Charli XCX

“Okay, okay, okay, I have to start here. This is Céline and Julie Go Boating by Jacques Rivette. This was kind of the first... Actually, the second film that I saw that truly, truly blew my mind, kind of left me jaw on the floor. First was 2001, but I just remember feeling like I had never seen anything quite like this. I had never seen anything that was so magical and so... I don't know, just surreal and beautiful and playful all at once. I remember in the final scene when the characters who kind of live in this other... Other house, this other world, Through the Looking-Glass-type world slowly sail across the screen. That was the moment where I was... I don't know, I was almost terrified, actually. It's kind of beautiful and terrifying at the same time, so, yeah, I... I love this film. And now I put it in the bag. Sick.”

“The Shrouds, Cronenberg. I'm a big Cronenberg stan. I was on tour when I saw this film. I kind of like to watch films to escape how repetitive life on the road is, and, I will say, when I first saw this film, I was left pretty confused and I didn't really know what I thought of it. And then I realized, since I saw the film, I think I saw it in May, I kind of haven't been able to stop thinking about this film. I think about it every week. I feel like I discover a new feeling post watching this film. I think about GraveTech. I think about Hunny, the AI assistant. I think about Vincent Cassel's character's Japanese-style apartment in the high-rise building in Toronto. I think the details in this movie are really quite something, and I also think it's very funny. It's kind of come round to be, maybe, one of my favorite Cronenberg movies.”

“La notte. I actually only saw this film recently. I was in Italy. I got married there, and then I took a honeymoon around some islands in Sicily, and I was like, "Okay, we have to watch something Italian." So we watched this. And I think the thing that struck me the most about this film was how unafraid of beauty it is. I think this film is so sumptuous and that is something that I feel people are a little bit afraid of these days, to really film something that is just so fucking gorgeous. I particularly love the party scene, which is a huge chunk of the film, but just the manicured lawns, the beauty of the garden itself, the roses, the beauty of the house. And also there are some details in this film that I particularly love. There's this character who appears earlier on in the film, this woman who is in another room in a hospital, and she is kind of... I don't know, she is fab. She's so fab. And she just appears for a minute and then she's gone again. But, yeah, I think that this was a really special watch for me and it was really nice to watch it whilst I was in Italy.”

“Okay, this might be a stepladder moment. I spend a lot of time in Sweden and I feel like I have an affinity for a lot of Swedish things, whether that be Robyn and Yung Lean, or whether that be the little red Swedish Fish candy, or whether that be Bergman. And I was in Sweden earlier on in the year and I was... I was actually on my bachelorette. And so when we were there, we were watching a lot of Scandi films. We were watching Let the Right One In and we were watching a lot of Lukas Moodysson stuff and then we watched Autumn Sonata. And I think this is my favorite Bergman, just because it is therapy, I suppose, and I think the performances in this film are just stunning, and I think to engage a viewer with pretty much a long conversation in a house, and it still feels so poignant and fucking devastating and also full of life. Ingrid Bergman's performance in this is... She's just so fabulous and ridiculous, and her big red outfits, she's diva. She is diva. Troubled diva, but, you know. This film really spoke to me and I cried a lot. And, yeah, my other friends, we were all crying. It was speaking to us in a big way, so, yeah, skip therapy and watch Bergman. Maybe. Actually don't.”