Disclosure Day ★★★⯪☆
Directed by Steven Spielberg. Starring Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, Colman Domingo. 12A cert, gen release, 145 min
Spielberg’s return to the theme of alien visitation – in constant conversation with his own Close Encounters – is propulsive, complex and, ultimately, a little muddled. Blunt plays a weatherperson in Kansas City who finds herself possessed. O’Connor acts a whistleblower on the sinister US agency that is concealing information about our alien visitors. Hewson plays a former novice nun with questions about the theological implications. The film works best in its middle section, a chase yarn in the style of North by Northwest, but becomes a little unstuck in a clunky denouement that seeks to answer too many questions. DC Full review
Pink Narcissus ★★★★☆
Directed by James Bidgood. Starring Bobby Kendall, Charles Ludlam. No cert, limited release, 71 min
Welcome theatrical reissue of a key work in queer cinema from the 1960s. Arriving in a beautiful 4K restoration for a rare Irish theatrical outing, Pink Narcissus works us through the fantasies of a young hustler as he lounges in a decorative apartment. He sees himself as a matador. The surroundings become a fantastic public lavatory. We get a belly dance for an exotic potentate that indulges in similar orientalism as we once got in advertisements for Fry’s Turkish Delight. Shot over seven years in the director’s cramped flat, Pink Narcissus is remarkable for the consistency of its vision. DC Full review
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Time and Water ★★★★☆
Directed by Sara Dosa. Featuring Andri Snær Magnason. No cert, limited release, 93 min
Jón and Hulda, who were some of the first explorers of Iceland’s glaciers, fell in love and honeymooned on one of these vast bodies of ice. Their footage, dating back to the 1950s, captures the unique thrum of the objects of their obsession, a sound that distinguishes the glaciers from dead hunks of ice. The Oscar-nominated director behind Fire of Love finds her stride with another earthly extreme. Time and Water is an arresting documentary about Iceland’s disappearing glaciers that avoids the doomy traps of environmental film-making. TB Full review
The Fall of Sir Douglas Weatherford ★★★☆☆
Directed by Seán Dunn. Starring Peter Mullan, Jakob Oftebro, Lewis MacDougall. 15A cert, Mubi, limited release, 96 min
Set in a fictional Scottish village, Dunn’s debut feature follows Kenneth (Mullan), a widowed local historian devoted to preserving the legacy of Sir Douglas Weatherford, an obscure 18th-century inventor and philosopher he claims as an ancestor. The punchline? Sir Douglas was a monstrous exploiter and sometime surgical experimenter on the lower orders. Even when the screenplay wavers tonally between broad satire, absurdism and bittersweet character study, the veteran actor provides a much-needed focus. The result is an ambitious, occasionally uneven debut whose many ideas obscure its dramatic clout. Not a bad complaint. TB Full review
