I Rarely Wake Up Dreaming review – brilliant bulletin from Ukrainian frontline dives deep into culture war

Locarno film festival A couple attempting to leave Ukraine when the war encounter gender identity issues in this bold and challenging film A movie’s themes could hardly be more urgent and contemporary than those on offer in this entirely absorbing film from German director Isabelle Stever and Ukrainian critic turned screenwriter Anna Melikova. It’s a bulletin from the frontline of Russia’s war on Ukraine, and from the culture war too. It is about identity and choices made in peacetime when less was at stake. There is a bold and brilliant premise that may at first look artificially satirical but is actually inspired. When Russia begins its attack, the crisis is very specific for a scared young Ukrainian couple, recently engaged: Olya (Tania Myronyshena) and Oleh (Markus Bright). As bombs rain down, they head west in the cramped car of Olya’s elderly mum and dad – with Olya grumpily objecting to her dad’s sexist comments from behind the wheel about female drivers – to stay with Olya’s si...

Emilia Perez review – Jacques Audiard’s gangster trans musical barrels along in style

A thoroughly implausible yarn about a Mexican cartel leader who hires a lawyer to arrange his transition, but is carried along by its cheesy Broadway energy

Anglo-progressives and US liberals might worry about whether or not certain stories are “theirs to tell”. But that’s not a scruple that worries French auteur Jacques Audiard who, with amazing boldness and sweep, launches into this slightly bizarre yet watchable musical melodrama of crime and gender, set in Mexico. It plays like a thriller by Amat Escalante with music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and a touch of Almodovar.

Argentinian trans actor Karla Sofia Gascon plays Juan “Manitas” Del Monte, a terrifyingly powerful and ruthless cartel leader in Mexico, married to Jessi (Selena Gomez), with two young children. Manitas is intrigued by a high-profile murder trial in which an obviously guilty defendant gets off due to his smart and industrious lawyer Rita (Zoe Saldana); she is nearing 40 and secretly wretched from devoting her life to protecting unrepentant slimeballs, who go on to get ever richer while she labours for pitiful fees. Manitas kidnaps Rita and makes her an offer she can’t refuse: a one-off job for an unimaginably vast amount of money on which she can retire.

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