COLD WAR (2018)
Time does not matter when one is in love. In Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War, an impossible love develops between two people of different backgrounds in post-World War II Poland, where they must overcome borders and betrayal to stay together. Tomasz Kot and Joanna Kulig deliver ravishing performances in this visually stunning, cinematically condensed saga of star-crossed lovers across timelines.
UNDINE (2020)
In Christian Petzold’s modern fairy-tale romance between a water nymph and an underwater diver, the contours of modern-day Berlin seamlessly stretch itself to find something fearlessly unstable and erotic. With captivating performances from Paula Beer and Franz Rogowski, this is one love story that beautifully captures the ways in which love can transform an individual, sometimes in ways beyond our destiny.
THE LOBSTER (2015)
In the world of Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster, single people are labelled as Loners and placed in a hotel for 45 days to find a romantic partner for themselves among the other inmates. The one rule? Your romantic partner should possess a trait similar to yours. What transpires next for protagonist David (Colin Farrell) shifts from deadpan humour to building genuine emotional support as Loner (Rachel Weisz) arrives in his life. Love sprouts in the unlikeliest of places, and when it does, nothing else seems to matter.
Compartment No. 6 (2021)
Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen’s Compartment No. 6 is an old tale told with unaccustomed intimacy. Two strangers find themselves as companions on a train headed to the Arctic port city of Murmansk. She is Finnish and he is a boorish Russian. They instantly hate each other, and yet as the journey takes shape, first impressions peel off. This is a love story that asks what kind of love do we feel in this world... one that we need or the one that we deserve?
Atlantics (2019)
Some ghost stories are also love stories. In Mati Diop’s Atlantics, love is the binding power that houses ghosts of capitalism, some ghosts of migrants, and some born out of passing, to return to the shore. It tells the story of Ada (Mame Bineta Sane) who isn’t happy to be married to Omar because her heart is with Souleiman who hasn’t returned from the Atlantic in search of a better occupation. What transpires next culminates in an elliptical, urgent love story for the ages.
RUST and BONE (2012)
In Jacques Audiard’s superb Rust and Bone that handles brute realism with piercing honesty, Stephanie (Marion Cotillard) and Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts) find themselves revolving around each other invariably. She’s had a terrible tragedy costing both her limbs. He is a former boxer and a single father, unable to balance out the love between the two. Both learn to love themselves through each other in this miracle of a love story that is fearless and fragile at the same time.
On Body and Soul (2017)
A love story set in a slaughterhouse? In Ildikó Enyedi’s On Body and Soul, Endre (Geza Morcsanyi) and Maria (Alexandra Borbely) work at the same abbatoir. Mysteriously, they also share the same dream — a deer wandering in a snow-clad forest. A rich tapestry of images and symbolism, On Body and Soul presents a love story in a modern world filled with ruthlessness, where an idealistic vision is in stark contrast to the inevitable truths of commonplace reality.
The Way He Looks (2014)
Love is blind in Daniel Ribeiro’s coming-of-age drama between a visually challenged teenager named Leonardo (Ghilherme Lobo) and the new arrival in his class Gabriel (Fabio Audi). It develops, in its quiet, unassuming tenderness, over homework to taking Braille lessons at home. The Way He Looks is sweet and adequately hopeful, although Leo’s double otherness of being blind and gay is not fully furnished. It suggests how at certain points love is the only thing that is worth exploring.
45 years (2015)
A decades-long secret floats up to threaten the relationship of a lifetime in Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years. The past is never the past... instead it creeps up to the present realities of Kate (Charlotte Rampling) and Geoff (Tom Courtenay), who are preparing to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary. Tempered with two wondrous performances, 45 Years senses that every relationship must provide a space for honest reflection. Time, if presumed as an excuse, can turn into a burden of deception.
Goodbye First Love (2011)
“We have all our lives to be serious — let’s make the most of our youth." Writer-director Mia Hansen-Love offers a free-flowing, rapturous account of the on-off affair between Camille (Lola Creon) and her first boyfriend Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky). “I’ll always love you, but I don’t know why,” she says. Capturing teenage love in its rambunctious, temperamental best, Goodbye First Love holds a generation unsteady in its infatuation with the feeling of love.