My Memory Is Full of Ghosts review – deeply moving visual hymn for the bombed-out Syrian city of Homs

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Anas Zawahri’s documentary lays heart-wrenching testimony over languorous shots of bullet-ridden ruins and deserted streets The western Syrian city of Homs is only a husk of its former self. Previously a major industrial centre, the region became a key battleground between 2011 and 2014, for Bashar al-Assad’s army and rebel forces. Amid the immense bloodshed, hundreds of thousands of civilians were either displaced or trapped inside their own homes. Filmed in the summer of 2023, this deeply moving documentary from Palestinian-born and Syria-based film-maker Anas Zawahri maps out the collective trauma and sorrow that continue to linger, even after the shooting has stopped. Unfolding in languorous, largely static shots of bombed rubble, hollowed-out buildings, and deserted streets, the film lays bare the startling extent of wartime brutality. A sense of stillness and stagnancy hangs in the air, and almost every wall is riddled with bullet holes, urban scars that mirror the psychological ...
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A Prince review – queer erotic drama of sexual enlightenment through … gardening

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Pierre Creton’s literary film is about the carnal blossoming of a gardener’s apprentice under the tutelage of a series of older men

This latest film from artist, film-maker, and farmer Pierre Creton evokes a tradition in French erotica in which a youthful protagonist has a series of encounters, providing carnal knowledge and sexual enlightenment as well as intellectual revelation. A Prince follows gardener’s apprentice Pierre-Joseph (Antoine Pirotte), whose love for nature leads him into the arms of two older lovers: Alberto (Vincent Barré), his botany school teacher, and Adrien (Pierre Barray), his employer.

Its literary feel is enhanced by the prioritisation of voiceover above dialogue. The characters’ inner monologues speak, often retrospectively, of transgressive erotic experiences and desires. Accounts of incestuous yearnings are laid over scenes of gardening or age-gap lovemaking, all shot in the same strikingly matter-of-fact fashion. The contrast between the provocative voiceover and the naturalistic cinematography is notable in itself, conveying a resistance to the politics of queer assimilation, which courts acceptance from the heterosexual majority.

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