‘An orgy of antisemitism is overtaking the west’: Son of Saul’s László Nemes on Hollywood hypocrisy

His extraordinary Auschwitz film won every award going. Now the Hungarian director is back with new drama Orphan, as well as a Jean Moulin biopic at Cannes. He talks about resurgent global prejudice – and refusing to be lectured by the film industry ‘overclass’ We’ve been talking for less than five minutes when I spot the swastika. It’s just above the head of László Nemes, one of Europe’s most acclaimed directors, as he sits in the suite of a London hotel, talking about Orphan, his intensely personal new film that dwells on – among other things – the impact of the Holocaust on the generations that followed. It’s an ancient, Hindu swastika, part of a decorative wall-hanging – but still. I’m halfway through a question when I notice it. Nemes laughs; of course, he’d seen it immediately. “I wanted to point that out to you,” he says. “It is so funny. Before leaving this room, I will take pictures.” Mind you, he’s had worse. “When I was at the San Sebastián film festival with Son of Saul , t...

It Lives Inside review – standard-issue schlock horror has its moments

This Indian American monster movie has interesting touches of cultural specificity but it’s a mostly familiar formula

There’s a swirl of the old and the new in the hokey pre-Halloween horror It Lives Inside, a balance that could have benefited from a lot more of the latter because when the first-time director Bishal Dutta does try to add freshness to the familiarity of formula, he manages to carve his film its own place within two overstuffed subgenres, flashes of intrigue as he veers between schlocky curse and even schlockier monster movie.

A wide-releasing horror film centered on an Indian American teenager already gives the film a certain distinction. Dutta, also acting as writer, tries to thread themes of assimilation and identity through a predictable procession of mostly ineffective jump scares and slightly more effective set pieces, the film working better when it’s trying to chill rather than shock. Never Have I Ever and Missing’s Megan Suri plays Samidha, or Sam as she prefers to be called, a girl trying to fit in at a predominantly white high school despite her mother keenly trying to keep traditions an integral part of her life. It’s led to a distance from her other Indian American friend, Tamira and, like Heathers and Fright Night before it, explores that interesting fracture of leaving one friend behind to climb higher socially.

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