
