REVIEW

EDITED BY BEN HELME AND SYED ZAID ALI

So a Lammali's All-Time Best: e Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante

Centred around a poor neighbourhood in 1950s Naples, Elena Ferrante’s fourbook series commonly known as the Neapolitan Novels follows the life of Lenu, through the lens of her complicated friendship with her childhood friend Lila. e author’s anonymity, the numerous attempts to ‘unmask’ her, and therefore the debate on how much of the story is based on real life, adds to the mystique and conversation that this series has caused.

Her description and experiences of love, education, work, marriage and children hold a mirror up to society’s treatment of women in a way I have rarely seen done ectively in literature. Exploring themes of female friendship, womanhood and class con ict, these novels have had a profound impact on me, especially as I’ve entered the early stages of adulthood.

by JEREMY RICKETTS-HAGAN

Everything Everywhere All at Once excited audiences with its mix of wacky action and heartfelt drama, a lm from Southern India captured attention with a similar brilliance.

is by no means just a Telugu equivalent to the aforementioned Oscar favourite, but is an entirely new and unique experience in its own right. Set in a semi- ctitious colonial India, the plot begins as a seemingly run-of-the-mill, damsel-in-distress story. e colonial government is the villain and the kind hearted yet ridiculously strong Bheem set is our protagonist. However, in his journey, he unknowingly befriends a British colonial o cer in Rama, which sets into motion a long game of cat and mouse against the vibrant backdrop of Delhi. e story expands with pulsating energy as the faith and determination of our protagonists are put to the test.

Where RRR separates itself is in its whimsy. It manages to capture a tight and relatively simple script and catapult it with characteristically high ying action sequences, captivating dance numbers, and heartfelt chemistry between our leads. RRR is at its best when it doesn’t take itself too seriously. It somehow strikes a great balance between the inconceivable and the intimate.

It's continuously engaging, a barrage of dopamine, and de nitely one of the better ways to kill three hours without even knowing it.

by SOFIA LAMMALI

Loosely based on a real life serial killer who targeted sex workers in the holy Holy Spider employs a split narrative framework. One narrative follows the perspective of the serial killer, another follows a journalist’s attempts to unmask him. A lesser lm would have made these narrative switches confusing and messy, but Holy Spider manages to weave these two threads together in a really e ective and powerful way, o ering a chilling insight into the psychology of a serial murderer and religious fanatic.

Criticism of the lm has quite justi ably focused on how the victims are dehumanised and discarded in the plot – never fully realised as people. Director Ali Abbasi instead uses this particular story to make a wider point about how women are treated in Iranian society, in which the serial killer's motivations for killing sex workers are viewed as justi able and a female journalist's attempts to investigate are treated as a nuisance. For most of the runtime, the audience is le in suspense of whether or not he will evade justice. is tension is heightened by Zar Amir Ebrahimi’s excellent portrayal of the journalist, which earned her Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival.

It is di cult to separate this story, which follows an incident that happened in 2001, from the current women’s uprisings in Iran – a country nally experiencing a reckoning a er years of women’s rights being consistently undermined. e nal scene of Holy Spider o ers a chilling depiction of how the cycle of patriarchal violence, without opposition, will continue for years to come.