Louder than Bombs: Joachim Trier’s thorniest film might be his best
Long before Joachim Trier made the Oscar-winning The Worst Person in the World and this year’s festival megahit Sentimental Value, there was 2015’s Louder than Bombs: a far stranger, slipperier film worth watching for Isabelle Huppert’s spectral turn alone.She plays a character also called Isabelle, a renowned war photographer whose secrets haunt her family three years after her sudden death.Her teenage son Conrad (Devin Druid) still daydreams in class about the car crash that claimed her life, imagining her final, panicked moments.His brother Jonah (Jesse Eisenberg) and father Gene (Gabriel Byrne) know (and conceal) the truth: that her fateful, split-second swerve was an act of suicide.The film’s cacophony of grief and anxious romance erupt within upstate New York, 6,000km away from the Nordic, millennial anomie of Joachim’s informal Oslo trilogy.
It’s possibly the Danish-Norwegian director’s most turbulent film.It’s certainly his most divisive.I’d go as far to say that, 10 years on, his English-language debut has proven to be one of his most essential works, mapping out the jagged, emotional terrain he would later come to revisit.Across a series of flashbacks (in which perspectives, memories and dreams are interlaced), the family’s matriarch is gradually revealed.She worries more about the ethical dimensions of her work than its active occupational hazards, questioning her responsibilities as both observer and purveyor of suffering.
Not unlike the recovering addict protagonist of Oslo, August 31st, there’s a compulsive edge to her psychology that Trier carefully probes; while her husband willingly gives up an acting career to support their children, she’s unable to submit to suburban life, even after getting caught in the crossfire.How do you return to a home that seems to flourish in your absence? Each of Huppert’s prolonged closeups are burdened by a staggering weight, a gaze that feels impossible to meet.Jonah, now a sociology professor, also finds himself withdrawing from the demands of family life.An arresting opening image lingers on his newborn child tentatively grasping his finger, Eisenberg staring down blankly.(Despite having played countless fast-talking know-it-alls, his performance is appreciably layered here – even if his awful haircut is anything but.
) A retrospective exhibition of Isabelle’s work gives him an excuse to leave his wife at home while he trawls through his mother’s archives, where he’ll discover a previously hidden secret at the edge of a recent photo.An old ex-girlfriend soon beckons.Gene is the most functional member of the family – and even then, he can’t help but sneak around with Conrad’s English teacher (Amy Ryan) or discreetly stalk his son’s eccentric after-school movements to a local graveyard in a sequence inspired by Vertigo.Online, he resorts to creating an anonymised account on a video game to reach out to his increasingly taciturn son, who strikes him down on sight.On the whole, cinema still feels as though it’s yet to catch up with terminally online gen Z men, despite their being one of the most endlessly analysed demographics of the decade.
Trier nails it with Conrad (thanks in no small part to Druid’s seething intensity), a teen who instinctually abuses the hesitance of his permissive, liberal dad, and harbours sexual fantasies both banal and a little troubling.In an early scene, he suffocates himself with a plastic bag when asked to quit his gaming session.A later retaliation against a female teacher catalyses the film’s ugliest moment.Sign up to Saved for LaterCatch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tipsafter newsletter promotionAt the same time, he’s a genuinely perceptive creature.When he’s not gaming or compiling a LiveLeak-worthy playlist of decomposing bodies and surgery footage – “It has to be real,” he insists – he pours himself into a manifesto with a disarming, self-reflective honesty, his scattered thoughts encompassing personal masturbation data, dreams and the integrity of a photo composition.
The punchline is that he intends on sending the soul-baring manuscript to his cheerleader crush (Ruby Jerins).True to his natural, sometimes ill-advised sincerity, Conrad chastises his brother for deceiving his wife, declaring “If I had a girl, I’d never lie to her.” Jonah quickly brushes him off: “Yeah, good luck with that.” Where Trier’s adults are often burdened by shattered idealism, Conrad’s refusal to yield makes him one of the director’s most invigorating protagonists.Louder than Bombs is available to rent in Australia, the UK and the US.
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The gospel according to Peter Thiel: why the tech svengali is obsessed with the antichrist
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. For the past week, my brain has been marinating in billionaire Peter Thiel’s byzantine musings about the antichrist and Armageddon. At this point, I’m pickled.Why, you might ask, does it matter what a billionaire thinks about the antichrist? Good question!To help us understand, my colleagues Johana Bhuiyan, Dara Kerr and Nick Robins-Early have reported on a series of talks given by billionaire political svengali and tech investor Thiel:Over the past month, Thiel has hosted four lectures on the downtown waterfront of San Francisco philosophizing about who the antichrist could be and warning that Armageddon is coming. Thiel, who describes himself as a “small-o Orthodox Christian”, believes the harbinger of the end of the world could already be in our midst and that things such as international agencies, environmentalism and guardrails on technology could quicken its rise
Instagram to bring in version of PG-13 system to protect children, says Meta
Instagram is to adopt a version of the PG-13 cinema rating system to give parents stronger controls over their teenagers’ use of the social media platform.Instagram, which is run by Meta, will start applying rules similar to the US “parental guidance” movie rating – first introduced 41 years ago – to all material on Instagram’s teen accounts. It means users aged under 18 will automatically be placed into the 13+ setting. They will be able to opt out only with their parents’ permission.While the teen accounts already hide or prohibit the recommendation of sexually suggestive content, graphic or disturbing images, and adult content such as tobacco or alcohol, the new PG-13 version will tighten restrictions further
Bose QuietComfort Ultra 2 review: the most comfortable noise cancelling headphones
Bose has updated its top-of-the-line noise-cancelling headphones with longer battery, USB-C audio and premium materials, making the commuter favourites even better.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.The second-generation QuietComfort Ultra headphones still have an expensive price tag, from £450 (€450/$450/A$700), which is more than most competitors, including Sony’s WH-1000XM6
What does the end of free support for Windows 10 mean for its users?
From Tuesday Microsoft will no longer offer free support as standard for Windows 10, an operating system that is used by millions of computer and laptop owners around the world.Figures for September suggest four in 10 of those using Microsoft Windows worldwide were still using Windows 10, despite the introduction of its successor, Windows 11, in 2021.After 14 October 2025, Microsoft will no longer provide standard free software updates, security fixes or technical assistance to Windows 10 PCs.This means computers running the software will still work but it will steadily become more vulnerable to viruses and malware as bugs and security holes are discovered.Microsoft says the more up-to-date system, Windows 11, “meets the current demands for heightened security by default”
Cyber-attacks rise by 50% in past year, UK security agency says
“Highly significant” cyber-attacks rose by 50% in the past year and the UK’s security services are now dealing with a new nationally significant attack more than every other day, figures from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) have revealed.In what officials described as “a call to arms”, national security officials and ministers are urging all organisations, from the smallest businesses to the largest employers, to draw up contingency plans for the eventuality that “your IT infrastructure [is] crippled tomorrow and all your screens [go] blank”.The NCSC, which is part of GCHQ, said “highly sophisticated” China, “capable and irresponsible” Russia, Iran and North Korea were the main state threats, in its annual review published on Tuesday. The rise is being driven by ransomware attacks, often by criminal actors seeking money, and society’s increasing dependence on technology which increases the number of hackable targets.The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, the security minister, Dan Jarvis, and the technology and business secretaries, Liz Kendall and Peter Kyle have written to the leaders of hundreds of the largest British companies urging them to make cyber-resilience a board-level responsibility and warning that hostile cyber-activity in the UK has grown “more intense, frequent and sophisticated”
Equity threatens mass direct action over use of actors’ images in AI content
The performing arts union Equity has threatened mass direct action over tech and entertainment companies’ use of its members’ likenesses, images and voices in AI content without permission.The warning came as the union said growing numbers of its members had made complaints about infringements of their copyright and misuse of their personal data in AI material.Its general secretary, Paul W Fleming, said it planned to coordinate data requests en masse to companies to force them to disclose whether they used members’ data in AI-generated material without consent.Last week the union confirmed its was supporting a Scottish actor who believes her image was used in the creation of the “AI actor” Tilly Norwood, which has been widely condemned by the film industry.Briony Monroe, 28, from East Renfrewshire, said she believed that an image of her face had been used to make the digital character, created by the AI “talent studio” Xicoia, which has denied her claims
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