As their long-awaited new album ROMANCE is released, comes another remarkable Fontaines D.C. video - and another tour de force by Luna Carmoon.The director who made her music video debut with the intense drama of Here's The Thing (after her acclaimed feature debut Hoard) quickly returns to duties with the Fontaines with an extraordinary piece of work for In A Modern World: a surreal comedy-drama, featuring an incredible central performance from Ewan Mitchell (House of the Dragon, Saltburn) - as a character engaged in the netherworld of a very niche, indeed bizarre and dangerous sport. It's car-jitsu - jiu-jitsu, within the interior of a car. Invented just a couple of years ago, in Chicago, Mitchell's character is the protagonist through which Carmoon explores an absurd yet compelling experience. At first, its just the raw, explosive physicality involved of clashing bodies within a ridiculously small space - which is surprising and hugely intense in itself.Then the director adds another dimension to the brutal clash of bodies - what is happening outside the car, the voyeuristic relationship of passers-by who become the audience to Mitchell and a succession of combatants, a kind of sexual frisson that is created through the intensity of the action. The parallels with another in-car activity is undeniable. It's Fight Club crossed with dogging. Horrible, painful to watch yet hilarous, it's mesmerizing stuff, a fever dream. And it's hard to undersell how good Mitchell is in this. Or how impressive it is in terms of the vision and world creation by Carmoon. Just great.
Rob Ulitski - 2 months ago