I once visited the UK’s largest restaurant. Bristol’s gargantuan Za Za Bazaar seats 1,000 diners, serves up more than 15 global cuisines and operates an all-you-can-eat policy that could satisfy even the most Mr Creosotian of gluttons. Nonetheless, upon entering the vast establishment, I immediately became overwhelmed by choice and somehow left hungry.
I often feel the same way about Netflix (after 10 minutes spent scrolling through Matthew McConaughey movies, the thought of settling upon any one is unthinkable), so I was excited this week to rediscover Mubi, a streaming service whose catalogue would fit comfortably on a single side of A4. Though it offers just 30 films at any one time, the platform could never be accused of stagnation: every day, a new film is added while another is taken away, ensuring a constantly revitalised selection of titles.
The current roster includes films as eclectic as Luis Buñuel’s 1953 drama The Brute, Orson Welles’s 1973 pseudo-documentary F For Fake, and Swedish provocateur Ruben Ostlund’s breakthrough 2008 film Involuntary. Ostlund garnered rave reviews from British critics this month for his masterfully cringe-inducing comedy Force Majeure, but Involuntary is his most distinctive film, and one that remains little-seen this side of the North Sea thanks to a UK marketing campaign that disingenuously positioned the formally austere project as a sort of Eurotrash raunchfest.
Comprised of five parallel narratives exploring the darker side of human group behaviour, the film deploys excruciatingly long takes neither to impress nor punish its viewers, but to confront them with the awful familiarity of polite society’s capacity for cruelty. It’s an initially trying but ultimately riveting experience, which makes it a sore fit for the try-before-you-buy culture of online streaming. On Mubi however, with only 29 other dishes on the menu, it may find some takers.
Also out this week
The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies Conclusion of the eight-hour children’s film.
Midnight Run Blu-ray transfer of the 1988 oddity.
Dumb And Dumber To Dire sequel to 20-year-old gross-out comedy.
