[A Tale of Winter]
Rohmer | 1991 | France

3rd watch; 2nd in cinema. A slight disruption to my year of watching Rohmer’s four seasons cycle as each season starts – I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to show this to The Girl on the big screen. And it will be no big ask to watch this again in a few months when winter begins, as all of Rohmer’s films are endlessly rewatchable, revealing themselves anew each time you check in with one. For example, this revisit allowed me appreciate the subtle depth and grace of Véry’s lead performance – truly the driving force of the film.

As with any Rohmer film, characters do be talking. In less capable and empathetic hands, constant discussion of thoughts and feelings (and frequently their philosophical underpinnings) would keep everything a little too textual. Rohmer manages to avoid crossing this line by recognising the utility of oral discourse to *his characters* as opposed to us, the audience. We are merely flies on the wall as characters talk each other (or, more often, themselves) into and out of things.

The final line of this film is my favourite final line of any film, made all the more powerful because (a) it is an echo of another character speaking the same phrase only moments before and (b) it is also (canonically) the final line of the four seasons cycle, Rohmer’s last thematic sequence of films. I shan’t spoil it, but it also describes the emotions of one who loves his films when they arrive at this dual ending.

Neville | 2025 | USA, UK

There is an essential tension (if not absurdity) about Paul McCartney, and this doco comes pretty close to meaningful insight in exploring that tension. Here we have a guy – and I do mean “a guy” rather literally – who wants to be the only thing he can never be: somebody without ‘former Beatle’ on their CV. The doco at hand unrolls his navigation of the 70s and the formation and [unofficial] dissolution of Wings, and makes much of his desire for Wings to be a group of equals. But of course, this could never be.

The very interesting question that arises on the back of this notion is: would anybody care about Wings at all if this were not the case – if the band were just any group of musicians and not one led by Sir Paul? It’s easy to point to their successes, the greatest of which was the album Band on the Run, and just as easy to forget this was not their debut effort – how many bands not led by former Beatles ever get a second crack after a first album that was dismissed by critics? Or, take a different tack: would the critical reception of the first Wings album have been so harsh had people not wanted them to be The Beatles: Mark II?

This film at least asks these questions, without ever really answering them. But that exploration, punctuated with reflections on life on ‘the farm’ and Paul’s marriage to Linda, was more than enough for me. One walks away immediately wanting to put on one of his albums (I chose McCartney II) and wanting to move to a sheep farm. Increasingly, it is McCartney’s efforts to lead something like a simple life that are the most endearing to me.

Fennell | 2026 | USA, UK

Pretty [boring].

That said, a flavour of take I continue to see about Wuthering Heights concerns the “accuracy” or “respect” of the adaptation. One formed and shared in particularly bad faith called it “anti-intellectual” and “dangerous”.

Movies are movies and books are books. Even when a book is adapted “faithfully” and both book and film are excellent (The Martian and 25th Hour spring to mind), they are still separate quantities and there’s nothing in the link.

Next month I’ll get to see an adaptation of my favourite writer’s (Camus) most popular novel (The Stranger). I won’t be able to unread the novel and that knowledge of the story will be on my mind as I watch the film – but it’s not knowledge I’ll hold against the film. Otherwise, what would be the point of even watching the film?

[A Tale of Summer]
Rohmer | 1996 | France

2nd watch. 2026 begins with me continuing my quest to re-watch Rohmer’s Four Seasons cycle in line with the “real life” seasons. This might just be the walkiest and talkiest of all the walk and talk stories out there (a compliment). Dinard, St Malo, and St Lunaire provide stunning backdrops for said walking and talking – one can almost convince oneself they are themselves on holiday. I appreciated the foibles of our hero, Gaspard, a lot more this time around. A deceptively simple plot plays almost as an essay on indecision and self delusion, rendering the resolution, as it were, hilarious for its appropriateness.

Kotcheff | 1971 | Australia | 35mm

I’m new to the Yabba, so why not ring up my 1,600th movie with what is probably the best Australian film I’ve ever seen – and on a pristine 35mm print from the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, while we’re at it.

Wake In Fright had been on my radar for more than ten years and it was worth the wait. I have within me a few thousand words about what I would call “waking liminal space” and how it’s represented in this film, but l’ll save that for another day. What we’re left with, then, is a waking hell that includes a kangaroo hunting sequence that might be the most grotesque thing l’ve ever seen committed to celluloid.

Possibly perfect? I dunno. I’m new to the Yabba. Just passing through.