Past Lives (2023) – What If Timing Was the Only Thing That Got in the Way
A quiet film that does not demand your tears but earns them. It explores love that lingers, timing that fails, and the silence between what was and what could have been.

Adapted and directed by Peter Brook from the Royal Shakespeare Company’s ‘production-in-progress US’, this long-unseen agitprop drama-doc – shot in London in 1967 and released only briefly in the UK and New York at the height of the Vietnam War – remains both thought-provoking and disturbing. A theatrical and cinematic social comment on US intervention in Vietnam, Brook’s film also reveals a 1960s London where art, theatre and political protest actively collude and where a young Glenda Jackson and RSC icons such as Peggy Ashcroft and Paul Scofield feature prominently on the front line. Multi-layered scenarios staged by Brook combine with newsreel footage, demonstrations, satirical songs and skits to illustrate the intensity of anti-war opinion within London’s artistic and intellectual community.
A quiet film that does not demand your tears but earns them. It explores love that lingers, timing that fails, and the silence between what was and what could have been.
The movie makes it abundantly clear that Meeka becoming an official heir is the most likely going to happen. But if you are expecting to see a movie about Meeka’s perseverance and eventual ascent to the throne, prepare to be deeply disappointed.
Complex relationships between mothers and daughters are far from a new concept, whether the strain comes from abandonment, beliefs, or trauma. In My Only Wish, an Incluvie Film Festival submission, Brenda Gutierrez’s take on her character’s maternal divide comes in the form of abandonment.
Why did Māhū, a term once respected in Hawaiian culture, become so controversial?
In Amazon’s new shark flick, The Devil’s Mouth, terrible tourists finally get their comeuppance while two estranged best friends must overcome their petty squabbles to survive as the rest of their party gets chomped one by one. While it’s by no means an Oscar winner, The Devil’s Mouth is good old fashioned shark week carnage with a tourist critical twist, perfect with popcorn, a friend, and a healthy does of schadenfreude.
“Reboot” can be crass and has much room to improve, but with investments of time and care, could flower out of the seed of a vision.