Return to Form Return to Form

In this episode, Ralph and Owen journey into the spectral wastes of British film, asking: what went wrong, and what is to be done? Through kitchen sink realism, folk-horror spooks, socially-engaged documentarians, materially-inclined avant-gardism, and more than a handful of oddballs, the situation seems as underwhelming as it was in 1927, when Kenneth Macpherson opined that “it is no good pretending one has any feeling of hope about it”. Ninety-seven years later, is the landscape still as dispiriting – and why did ‘we’ never get our own New Wave – and why are we still stuck in the kitchen sink? Through cash, ‘character’, class, and capital, there’s a lot to unpick. Regardless, the boys do their best to keep the aspidistra flying.

Who do they discuss? Who don’t they! Anderson, Macpherson, Grierson, Hogg, Keillor, Reisz, Clark, Watkins, Jarman, Brook, Greenaway, Powell & Pressburger, Reed, Lean, Hitchcock, Loach, Leigh. The lot.


00:00:00:00 Intro
00:04:20:04 Early Silent British film
00:05:27:03 Talent leaving Britain for America
00:06:52:14 British documentaries and municipal filmmaking
00:09:09:17 The Studios of the interwar years
00:12:01:16 Powell and Pressburger
00:15:22:14 Class and politics in film
00:17:56:16 Free Cinema movement
00:24:30:13 Woodfall
00:28:15:05 The Third Man
00:30:37:10 60s-70s studio films/Merchant Ivory
00:31:54:13 60s counterculture
00:35:12:00 Folk horror
00:37:04:09 London Filmmakers Coop
00:48:04:15 Playwrights
00:55:27:00 The Paternalism of Social Realism
01:00:11:03 Pedro Costa as a counterpoint to social realism
01:04:16:13 Peter Watkins
01:09:47:05 Lindsay Anderson making an arse of himself
01:10:55:10 Peter Wollen's 1963 essay on the British New Wave
01:13:10:09 Kenneth MacPherson's 1927 article about British film
01:19:02:16 TV's influence in the 70s-80s
01:19:16:09 Alan Clarke
01:23:05:18 Sally Potter
01:30:10:24 Peter Brook
01:31:47:19 90s
01:32:34:21 British art film/essay films
01:37:09:20 00s and 10s
01:40:06:10 Joanna Hogg
01:43:08:18 Borderline (Kenneth Macpherson)
01:48:13:19 Peter Greenaway
01:55:09:09 Top 5 worst tendencies
01:57:31:14 Alternative Top 5 British films
01:59:59:23 Conclusion



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This week, we’re slipping into the proverbial cinematic pool with a brief pitstop in Bradley Cooper’s Bernstein-biopic Maestro and a longer look at a luscious new restoration of Lou Ye’s Suzhou River (2000). We also figure out what it means to be ‘Shanghaied’.

In a year when so much felt so over, film seems so beautifully back. Casting their eyes over twelve months, four festivals, and countless hours of chthonic kino encounters, the boys sat down to boil the broth of 2023; setting out to identify their top 10 films of the year.

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6hdAjXtGPpeQTCcuJ3KNmH?si=Ud_f__90TOSa28tzYPA5GQ

Listen on Apple:
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00:00:00 Intro
00:05:18 Honourable mention: Trenque Lauquen (Laura Citarella)
00:11:11 Honourable mention: Reality (Tina Satter)
00:11:58 Honorable mention: How To Have Sex (Molly Manning Walker)
00:15:17 Totem (Laura Aviles)
00:17:47 Showing Up (Kelly Reichardt)
00:21:59 Allensworth (James Benning)
00:23:46 The Sweet East (Sean Price Williams)
00:25:50 In Water / mul-an-e-seo (Hong Sang-soo)
00:28:10 May December (Todd Haynes)
00:29:48 Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (Phạm Thiên Ân)
00:32:43 One Fine Morning (Mia Hansen Love)
00:35:28 Afire (Christian Petzold)
00:41:49 Samsara (Lois Patiño)
00:43:42 Passages (Ira Sachs)
00:48:09 The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Glazer)
00:50:23 The Daughters of Fire (Pedro Costa)
00:51:53 Close Your Eyes (Victor Erice)
00:55:45 Do Not Expect Too Much of the End of the World (Radu Jude)
00:59:48 Honourable mention: Rotting in the Sun (Sebastian Silva)
01:00:45 The official RTF Top 5

Jean Eustache is hard to pin down. A French auteur who combined the brevity of Bresson with the romantic rambling of Rohmer.



Eustache often preferred telling to showing. Yet somehow these moments of gossip and reminiscence are powerfully cinematic. A spell is cast with judicious editing, subtle performances and gentle fades to black.



After a short break the boys return to send new vibrations down your Eustachian tubes, prompted by a recent BFI Southbank retrospective.

LFF may be over, but the takes are not. For their final derive through the halls of contemporary arthouse film, Ralph, Owen, and George take stock of flicks both fair and foul: Jonathan Glazer’s tautly rigorous Zone of Interest, Molly Manning Walker’s spring-breaky debut How to Have Sex, Moin Hussain’s service station sci-fi Sky Peals, Wim Wender’s flabby kunstlerfilm Anselm, Linklater’s poorly-aimed Hit Man, Hamaguchi’s ham-fisted Evil Does Not Exist, Lila Aviles’ raucously intimate Totem, Pedro Costa’s compelling proof-of-concept The Daughters of Fire, and – finally – Close Your Eyes, the much-much awaited return of Victor Erice, in fine and dazzling form.

0:00 Intro
3:09 ZONE OF INTEREST - Jonathan Glazer
34:37 HOW TO HAVE SEX - Molly Manning Walker
57:04 TOTEM - Lila Aviles
1:05:47 HIT MAN - Richard Linklater
1:07:45 ANSELM - Wim Wenders
1:16:26 SKY PEALS - Moin Hussain
1:19:18 EVIL DOES NOT EXIST - Ryusuke Hamaguchi
1:27:12 CLOSE YOUR EYES - Victor Erice
2:01:53 DAUGHTERS OF THE FIRE - Pedro Costa

Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6hdAjXtGPpeQTCcuJ3KNmH?si=Ud_f__90TOSa28tzYPA5GQ

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Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@returntoformpod

Battered and broken, their eyes barely staying open, Ralph and Owen are joined by Berlin correspondent George MacBeth for a second heaving helping of LFF. The stakes are high, covering the likes of Radu Jude’s towering DO NOT EXPECT TOO MUCH OF THE END OF THE WORLD, Steve McQueen’s uneven symphony of OCCUPIED CITY, Mortezai’s unexpectedly bracing EUROPA, Scorcese’s *shrugging emoji* KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON, Franco’s divisive MEMORY, Todd Hayne’s blistering MAY DECEMBER, Luna Carmoon’s drab debut HOARD and Sean Price Williams’ promising debut, THE SWEET EAST. And possibly some other things. We’re tired.


0.00 Intro
2.14 Do Not Expect Too Much From The End of The World - Radu Jude
25.29 Killers of the Flower Moon - Martin Scorsese
44.47 May December - Todd Haynes
55.13 Memory - Michel Franco
1.07.28 The Sweet East - Sean Price Williams
1.20.30 Hoard - Luna Carmoon
1.36.48 Europa - Sudabeh Mortezai
1.53.05 Occupied City - Steve McQueen