Cinema: OXIA Sheds Light on Another Lifelong Passion

Diversions Music head honcho OXIA is famed in the worlds of house and techno for his tracks on labels like Bedrock, 8Bit and Kompakt, but he is also something of a film connoisseur…

Cinema is something I’m extremely passionate about, the same way I am about music, even if it’s not as present in my life as the latter. For me, it’s another way of escaping and I particularly like movies that bring up emotion, globally speaking, and that make me think or react. Many movies have changed my way of looking at things.

The movies I like don’t need to be intellectual or cult or anything; I’m equally enthusiastic about small indie movies and big Hollywood productions, as long as the content looks interesting to me, I’m enjoying watching, and I’m in the right mood.

First up, I’m a big fan of Quentin Tarantino’s movies. I really appreciate his work and I often mention Pulp Fiction as one of my favourite flicks, because it’s a really good blend of humour and action, combined with quality directing paying homage to pulp magazines. And don’t forget the incredible cast – and the fact this movie alone resurrected John Travolta’s career and launched Uma Thurman’s. Both are great in this movie!

There’s also Jackie Brown and its obvious Blaxploitation influence. I absolutely love its soundtrack and its atmosphere as well as Reservoir Dogs and its cult ending. I still haven’t managed to watch Tarantino’s latest movie, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood that was in theatres this year, but I definitely intend to.

I also love watching funny movies. A bunch of French movies, of course, but I’m particularly fond of British humor (the Monty Python movies are a good example) or similarly humored movies such as A Fish Called Wanda. I really like this type of completely absurd humor. I could also mention more recent movies like Death at a Funeral, which is this crazy comedy with lots of twists and turns. Every scene makes you laugh and you never get bored. I also enjoy subtle and offbeat humor that deals with everyday life, a bit like Woody Allen’s movies, as well as the more sarcastic variety, like Belgian director’s Olivier Van Hoofstadt’s movie (that has since become cult) Dikkenek, which I adored. The main character, played by Belgian actor François Damiens, is hilarious, and you’ve also got famous French actress Marion Cotillard in it, whose rendition is marvelous, as it’s often the case. You do need to speak French to get it though.

In parallel, in a slightly different genre, there’s this other movie I often mention as one of my favourites, and it’s Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation. I don’t really know how to explain it, but I love the storyline, the atmosphere, and the fact it shows that everything can happen in a lifetime, even things we do not expect at all. I also think I’m a big fan of Scarlett Johansson, who’s gorgeous :) Bill Murray is also fantastic in this movie.

Lastly, in terms of recent films that I’ve enjoyed (often on the plane!), I’m obviously a huge fan of movies about music and so naturally I watched Rocket Man, the Elton John biopic. I didn’t know that much about him and so I learned so many things about this extravagant artist, who’s genuinely a genius.

As for the very last movie I’ve watched, it was Yesterday by Danny Boyle (a.k.a Mr “Trainspotting”, another cult movie, and Slumdog Millionaire, two very different movies I both loved). And so Yesterday is about a struggling musician; one day there’s a giant worldwide blackout and when everything goes back to normal, he realises everyone’s forgotten about the Beatles except him – it’s as if they’d never existed. So, he decides to make it look like he’s the one who’s written all their songs and becomes a star. It’s a light-hearted movie I really had fun watching. For me, that’s what cinema is about: having a good time and sometimes being touched by the characters, even if the movie itself is not incredible.