From The Brutalist to Hard Truths: What’s coming to Cambridge Arts Picturehouse in last January and February 2024

Our film critic, Mark Walsh, looks ahead to what’s coming to the big screen in this column sponsored by the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse.

Presence

Steven Soderbergh and David Koepp are a director and screenwriter who both have long and successful track records in their respective fields.

The former has an extensive and diverse history, ranging from box office hits Ocean’s Eleven and Magic Mike to award winners Traffic and Erin Brokovich; the latter’s credits include Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible and Spider-Man.

They seem to have formed a productive working partnership as they paired up on 2022 thriller Kimi, and now have two further films arriving this year. Later, we’ll get Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender in spy thriller Black Bag, but before that a ghost story with a difference.

Soderbergh is a fan of experimentation in cinema – for example, he shot Unsane entirely using iPhones – and this haunted house chiller is confined to a single location, a house where Lucy Liu, her husband (Chris Sullivan) and their two children.

But their daughter (Callina Liang) can feel a presence in this house which the family have just purchased, despite the disbelief and protestations of her parents.

Soderbergh also (under a pseudonym) serves as the film’s cinematographer, and creates long, gliding takes which enhance the general feeling and atmosphere of unease. It’s not a film full of jump scares, rather relying on those old fashioned principles of tension and drama, both between the family and their unseen visitor. But for those hankering after something avoiding the standard horror tropes (while not being afraid to play with a few of them), Soderbergh and Koepp have served up something distinctly different.

Presence opens on the 24 January.

The Brutalist

Looking to be a strong contender for the awards season, having won three awards – including Best Drama – at the Golden Globes and having received nine nominations at this year’s BAFTAs, Brady Corbet’s three hour epic might be the heavyweight contender this year.

Brady Corbet’s film features Adrien Brody as Hungarian-born Jewish architect László who survives the holocaust and, separated from his wife and niece, immigrates to the United States in search of the American dream. Given the incoming administration’s views on entry to the country, it’s a film that could barely feel more timely in its examination of the American ideal.

Split into two parts, the first deals with László’s attempts to settle and establish a life for himself, when a wealthy industrialist (Guy Pearce) commissions him to construct a community centre in tribute to his late mother, calling on the skills that the architect developed in his former life.

The second deals with the arrival of his family (including Felicity Jones as his wife) and his difficulties in completing his work. The battle of wills between Brody and Pierce is at the heart of this towering drama, a three-and-a-half-hour epic shot in Vistavision by cinematographer Lol Crawley, that demands to be seen on the cinema screen as much as any film you’ll see this year.

The Brutalist opens on 24 January.

Hard Truths

As Mike Leigh enters his ninth decade, he shows his passion for human drama is undimmed.

His career has included seven Oscar nominations and three BAFTA wins (in addition to the BAFTA fellowship bestowed on him a decade ago), and two of those came for Secrets & Lies, his 1996 drama which starred Marianne Jean-Baptiste as a woman attempting to uncover her family history. The two are reunited after almost three decades for an examination of the effects of depression.

She plays Pansy, a woman struggling with depression, her family and anyone who comes into her world and who doesn’t suffer fools – or anyone else – gladly.

Her family have been worn down by her constant vocal angst, the only bright spot of resistance being her sister Chantelle (Michelle Austin). When the rest of the world has grown tired of hearing Pansy’s railing, Chantelle might be her only hope of sympathy or salvation.

Leigh is a master of examining the human condition, and after a pair of historical epics (Mr Turner and Peterloo) he’s returned to his kitchen sink roots to affect another significant drama that features another memorable performance from his lead actress, which has been rewarded with a nomination at this year’s BAFTAs (as has the film, in the Outstanding British Film category). The 81 year old director says he has no plans to retire and, if the quality remains this high, it’s something of which we should all be very glad.

Hard Truths opens on 31 January.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig

I love Iranian cinema, a genre that so often rewards by giving insights into both distinctive aspects of Iranian culture and society while also speaking to universal truths about the human condition.

With his latest film, Mohammad Rasoulof is elevating himself to the pantheon of Iranian directors, and like Jafar Panahi and so many others in that group, has done so at no significant personal cost: after the film was selected for Cannes (where it won the Special Jury Prize), Rasoulof was sentenced by Iranian authorities to eight years in prison, a fine and a flogging, and he was forced to flee the country.

His film is set during protests which happened in Iran in 2022 and 2023 after Mahsa Amini died in police custody, having been arrested for wearing her hijab “improperly”.

Iman (Missagh Zareh), a lawyer recently appointed to the Revolutionary Court, is given a gun by his employers for his own protection but when it goes missing, suspicion falls on not only his wife Najmeh (Soheila Golestani) but his daughters Rezvan and Sana (Mahsa Rostami and Setareh Maleki).

While Iman is being required to sign off multiple death sentences, his anonymity is threatened when one of Resvan’s friends is brought to their apartment after being injured in the protests.

While the film starts out as an examination of the family tensions and their various reactions to the events unfolding around them, it becomes a shocking exploration of the lengths that each of them will go to in order to defend their own position.

The last hour of the film plays out as a supremely tense thriller, escalating as allegiances and secrets are uncovered, with Rasoulof keeping events close to reality by including footage of the real life protests. There will be few more disturbing or compelling films made this year.

The Seed Of The Sacred Fig opens on 7 February.