Category: Distributor: Fox Searchlight Pictures
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28 Days Later. Dir. Danny Boyle. Fox Searchlight Pictures. 2002.
Boyle’s 28 Days Later presents a devastated post-apocalyptic world in which a highly infectious rage virus spreads through humanity, causing those infected to be struck with mindless violent rage. The opening laboratory scene depicts the origin of the virus and moment the infection is first transmitted to humans. The spread to humans happens through chimpanzees…
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Jojo Rabbit. Dir. Taika Waititi. Fox Searchlight Pictures. 2019.
Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit embodies the toxicity of hegemonic masculinity in Nazi Germany, utilising the rabbit ‘as a material and symbolic resource.’[1]. Waititi’s decision to navigate the film through the eyes of ten-year-old Jojo is significant, as Jojo’s own conflicted sense of masculinity is underscored through the rabbit as a symbol of gender, as his…
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The Grand Budapest Hotel. Dir Wes Anderson. Fox Searchlight Pictures. 2014
“Did he just throw my cat out the window?” The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014) uses the death of a domestic animal to drive the dark comedic elements within the film, without accentuating sinister undertones that the audience would expect to accompany the death of a beloved animal. Anderson transforms the cat into a…
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Can You Ever Forgive Me? Dir. Marielle Heller. Fox Searchlight Pictures. 2018.
Hellers’ biopic Can You Ever Forgive Me (1) is about struggling writer Lee Israel who, to finance her cat’s vet bills, becomes a master forger of literary letters. Impersonating figures such as Noël Coward and Dorothy Parker, Lee earns herself a pretty penny and, eventually, a criminal record. Protagonist Lee, played by Melissa McCarthy, is…
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Jojo Rabbit. Dir. Taika Waititi. Fox Searchlight Pictures. 2019.
Jojo Rabbit (Taika Waititi, 2019) follows a young German boy growing up during World War Two. During a sequence depicting Jojo’s education, a rabbit is used as a symbol of morality to train a group of Hitler Youth. The children unanimously agree that they would kill for Germany – this is then put to the…
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The Favourite. Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos. Fox Searchlight Pictures. 2019
Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Favourite explores the life of Queen Anne and the competition between her servants Abigail and Sarah to become her ‘favourite’. The film uses comedy to provide an alternative depiction of the often idealised royal courts, creating an image of debauchery and cruelty instead. Whilst the film focuses on the relationship between these…
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28 Days Later. Dir. Danny Boyle. Fox Searchlight Pictures. 2002.
You wouldn’t expect one of British cinema’s most poignant and idyllic moments to lie in the centre of a post-apocalyptic horror film, yet it does. Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later cuts in the melancholy scene at its centre, with four wild horses providing respite for the film’s central four characters by subverting the film’s primary genre…
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Isle of Dogs. Dir. Wes Anderson. Fox Searchlight Pictures. 2018.
Wes Anderson’s 2018 film Isle of Dogs depicts a dual representation of animals. The film’s plot is largely focused on the escapades of dogs, and for the most part these animals are highly anthropomorphised by Anderson’s direction. On the other hand, the majority of the humour in the film is constructed by Anderson occasionally reversing…