- “Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse” Whips Landmark Franchise Back into Shape (October 13, 2026)
Here’s what fans of the legendary “Castlevania” series want to know: “Belmont’s Curse” is as good as you hoped it would be, maybe even better. It is a rollicking throwback to the side scrollers that were so formative that they launched a genre—the term “Metroidvania” owes half its portmanteau to this series—while also being clearly made by modern, brilliant developers. It seems like we get a couple great Metroidvanias every year lately with series like “Dead Cells” and “Hollow Knight” taking the gaming world by storm, and “Belmont’s Curse” is the best, at least so far, for 2026: A gripping reboot that remembers what made this franchise an influential success in the first place while never feeling like pure homage. It’s fun, challenging, and addictive. Just like the “Castlevania” games you remember.
“Castlevania” actually turned forty last month, but its most definitive game arguably wouldn’t come until 1997’s “Symphony of the Night,” a masterpiece that truly shaped what players except from a Metroidvania with its puzzles, nonlinear level design, hidden secrets, and RPG elements. One can see the DNA of “Symphony,” one of my favorite games of all time, in “Belmont’s Curse,” a game that actually takes place chronologically between 2005’s “Castlevania: Curse of Darkness,” and 1989’s “Castlevania: The Adventure.”
“Belmont’s Curse” opens with Rose Belmont (Abby Trott) arriving in a Paris overrun by skeletons and enemies with her father Trevor Belmont (JB Blanc), one of the most famous characters in the Castle-verse. Shortly after arrival, Rose discovers she’s on her own, pushed to a hero’s quest that includes infamous characters from history, literature, and even recent iterations of this universe—Alejandra Reynoso and Graham McTavish return to voice Sypha and Dracula, respectively, as they did on the animated series. Of course, the main goal is stopping Dracula from unleashing Hell on Paris, but that’s only a slice of the storytelling pie here, one that’s enriched by characters from across the games.
To gather strength enough to take on Dracula himself, Rose seeks out a series of enemies, starting with The Fallen (Ray Chase), and moving on to none other than Joan of Arc (Erica Lindabeck) and Medusa (Melique Berger), before about a dozen others. When Rose defeats a boss, she not only gains a power from that enemy—like Petrifying Gaze from Medusa or an amazing power to shoot flames from the ground from Joan that became by go-to through most of the game—but they become a sort of ally, a character to whom Rose speaks as if she’s keeping it in her satchel. The very narrative structure of “Belmont’s Curse” keeps it fresh in that Rose isn’t just growing stronger like a standard RPG with new weapons and spells but almost assembling her own team of Castle-vengers.
Of course, to do so requires an incredible amount of traversal. The Metroidvania is partially defined by nonlinear level design, and how it works can be essential to the success or failure of a game. “Belmont’s Curse” doesn’t have a gigantic map, but it does have one that keeps opening up new sections as Rose gains power. For example, a section may not be reachable until Rose learns how to dash or double jump, which means you’ll just have to come back later. The developers of “Belmont’s Curse” use this technique to guide you through the game without ever feeling like they’re doing so in a straight line. In a time when hand-holding has become a hot topic with the controversy around “Marvel’s Wolverine,” this game does just the right amount of it, although I’ll admit to wandering for about an hour at one point because I couldn’t figure out for the life of me what the story wanted me to do next.
Other than that little blip that could be written off by a long week, “Belmont’s Curse” brilliantly rewards exploration, forcing you to backtrack and check your map to see what you might have missed but also designing the game in such a way that you will often organically stumble upon where you need to be. One can tell that it was developed by the team behind the incredible “Return to Castlevania” expansion for “Dead Cells,” one of the best games of its era. Konami saw how well that worked and passed the whip to them for this revival, which is one of the smartest decisions this historic company has ever made.
While combat in “Belmont’s Curse” might look rudimentary to an onlooker, there’s more nuance to it than merely strike and dodge. Rose comes across over a dozen weapons of increasing strength that can be chosen based on preferred gameplay, and she utilizes the aforementioned Arcanas or powers of those she defeats, which can also be upgraded through gameplay. It’s not an overwhelming amount of RPG customization, but just enough to allow a playthrough to feel personal and pliable.
Finally, there’s the look of “Belmont’s Curse,” something else that might initially seem dated to someone stumbling into the room but hides remarkable detail, often in the painterly backdrops. From levels set in Paris & Notre Dame, from a wicked Clock Tower down to slimy Catacombs, the levels in “Belmont’s Curse” are one of its greatest strengths, filled not just with challenging puzzle design but marvelous visual cues and inspirations. If the game has a technical weakness, it’s a repetitive and somewhat exhausting score that feels like a throwback to the ‘80s and ‘90s iterations in this franchise but can be an aural enemy when you’re struggling with where to go next.
In the end, “Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse” should totally satisfy both hardcore fans of this series and those who have never picked up a Vampire Killer. With great voice work, beautiful level design, and vibrant storytelling, it’s a reminder of why Metroidvanias became an entire genre. And maybe that no one does it better than Konami.
The Publisher provided a review copy of this game on PS5. It will be released on October 15, also on Nintendo Switch, Windows, and Xbox Series X.
- NYFF 2026: “Artificial” and Closing Thoughts (October 13, 2026)
“Brilliant. And scary.”
That was my instant reply to a text from a friend the morning after we saw the world premiere of Luca Guadagnino’s “Artificial” at the New York Film Festival. The NYFF has not been known for world premieres, or least it wasn’t till last year, when A24 unveiled Josh Safdie’s “Marty Supreme” in a surprise screening event, launching it toward great critical acclaim, a world box office near $200 million, and Oscar nominations including Best Picture. That success reportedly inspired other distributors to see the festival as a place for world premieres, and it may have inspired the NYFF as well: this year it hosted seven.
As has been widely reported, Guadagnino’s film was produced by Amazon MGM, but then dropped and picked up by Neon. Did the larger company fear Silicon Valley’s reception of the film? While “Artificial” takes a probing approach to AI, it doesn’t come across as an indictment of the forces producing it. Rather, it is a very engaging, dramatic and sometimes quite funny portrait of a particular slice of that culture, one that developed over several years and led to a particularly notorious incident: the attempt of the board of OpenAI to oust its charismatic CEO, Sam Altman, and his fast and successful campaign to turn the tables and overthrow his opponents.
What do such boardroom machinations have to do with the promise and perils of Artificial Intelligence? Actually, “Artificial” makes a strong case that the human element, all the imponderables of personality, ego and conflicting agendas, shapes how this technology is being ushered into the world, and what it may do to it.
The film, please note, doesn’t predict anything–neither utopia nor dystopia. Yet in focusing on the recent past rather than the impending future, it shows how the rapid development of AI has posed an accelerating set of questions and problematic possibilities. At the Q&A that followed the NYFF premiere, the author of the film’s original screenplay, Simon Rich (former SNL writer and son of columnist Frank Rich), said he’d been concerned with AI since a childhood friend warned him of its dangers. He’s evidently studied the subject in depth, because the script of “Artificial” brings a sense of authenticity to a complex story even while necessarily condensing it. That Rich’s fast-paced dialogue may sometimes overwhelm viewers with flurries of tech jargon only serves the story’s immersive flow.
It begins in Toronto in 2003 when a 17-year-old native of Russia, Ilya Sutskever (Yura Borisov), enters the lab of future Nobel Prize winner Geoffrey Hinton (a terrific Mark Rylance) and so impresses the brilliant professor that a partnership is soon born, one that will take them to Silicon Valley and the hallways and workspaces of Google. A decade-plus later, their pioneering work on AI attracts the interest of Stanford dropout Sam Altman (Andrew Garfield) and his pal Elon Musk (Ike Barinholtz). The charming but morally slippery Altman recognizes the genius of upright, idealistic Sutskever and offers a corporate collaboration, one that’s meant to bring immeasurable benefits to the human race, while of course enriching the technology’s masterminds.
OpenAI is born in 2016. The boardroom battle that forms the story’s crux comes in 2023. In the intervening years, we see the emergence of a culture of fast-living, celebratory young people who are forcing the onset of a technological revolution the nature of which no one understands. For viewers who’ve followed this tale in news reports and magazine articles, it’s fascinating to see how Guadagnino and Rich bring the characters, their labors and conflicts to life. But perhaps the best thing about the film is that it doesn’t require any advance knowledge of its subject and milieu; newcomers are just as likely to be swept up in its torrent of events and emotions.
This is filmmaking of a very high order. Arguably the best thing Guadagnino has done (it’s leagues beyond his “After the Hunt,” which opened the NYFF last year), “Artificial” has a great sense of atmosphere and a constantly evolving narrative drive. As for the acting, it might be envisioned as a describing a semi-circle. On one side, there’s the film’s most focused and realistic performance (and the one that will deservedly garner the most praise), Borisov’s Ilya Sutskever. On the other side, there’s Barinholtz’s cartoonish Elon Musk, which is so broad it almost doesn’t work.
In between these extremes, and borrowing elements of both, Garfield’s Sam Altman is forceful but duplicitous, a gifted leader and a quasi-sociopath. The more the story progresses, and especially at the climactic showdown with Sutskever and OpenAI’s board, the more crucial Altman’s personal power becomes. He’s obviously not the only billionaire calling the shots in the AI game, but as a type, he makes you wonder: Do we really want the planet’s future in his hands?
The world premiere of “Artificial” at the NYFF had an eerie timeliness. Although it could not have been predicted by the filmmakers or the festival, just a month before the film’s screening, a 27-year-old AI researcher named Jacob Coxon, who had worked at OpenAI and resigned from Anthropic, issued a statement saying, “The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade…[M]any executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible—but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger.”
That warning has reverberated around the world, and has led to wide discussions about the dangers of AI and the need to contain them. Among other, greater consequences, it might well make “Artificial” the most important dramatic movie of 2026. And while I understand Neon’s Oscar strategy of releasing the film on Christmas Day, I came out of its world premiere not only shaken and dazed, but also wishing it could go into theaters the next day.
Notes on some of the other world premieres at the 2026 New York Film Festival:
Mani Haghighi’s “I Deserve a Lover Whose Every Rise Sets Fiery Dooms Raging Across the Skies” is a documentary portrait of a two Iranians as ecccentric as the film’s title: painter and conceptual artist Nasser Bakshi and his partner Roghayeh Najdi. The duo have assembled a vast archive of art works and found objects that chronicle the lives of ordinary Iranians across generations, and the film (which was shot just prior to the current U.S./Israel war on Iran) explores their world in an amusingly digressive and unconventional way. A leader in the post-Kiarostami generation of Iranian filmmakers, Haghighi is not primarily a documentarian (his masterpiece “A Dragon Arrives!” really deserves a belated U.S. release) but it’s great to see a film of his in the NYFF.
I imagine that Tony Gilroy’s “Behemoth!” will have its admirers, but I am unfortunately not one. Which is a shame: I’m a fan of Gilroy’s Jason Bourne scripts and especially his complex, brainy 2007 thriller “Michael Clayton,” which he wrote and directed. His new film begins promisingly, as a professional cellist (Pedro Pascal) enters a Los Angeles recording studio to work on the score of a new movie. Gilroy reportedly worked with nine composers in fashioning the musical dimension of his drama, and that element of the movie does have its pleasures and fascinations. But they merely form the aural wallpaper of a hodgepodge story that jumps around in time and space chronicling the cellist’s soap-operatic life. While Pascal, one of our best actors, gives an energetic, committed performance, the character never becomes more than a philandering boor.
Tom McCarthy’s “The Statement” is even more tiresome than Gilroy’s film. This numbing talkfest is a dramatization of a literal meeting that took place over three days in October, 1980, in a Florida hotel. The participants were 20 or so scientists and policymakers assigned by the U.S. Congress to come up with a statement about carbon dioxide and climate change. The film offers some nice performances by actors including John Turturro, Paul Rudd and Paul Giamatti, but its drama is as boring as the premise sounds.
In ranking the films of 2016, I put Ava DuVernay’s “13th” in the number one spot. This terrific documentary looked at the way the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, was misused to create a new form of slavery in the American prison system. The film got and deserved widespread critical acclaim, but that general approbation almost surely won’t greet its sequel, “14th,” which had its world premiere in the Closing Night slot at the NYFF. For the reasons why, please see Jourdain Searles’ review.
- In “VisionQuest,” Identities Might Change, but Family Is Forever (October 12, 2026)
The trilogy that started with “WandaVision” and continued in “Agatha All Along” culminates in Marvel Television’s “VisionQuest.” And that title is more than wordplay. Like the previous seasons, this final chapter in the “WandaVision” Trilogy explores a different side of the Maximoff Family Saga, yet it follows franchise rules. How? By holding up a mirror to its main character, watching them shatter, and seeing whether they can rebuild the pieces into someone new.
“Who could it be? Believe it or not, it’s just me.”
Named for indigenous rites of passage, a vision quest is a spiritual, self-reflective tradition that typically marks the transformation from boyhood into manhood. Here, series creator Terry Matalas—and his writers’ room—guide White Vision (Paul Bettany) on a quest to go from synthezoid to personhood. Wish him luck. The obstacles are more than a notion, and Vision’s head is filled with more personalities and emotional upheaval than Riley in “Inside Out.”
Arriving exclusively on Disney+ on October 14, we find White Vision in Edinburgh, working in a pub and trying to relearn what it means to be human-ish. The original Vision earned his humanity and died with it intact. The hexed version, resurrected by Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), was a husband and father. This new iteration of Vision is confused. He’s not the empathic being he used to be, but he isn’t the weapon the S.W.O.R.D. Agency (Sentient Weapon Observation and Response Division) wanted him to be. The question of who he’s become bothers him more than the antagonistic Ultron (James Spader) who lives in his attic.
“This house is architecturally and emotionally unstable.”
(L – R) James Spader and Paul Bettany in VisionQuest exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel. © 2026 Marvel. All Rights Reserved.
Yes, Ultron lives upstairs. Yet Vision’s home doesn’t exist in the real world. It’s a virtual reality replica of a family manor that he shares with various A.I. siblings from Tony Stark’s lab: J.A.R.V.I.S. (James D’Arcy), E.D.I.T.H. (Emily Hampshire), F.R.I.D.A.Y. (Orla Brady), D.U.M-E (Henry Lewis), U (Jonathan Sayer), and the previously mentioned big daddy Ultron. That “Inside Out” reference comes into finer focus here. They all live together in Vision’s head, helping with his daily life, while serving functions closely aligned with their original purposes. “VisionQuest” is all about family—whether fast, furious, or otherwise. That’s why I gave Ultron a patriarchal title; despite villainous tendencies that are as deadly and hilarious as ever, the MCU’s Evil Pinocchio sees himself as Vision’s father.
“When a monster has your son, don’t be the ship. Be the goddamn king.”
In a surprising reversal, White Vision doesn’t see himself as a father. In his mind—if not in his heart—those memories and that life belong to someone else. That’s bad news for Thomas Shepherd (Ruaridh Mollica), a Scottish lad who emerged from a near-death experience with Tommy Maximoff’s memories (and his speed powers). Which is why the assassin known as Paladin (Todd Stashwick) is holding him hostage.
If that sounds complex, this game of cyber cat and mercenary mouse has only begun. Or maybe that’s mercenary cat and cyber mouse. Turnabouts, twists, and callbacks come at us fast in “VisionQuest,” but even without knowledge of the “Avengers” movies or the rest of the trilogy, it’s not hard to keep up (although it’s a lot more fun when you recognize the Easter eggs). Either way, this 8-episode run is fun and funny. It’s also high-octane and deadly, while interrogating the nature of identity.
“What is grief, if not love persevering?”
“WandaVision” was a psychological sci-fi thriller, “Agatha All Along” was a paranormal portal fantasy, but “VisionQuest” is a cyberpunk family adventure with big nods to classic TV and pop-culture films, and embellished with a cake topper of a serial killer known as Butcherbird. Underpinning the action and drama, the series leans on the history of synthezoids, going back to 1939 and the Synthetic Man—the original Human Torch. Along with that touch of Marvel trivia, it mentions Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Daredevil, Punisher, and Werewolf by Night, or possibly Man-Wolf. A lot is going on. One could call it an MCU and Marvel Comics smorgasbord, but the show takes moments to breathe. That’s when it gets philosophical: When does something synthetic become “real”? What defines family? Is a soul defined by the body it inhabits or the memories it holds?
With its delightfully retro world-building, layered banter, and performances that paint rich character arcs filled with yearning for greater meaning in a universe that questions their value, “VisionQuest” may lean too hard into its poetics. Perhaps? The storytelling operates in the slipstream of lines like “What is grief, if not love persevering?” Yet, in its earnestness, “VisionQuest” is charmingly enthralling with just enough interplay between light and darkness to make us feel it—even if it’s a little goofy at times.
(L TO R) James Spader as Ultron and Paul Bettany as Vision in VisionQuest exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel. © 2026 Marvel. All Rights Reserved.
One of the smartest things the creatives behind the series do parallels something the great horror writer Junji Ito does so well: they utilize our understanding of everyday objects, scenarios, and relationships to ground the fantastical in the relatable. Whether it’s sadness, science, sanity, second chances, or a good giggle, its sense of connection allows “VisionQuest” to stick the landing.
Fathers and sons, siblings and sacrifice are the lifeblood of the series, but it’s also about love in every form, including the trilogy’s penchant for epic love stories. The cast is vast; there are too many players to name, but here are a few highlights. Mollica gives us a fully 3-dimensional Thomas, rendered in mercurial shades and depth. Meanwhile, Spader and T’Nia Miller, as a new version of the comic book character Jocasta, give equally complex, emotionally complicated performances with dubious motivations. The pair could easily win Emmys for their performances, especially in Episode 6. Beyond Bettany and Spader, who live up to their calling cards, Mollica and Miller are the revelations here—bar none. Yet that praise comes with a nod to Lauren Morais’s kleptomaniac Lisa, and Hampshire’s E.D.I.T.H.
As I mentioned, this series overflows with plot and character dynamics, but revealing its secrets would spoil it. “VisionQuest” is the Vision’s identity crisis. It’s also about artificial intelligence and personhood—especially poignant topics these days. At the crossroads of science fiction and the MCU, it tackles the poetic and the philosophical while avoiding pretentiousness by leaning into cheesiness and pop-culture nostalgia.
“VisionQuest” does many things, but it’s never boring. Fans of the franchise are being rewarded. This is what happens when the MCU takes its time developing a series, and it’s a fitting finale to what “WandaVision” jump-started.
Full season screened for review. Premieres October 14th on Disney+.
- Cinema Femme Short Film Festival to Close with “Ugly Cry” (October 12, 2026)
The Cinema Femme Short Film Festival has been unfolding at the Music Box Theatre this week, starting yesterday, October 11, 2026. It continues tonight with the true start of its short film programming and closes tomorrow night, October 13, with the Chicago premiere of Emily Robinson’s “Ugly Cry,” followed by a Q&A with writer/director Emily Robinson, stars Aaron Dominguez & Robin Tunny, and moderated by our very own Marya E. Gates. Robinson will also receive a Tribute Award that evening, an award that has gone to people like Dawn Porter, Isabel Sandoval, and Jennifer Reeder at past events.
This year’s program was put together by Emily Jacobson, Allison Torem, Aja Essex, and our very own Cortlyn Kelly, who said, “Year after year, Cinema Femme Short Film Festival continues to showcase and platform the excellence of women and non-binary filmmakers. To be a part of the 2026 programming team was simultaneously an honor and an opportunity to witness stellar creativity and storytelling. In contributing to this year’s curation, it’s evident that no matter the state of the landscape, these voices will never be silenced. Cinema Femme creates and maintains space for these films to be shared and seen.”
There are two programs of shorts tonight (at 7pm and 9pm), followed by an awards ceremony tomorrow night, including the presentation of the Chaz Ebert Phenomenal Person in Film Award. The Tribute Award and subsequent screening of “Ugly Cry” begins at 6:45pm, followed by a third program of shorts at 9pm.
Go here for more information and to get tickets.
- Devotion is Deeply Human: Bassam Tariq and John Cho on “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” (October 12, 2026)
Far from excessive, and not a copy-and-paste error, each “Your Mother” in director Bassam Tariq’s “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” carries pointed weight. It references the Islamic hadiths that recall the Prophet Muhammad’s answer to the question, “Who deserves the best of you?” To this, Muhammad answers, “Your mother,” three times, then “your father.”
For Latif (Mahershala Ali), a father of three who has just lost his wife, that kind of response sounds more like judgment than a balm, each successive “your mother” a blow to the body and soul. That triptych response exposes the gulf of his own inadequacy: as much as he tries to play the role of provider and protector, he will never be able to care the way his kids’ mother has.
To complicate matters, Latif’s chosen vocation, a hit man for hire, awkwardly clashes with the time he spends praying for mercy and peace at the neighborhood Mosque. When his handler threatens to expose his work to his Houston community unless Latif takes out a Korean Christian extremist pastor, Hwan Yoon (John Cho)–sporting a gold grill and big cowboy hat–the hit man has to choose between more blood or exposure.
(L to R) Actor Mahershala Ali, director Bassam Tariq and actor Jahleel Kamara on the set of YOUR MOTHER YOUR MOTHER YOUR MOTHER, from Amazon MGM Studios.Photo Credit: Jaclyn Martinez
It would be easy to distill the central conflict of Tariq’s film into one between Christians and Muslims (it would overlook the crucial role a group of Mormons, in the throes of Bible study, play in a late sequence in the film), and “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” complicates that notion by showing how the Latif and Hwan are both sides of the same shekel. As Yoon also kills in God’s name, he just uses guns and has the backing of zealots; how different is his work from Latif’s smaller-scale executions? Both men believe they are doing God’s work, searching for the divine in a world that seems so broken and bereft of grace.
That Hwan is Korean is also a significant choice. In past interviews, Tariq has expressed that it was important for the antagonist to be a “colonized Asian” because he wanted “someone who’s got this inferiority complex built into their system of being, where you feel like you’re always taken over by the whites … So then what you do is you end up taking on affectations of other cultures, and something that happens a lot in Houston—particularly Asian communities—is we take on Black affectations.”
Additionally, Tariq’s witty script knows the buy-in to this world that he asks of his audience, and often leans into bits first almost as a way to get surface-level reactions out of the way; Latif is referred to as “Black ISIS” by an enemy assailant while Hwan is clocked as “Kimchi Jesus” by Hatty, the nephew of Latif’s handler, Mike (Laith Nakli).
For Tariq, whose debut feature, “Mogul Mowgli,” focused on another character whose dedication to a larger mission is fractured by personal loss, he views “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” as an extension of the themes he has long loved to dissect in his work. “I think it takes courage to believe. I think what devotion looks like in all of its imperfections is deeply human, and that is what I love to explore,” he shared.
After the film’s rapturous premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, Cho and Tariq spoke with RogerEbert.com over Zoom about crafting the film’s inventive fight sequences (hint: petroleum jelly and glass shards), playing characters who have to contend with answered prayer, and, for Cho, how Hwan subverts and channels his own relationship with faith.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
A question I keep wrestling with around this film is the connection between devotion and extremism, or, phrased differently, how extreme devotion can lead someone to become increasingly dogmatic. In your portrayal of Hwan, though, John, you imbue his extremism with a measure of sincerity.
John Cho: Bassam and I made that decision in tandem. Story-wise, it made sense that Hwan had to be ardently faithful and counterbalance Latif. It wouldn’t work if he were just a charlatan. The conflict only worked because these two people believed in seemingly opposing ideas and then saw what happened. I find even their shared experience at the film’s end fascinating: they have to interpret it for themselves, in their own way.
They both witnessed something that isn’t easily explained, and together they’re left with that question mark. It is one of my favorite scenes: two people so assured in how the universe works confronted for a moment with something they cannot explain.
This may be a personal deep cut here, but John, I had friends and family who were part of an extreme Korean Christian community while at Berkeley. Even if it manifested differently than Hwan’s “ministry,” it felt like you were channeling, or at least tapping into, something culturally specific to Korean culture, cults, and Christianity.
JC: What you are referencing is the reality that rigorous devotion can be cultural. When you combine it with dogma, a desire for community, and a longing to connect with other people… a lot can happen. That mix echoes what the film is about: the distance between the perfect, divine version of how to live life and the version we actually live on planet Earth, with sometimes terrible, flawed people. In the gap between the heights of Mount Olympus, what God may decree, and how that gets lived out in the valley below, there’s plenty of room for interpretation by people with the best and worst intentions.
Bassam, a large part of your work has been giving cinematic real estate to those entrenched in extremist thought. Your 2019 documentary film “Ghosts of Sugar Land” was more personal because you traced your friend Warren’s arc, but what keeps drawing you to this theme? Or has your approach to depicting people in the throes of devotion changed since you started your career?
Bassam Tariq: My friend, Warren–who in the film we called Mark because we did not know if he was a narc or not … we actually thought he was part of the CIA. He was really earnest in his belief. I have always been drawn to people who, in embracing a faith different from their own, jettison a whole experience or sometimes divorce themselves from a certain community. It takes courage to do that. I think it takes courage to believe. I think devotion, in all its imperfections, is deeply human, and that is what I love to explore.
To circle back to the ending, 2 Corinthians 5:7 says, “for we walk by faith, not by sight.” To me, the film captures something profound: what happens when your faith becomes sight? John, it feels like with Hwan, you capture the kind of awe that only comes when it feels like you see answered prayer, or when you see a miracle for the first time.
BT: I think we live in such a materialist world that we want empirical evidence for everything. I think the unseen requires you to move. I think so much of where we are right now is paralysis because people are so in their heads, on their devices, and want things to happen to them. For anything to happen to you, you have to move. You have to take those steps. Faith requires movement and action.
JC: The film explicitly references multiple faiths, of course, but I do see dogma everywhere right now. Everything is becoming dogma. We think in binaries, like devices where things are in zeroes and ones. That is our formation, and I think the point in life is to care for each other, be in communion, and ultimately exist as a community. Faith communities can model it, but it is susceptible, like everything in culture, from politics to culture, to becoming a binary. What are we supposed to do with that?
(L to R) John Cho as Pastor Hwan and Mahershala Ali as Latif in YOUR MOTHER YOUR MOTHER YOUR MOTHER, from Amazon MGM Studios.Photo Credit: Courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios
Your note about community is a poignant one, John, because Riz Ahmed’s Zed and Mahershela Ali’s Latif are both characters who feel ostracized by the communities that they serve and have to come to terms with the fact that they need to realize they’re links in a chain; they don’t have to fill certain shoes alone. What do you find restorative about community that you want to continually depict in your work?
BT: It’s funny because I really hate community too. I love where I come from, but I also run away from it. That is what humbles and frustrates me. The photo work I saw by Jamel Shabazz, a photographer who photographed the hip-hop community in the 1980s, has inspired me. His work is pedestrian; it’s just snapshots of people. Through his work, though, you can tell he loved his people, and because he loved them, he wanted to photograph them. That in and of itself was the art. It wasn’t, “Well, I’m going to wait for the light to come here or do this fancy set up,” … he took a picture and said, “These are my people; this is as they are; they exist, and I love them.”
That “come as you are” approach is my goal: to get to a place where I can just be and be happy with where I’m at. But I think I have a lot of friction that I’m constantly, I think, contending with.
There is a deleted scene where Latif’s son, Qadir, asks why Latif does not use a gun, to which Latif replies, “The sword requires you to move with intention.” I know Mahershela has said that to use a sword means that you’re not allowed to “separate yourself from the repercussions” of your actions because to kill with it is so personal. For you, though, John, your character seems to have no problem with a firearm, so I’m wondering if you feel there’s a “philosophy” of firearms that characterizes Hwan.
JC: What I kept coming back to with Hwan and guns was that using a gun felt “natural” … what does it take for someone to get to a place in their life where killing in that way is normalized? I kept thinking about Samson in the Old Testament and how he used the jawbone of a donkey to kill the Philistines. For him, he was trying to achieve his mission whenever and however he could, using whatever was at his disposal. That singular drive drove him, and I saw it at play with Hwan. Guns are the natural extension of getting things done in our culture, and so using them is as natural as starting a campfire. There’s almost a purity to his use that contrasts with how methodical and thoughtful Latif is with his weapon of choice.
The unique thing about Latif, though, is that he is not wedded to the sword. I need to hear how you came up with the petroleum jelly-glass shard combo. I thought I had seen every way to kill someone on screen before, but this was new.
BT: I never wanted to lose sight of the fact that Latif is a dad. To treat diaper rash, he probably had to have lots of that jelly on hand. When I think about my own experience as a father, the thing I kept always finding in my bags was petroleum jelly because you need it for something, whether it is for a rash or just another area of the butt. I actually hate petroleum jelly, and I remember when my kid got done with diapers I said: “I don’t ever want to touch this thing again because I guess everyone in my family is going to have really dry skin.” I was so happy to be done with that phase, so using it for this film, I kept thinking about how the sequence could serve as a final swan song for the jelly.
JC: To me, petroleum jelly is a very Houston thing. My mother used Vaseline for everything back then. She would’ve put it in sandwiches if she could have. So when I saw that scene where Latif slathered that on his gloves to grab glass, I kept thinking, “God damn, this movie is Houston.”
(L to R) Mahershala Ali as Latif and Jahleel Kamara as Qadir in YOUR MOTHER YOUR MOTHER YOUR MOTHER, from Amazon MGM Studios.Photo Credit: Jaclyn Martinez
Maybe in the sequel, you can use the sword skills you learned in “Star Trek” more, John. I noticed the film features a lot of blown-out windows, which gives certain sequences, like in the mosque and the mansion, a blinding, cold, holy light in a way.
BT: I want to shout out two people: Katelin Arizmendi, our DP, and Akin McKenzie, our Production Designer. They always worked in tandem to figure out where the lighting would go, and you can really see their intentionality in how they lit the prayer scenes in the mosque. For observant Muslims, you’re always aware of the light in the room because the sun tells you the time and what type of prayer you should be doing. What was it like for you, though, John, to be in these spaces?
JC: I was definitely focused on the production design. I kept focusing on how the film feels and looks, atmospherically, like Houston. With the exterior light, you can tell it captures that very specific type of Texas humidity and heat. When we were shooting the fight in the strip club, I was thinking, “What are we doing with the lights in here in this mirrored room? How are we photographing this fight? Is it going to limit us?” But everything was set ablaze in the best way. It never felt generic, and there was always a sense of place.
I’m glad you mentioned “place,” John, because I know your father’s church in Houston was part of the Church of Christ denomination and that its philosophy around worship was “based on the absence of the mention of musical instruments in the New Testament.” It feels like spectacle is so endemic to how Hwan runs his congregation, so what was it like to play a character in a different key than how your conception of worship was framed?
JC: In my dad’s church, that minimalism was rooted in this sense of “Let’s strip down praise to what it is. It should just be people singing to God, and that’s it.” Hwan is very much a maximalist; he is thinking about what he could add. I remember having this conversation with my dad at a young age when I asked why our church didn’t have a piano, guitar, or drums. His response then has stayed with me, and I’m not sure if he was just giving in to teenage me, but he said something to the effect of, “This is what I’m doing, but I generally believe whatever edifies people is what we should be doing.”
I did think of that moving forward; Hwan also is like, “Whatever language is going to be useful in communicating to these people, this is the vocabulary I want to use.” His wardrobe, his affect, it’s all geared around this idea of “How can I get through to these people in their cultural context?” Everything is maximized to that, and he’s adopted a cultural attitude of “any means necessary.” In some ways, in Houston, the quickest way to people there is through loud music, a cowboy hat, etc.
To paraphrase what Paul says in 2 Corinthians, Hwan becomes all things to all people. I’m thinking about what you shared about working on “Columbus” and how Eero Saarinen designed the North Christian Church’s architecture in a way that made you rethink the possibilities of corporate worship. I wonder how much Hwan is thinking about whether his church spaces can win over hearts.
JC: Yeah, that church was very special because they had built it so that the preacher was below the congregation and the congregation surrounded each other, which I thought was a beautiful way to enter a space. Instead of seating congregants in rows facing the pastor, they arranged them so everyone faced everyone else. There was this sense that “the church is us.” The pastor was below the congregation. “We are the church; he is the servant.” That’s an example of a building leading you to conceive of your faith differently, and while Hwan’s setup is different, it subverts what you might expect, too.
“Mogul Mowgli” ends with Zed and Bashir sharing a moment in a bathroom, and then “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother” opens in a bathroom. Was that intentional?
BT: One thing I’ll say about endings: maybe I knew “Mogul Mowgli” would end with the father and son singing to each other. We didn’t know if it worked because we had no money, and we had to do this scene in this little constructed space. I remember Riz was hesitant about it because he’s like, “Okay, so we start at the beginning of the film, I’m on the stage performing for this crowd, and then at the end, I’m going to perform for just my dad. … that’s a weird way to end the movie.” I was like, “It’s going to work, you just have to try it.”
I think at that point, everyone was so tired they just gave in. It worked out that where we end, two people who don’t know how to speak to each other can still have this moment of connection. They embrace, yell, all the while they have shit on their hands. It is a funny, weird, and strange way to end.
With “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother,” I knew we’d end in the bedroom. We also built that bedroom, because we couldn’t film it on location. They wanted to film that in the second week of production. I was like, “There’s no way in hell … this is the last thing that we’re going to film. I don’t care what we have to do, how it’s going to cost us. But this can’t be in the middle or anything. It has to be one of the last things.” It made sense because, wherever the characters went, the actors had to surrender, and that closing scene culminates that surrender.
I know everyone has a different philosophy on acting, but I believe that, when we’re making the film, we’re all also journeying through something similar. I really believe it. So when Latif, Mahershala, or Fatiha surrender, I see that moment as all of us finding that together.
Mahershala Ali stars as Latif in YOUR MOTHER YOUR MOTHER YOUR MOTHER, from Amazon MGM Studios.Photo Credit: Jaclyn Martinez
What I find fascinating about the film is how you subvert Western tropes while also mixing in samurai ones. You swap the revolver for a blade or the hat for the keffiyeh. Tell me more about how you layer and subvert such iconic images.
BT: Samurai films are very similar to Westerns. What I loved about samurai films, in particular, was how much the characters dealt with duty and responsibility. I thought, “What is that modern take on it?” Because I’m Muslim, I was like, “How would those ideas manifest through this Islamic lens?” I thought of “Ghost Dog” and how that character looks at his book and the Scripture he references. I wanted something I knew well, and I wanted to revere it. At the same time, I wanted to subvert it so it wasn’t just Hallmark-esque or propaganda-esque. I also want to challenge the religion because I think the best of cinema does that. It allows us to all feel a bit uncomfortable.
JC: When I read the script, I wasn’t aware of what Mahershala would look like or what my costume would look like. But visually, seeing the signifiers, like the rearranged mosaic pieces, was so satisfying. It complicates the idea that what you are seeing on-screen is a stereotype. It is meaningful to complicate what is expected.
