‘Pepe’
Call it “Cocaine Hippo”: Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias’s gloriously weird new film takes on an utterly strange bit of modern South American history and gives it a cinematic treatment befitting its sordid zaniness. In the 1980s, Pablo Escobar imported four hippos to his estate, where he kept scores of exotic animals. In the subsequent decades, the herd multiplied in numbers — by 2023, the estimate was 170 — and became an invasive species in Colombia. One hippo, christened Pepe, escaped the estate and was killed by the authorities in 2009.
In “Pepe,” the ghost of this martyred creature, who speaks in multiple languages with a bellowing voice both comical and menacing, narrates to us the long and winding tale of how he came to die thousands of miles away from his native habitat in sub-Saharan Africa. We accompany him on a meandering cross-continental journey, from swamps in Namibia, where German tourists on safari gaze at hippos, to rivers in Colombia, where Pepe’s kind terrorize and haunt local fishermen. His tale is sad, delirious, inspired and often uproariously funny — though the jokes are on us. An audacious fever dream that implicates European colonialism, cartel violence and environmental destruction, “Pepe” is a cautionary fable about the ways in which humankind’s hubristic intervention in nature breeds disasters that threaten to swallow us whole.
‘Romancham’
Malayalam-language cinema, hailing from the South Indian state of Kerala, has been on a roll in recent years, and Jithu Madhavan’s delightful comedy-horror exemplifies this fantastic new wave in the region’s storied legacy of independent filmmaking. “Romancham” is an all-out entertainer, serving genuine laughs and chills in equal measure, but it does so without any big stars, flashy special effects, or other bells and whistles. Its strength lies in the inventive script and the lived-in performances. The story opens in a hospital, where our protagonist, Jibi (Soubin Shahir), is recovering from a shock of some kind. As he relates to his nurse how he got there, we see his incredible tale unfold.
Seven young men share a small flat in the city, living as you’d imagine mostly jobless bachelors do: bickering, partying, rarely cleaning, and constantly intruding upon each other’s privacy. One day, Jibi brings home a Ouija board and suddenly, their apartment feels a bit more crowded — possibly with unseen spirits. A bunch of shenanigans ensue, though what makes “Romancham” (meaning “goose bumps” in Malayalam) so fun is that both the humor and the horrors are driven by the humans, rather than any supernatural contrivances. The ghosts in the film don’t terrorize the characters so much as give them more reasons to clash and provoke and rib one another, adding layers to what is, in essence, a beautifully observed drama about friendship and cohabitation.
‘Luise’
Told in a series of sparse, hushed scenes set in a remote hut in 20th-century Alsace, “Luise” is a historical thriller constructed with clinical precision and yet simmering with feeling. The setup is simple. It’s 1918, and Alsace is poised on the border between the warring empires of France and Germany.
On a secluded hill, Luise (Luise Aschenbrenner) lives alone — though that’s a recent development, as a deft twist early in the film reveals. On one fateful morning, she receives two unexpected visitors: a Frenchwoman (Christa Théret) attempting to flee across the border to Holland, and a wounded German soldier (Leonard Kunz) on the run from his post. Luise knows German, Alsatian and French and can communicate with both her new guests; the two of them have no way of speaking and regard each other with hostile glances. This linguistic triangle, with its mix of mystery, unease, and intimacy, becomes kindling for a love triangle, fueled by the Frenchwoman’s bold sexuality, the soldier’s Catholicism, and Luise’s confused longing. The small, remote house and the desolate forests around it — captured in some breathtaking panning shots — add the weight of history and geography to these erotic tensions, building to a finale that explodes the film’s taut quietness like a gunshot.
‘Parkland of Decay and Fantasy’
Stream it on Metrograph at Home.
Even though “dreamlike” is a word commonly used to describe films, very few movies actually mimic the experience of dreaming as compellingly as Chenliang Zhu’s mesmerizing docufiction hybrid. An abandoned amusement park on an island in Shanghai, once used as the setting for a popular TV show, becomes the backdrop for a series of strange episodes that — as in a dream — have no clear beginnings or ends, and no clear connective threads. Sinuously, each vignette gives way to the next, via a sly cut or zoom-out, a transitional interlude through a winding tunnel, or an image that shrinks and reveals itself to be a window on a desktop. A man speaks in the glow of firelight about underground artists who once gathered on the site. A couple of influencers navigate to the park (we never see them, only their GPS screen) and then one goes missing. A close-up of what looks like a petri dish gives way to a virtuoso sequence where the camera follows around a goose, which in turn gives way to a section featuring a man who makes robots. Is this place haunted, or is it a blank canvas vested with hopes, desires and history? “Parkland of Decay and Fantasy” blurs the line, mining this distinctive location for something like an ethnography of dreams.
‘Any Day Now’
Stream it on Film Movement Plus.
Inspired by the director Hamy Ramezan’s own life as an Iranian refugee in Europe, “Any Day Now” is as delicate and luminous as a patch of sunlit grass — though clouds lurk at its edges.
In many ways, 13-year-old Ramin Mehdipour’s life seems like an idyll. His parents and little sister make for a loving and tender family unit; they enjoy an active social life with neighbors; and high school is off to a promising start for Ramin (Aran-Sina Keshvari), who has his close friend Jigi by his side and a crush already in view.
But here’s the catch: The Mehdipours live in a shelter for asylum-seekers in Finland, and, early in the film, they receive a rejection letter from the authorities. As valiantly as the parents strive to maintain a normal life for their children, uncertainty now looms over them, as they contemplate the difficult process of an appeal.
Much like the Mehdipours, “Any Day Now” lets this reality linger in the background, focusing instead on the joys of Ramin’s everyday life. Shot with a beautiful tactility, the film follows the boy closely as he stoops to smell flowers, explores the mossy woods with his friends, and dances tentatively at a school event with the girl he fancies. Yet these familiar coming-of-age scenes are charged with tragedy and suspense as the family awaits their fate, reminding us how the violence of displacement can deny its victims even the most banal of life’s pleasures.
