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A pregnant couple joining a cultish community sounds like the set-up for either a horror, a satire or both but Claudio Casale treats the subject with a studious seriousness in Year Of The Egg - an approach which means he retains a strong grip on the film’s mood although the whole thing ends up being rather too measured for its own good.

Gemma (Yile Vianello) and Adriano (Andrea Palma) are expecting their first child and have decided to join the Egg Community, run by Guru Rajani, which offers them a sort of New Age blend of beliefs and a place of retreat during pregnancy and the first three months after birth. Each couple is presented with a golden egg that looks like something you might receive from the Easter bunny, although it’s clear that there will be little gainsaying in a community that desperately wants to believe.

Gemma is definitely more.

In Paolo Cognetti's Le otto montagne, the narrator ruminates, "If the point at which you immerse yourself in the river is the present...then the past is the water that has flowed past you." The Eight Mountains, an adaptation of Cognetti's novel written by the author alongside directors Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch, follows Pietro (Luca Marinelli) from adolescence to adulthood and the film is like the river Cognetti writes about. Like the book it's based on, The Eight Mountains is a contemplative film, one that uses its lengthy runtime to settle in and take you through the four or so decades in which it tracks Pietro's relationship with Bruno (Alessandro Borghi), a friendship that is achingly pure even as outside forces alter the course of it.

Pietro and Bruno meet one summer in the Italian Alps. The pair come from two vastly different backgrounds: Pietro's family is...

It can be surprisingly difficult to find a movie with an authentic, lived-in sense of how friendships truly unfold over the course of many years. What we so often get instead are hollow pastiches and tired tropes that hardly scrape the surface of what actually draws two individuals together from very different walks of life — and why. Maybe there's something to be said for a more matter-of-fact approach that gives such weighty topics room to grow, recede, and adapt at a glacial-like pace.

While that's usually considered a critique, this is at least one of the many reasons why "The Eight Mountains" stands in such stark relief from its peers. In the opening act set in 1984 Italy, two children become fast friends over the course of a single summer in the mountainous village of Grana — not through some shared trauma or because they instantly recognize some deep, soul-baring connection to one another.

Luis Buñuel’s Mexican masterpiece embraces truly edgy content: morbid comedy, anti-social satire and a strong streak of anarchist surrealism. His ‘adventurer into the unknown’ this time is no ordinary pervert, but a privileged delinquent in pursuit of a childhood sex fantasy: killing a beautiful woman just for the thrill. Naughty Archibaldo’s rehearsals are an unending source of frustration — and eventual enlightenment. Buñuel can’t resist subverting the social framework — wicked digs at the status quo abound.

The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz

Blu-ray

Vci

1955 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 89 min. / Street Date September 13, 2022 / Ensayo de un crimen / Available from Vci / 29.99

Starring: Miroslava, Ernesto Alonso, Rita Macedo, Ariadne Welter, Andrea Palma, Rodolfo Landa, José María Linares-Rivas, Leonor Llausás, Carlos Riquelme, Chabela Durán.

Cinematography: Augustín Jiménez

Art Director: Jesús Bracho

Film Editors: Jorge Bustos, Pablo Gómez

Original Music: Jorge Pérez

Written by Luis Buñuel, Eduardo Ugarte from the novel...

While the name Gabriel Figueroa may not be a familiar one to many, even those with a stronger affinity for filmmaking and the art behind it, New York’s own Film Forum is hoping to change that.

On June 5, the theater began a career spanning retrospective surrounding the work of iconic cinematographer and Mexican film industry legend Gabriel Figueroa. Taking a look at 19 of the photographer’s films, the series is running in conjunction with the new exhibition at El Museo del Barrio, entitled Under The Mexican Sky: Gabriel Figueroa – Art And Film.

Best known as a pioneer of Mexican cinema, primarily with his work alongside director Emilio Fernandez, Figueroa’s work was as varied as they come. His work with Fernandez is without a doubt this retrospective’s highlight, particularly films like Wildflower. One of the many times Mexican cinema’s “Big Four” worked together, the film saw the...