2 Best Movies to Watch by Guslagie Malanda

Nothing about Saint Omer is easy. A female Senegalese migrant (Guslagie Malanga) is put to trial for committing infanticide, but throughout the film, it becomes clear how much of a victim she is too, of an uncaring and deeply prejudiced society. “What drove her to madness?” Her attorney asks at one point. We’re not sure. We're not necessarily asked to side with her, nor answer the many hard-hitting questions brought up in the film, but we sit with the uneasiness of it all and, in that silence, confront our ideas about motherhood, womanhood, personhood. This confusion is what makes the film so compelling. Despite the court’s best efforts, Laurence isn’t meant to be understood. She’s meant to be an example of the ever-ambiguous, forever-complicated, always-hurt person. It’s human nature after all to be this complex and messed up. The film shows us that the best that we can do in situations like this is to listen, understand, and as our protagonist Rama (Kayije Kagame) does, make peace with the noise.

Genre: Crime, Drama

Actor: Adama Diallo Tamba, Alain Payen, Aurelia Petit, Charlotte Clamens, Guslagie Malanda, Kayije Kagame, Louise Lemoine Torrès, Roald Iamonte, Robert Cantarella, Salimata Kamate, Seyna Kane, Thomas De Pourquery, Valérie Dréville, Xavier Maly

Director: Alice Diop

Are connections truly fated, completely chosen, or purely circumstantial? The slow tragedy of Henry James’ The Beast in the Jungle hangs entirely on the question, which captivated readers and filmmakers with the concept, including Bertrand Bonello, which forms the foundations of 2023’s The Beast. Bonello lets loose The Beast in the Jungle into an AI playbox of time and space and destiny, transforming the simple examination of human life into a sci-fi epic, a moving period romance, and an existential mystery all at once. It can occasionally feel a bit jumbled up at times, with the way Bonello jumps across lives, but Léa Seydoux and George MacKay hold everything together with their performance, making La Bête deeply striking, if a bit derivative.

Genre: Drama, Romance, Science Fiction

Actor: Alice Barnole, Bertrand Bonello, Dasha Nekrasova, Elina Löwensohn, George MacKay, Guslagie Malanda, Isabelle Prim, Julia Faure, Laurent Lacotte, Léa Seydoux, Lukas Ionesco, Marta Hoskins, Martin Scali, Rémi Canaple, Tiffany Hofstetter, Xavier Dolan

Director: Bertrand Bonello

Rating: NR