The Monocle Minute

About a year ago, I wrote a column for The Monocle Minute about the decline of eroticism on the big screen. At the time, I was worried that filmmakers and audiences were becoming a little too prudish. Since then, something has changed. The public and the industry alike are evidently not going to allow the “sexless” wave to continue.

At this year’s Venice International Film Festival, Nicole Kidman won the best actress prize for Babygirl, directed by Halina Reijn. Kidman plays a powerful CEO who embarks on a steamy romance with an intern. Though its plot feels like a homage to 1990s erotic thrillers, the film gives viewers a very modern take on the theme. And it is this ability to offer fresh perspectives that’s so exciting about the return of eroticism to cinema, a form that has started to tell many kinds of stories that were previously sidelined in mainstream movies. Take, for example, the forthcoming Luca Guadagnino film Queer, which has numerous sex scenes and stars Daniel Craig as a gay writer in 1940s Mexico City.

Meanwhile, a new version of the soft-core classic Emmanuelle recently premiered in France. The original 1970s erotic drama, based on the novel of the same name, was a cult hit in many parts of the world. This time, Audrey Diwan directs and Noémie Merlant stars as the title character.

So, 2024 is proving to be a rather sexy year in cinema. Take another of Guadagnino’s films, the tennis romp Challengers, with its thrilling love triangle, Rose Glass’s neon-lit Love Lies Bleeding or Karim Aïnouz’s Brazilian erotic thriller Motel Destino. Even blockbuster hit Deadpool & Wolverine is full of naughty sex jokes; it could be the least-puritanical Marvel film yet.

I welcome the news because cinema is about being daring and Hollywood seemed in danger of losing its edge. Thankfully, sex is back in the multiplex.

Fernando Augusto Pacheco is Monocle Radio’s senior correspondent and music curator. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

Just days after being elected as the new leader of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the incoming prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, is already making waves. Yesterday he announced plans to hold a snap general election on 27 October but only “if conditions are right”. After months of scandals, Ishiba is keen to get the LDP back on track and says that the best way to do so is with an election victory.

The dominance of the party has recently been tested, with the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party seeking to muscle in on the LDP’s centre-right territory under its new leader, former prime minister Yoshihiko Noda. Throughout the weekend, the names of Ishiba’s appointees to the cabinet were leaked; these represent a broad selection drawn from across the fractured party. Shinjiro Koizumi, who was one of the favourites to win last Friday’s leadership election, is tipped to be chair of the party’s Election Strategy Commission. Nonetheless, Ishiba will have his work cut out to convince his colleagues that he can be a unifying force.

Following its opening last spring, Dover Street Market Paris (DSMP) has become a magnet for shoppers, designers and others attending Paris Fashion Week, which winds up today. The retailer, led by Adrian Joffe, has been staging intimate concerts, brand launches and creative collaborations throughout the week, enlivening its space on the busy Rue de Francs Bourgeois. Paris-based jeweller Gaia Repossi presented a limited-edition design at the boutique and Irish designer Róisín Pierce launched an art book at the shop’s popular Rose Bakery.

Meanwhile, footwear specialist Philéo Landowski, who is part of DSMP’s designer incubator, invited Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata to create “Avalanche”, an installation featuring wooden chairs stacked on top of each other around the columns in DSMP’s courtyard.

Landowski, who is known for creating artisanal footwear in Portugal, also debuted a limited-edition line of hand-painted Adidas Superstar trainers as part of the project. “Taking liberties with the existing [products], while also respecting them, is what I like to do,” he says.

For the latest news and updates on Paris Fashion Week, tune in to ‘The Globalist’ on Monocle Radio from 07.00 London time.

Karl Ove Knausgaard is one of Norway’s most celebrated writers since playwright Henrik Ibsen. After achieving renown in Scandinavia for his first two novels, Knausgaard became a global literary sensation with his six-volume autobiographical epic My Struggle, which was published in Norway between 2009 and 2011. Here, he tells Monocle about the latest entry in his fiction series The Morning Star.

After growing up in Norway and writing ‘My Struggle’ while living in Sweden, you’re now based in London. Does your location affect your writing?
Maybe in 10 years, it will have an effect. Right now, I just live my life. I have my family, my children, and I write. London isn’t changing me but it is changing my perspective. Being in another country always does that because you are both an outsider and removed from where you come from. So it is a perfect place for me as a writer. I’m always on the outside. It would have been impossible to write My Struggle while based in Norway. You need that distance because writing is such an inner process.

You have engaged in journalism and literary criticism, and have even included essays in your novels. What value do you find in those forms of writing?
For me, writing is writing. I don’t feel any different when I’m working on a novel or a journalistic text, except that the latter is more fun because you get to travel, while my novels are created in my study at home. I started out as a critic because I never thought that I would succeed as a writer. That was actually a good thing. It would have been a nightmare if my first book came out when I was 22; it would have disturbed my psyche completely. It was good to struggle for that first book.

In your new series, ‘The Morning Star’, you write from the perspectives of many different characters. What drew you to that approach?
It’s a direct response to My Struggle, which was so many pages from one person’s mind. That was a kind of limitation that I wanted to break free from and one way to do so was to introduce many voices. So, in the first book of the series, The Morning Star, I had nine different characters; the second, The Wolves of Eternity, is completely outside that world with two characters, one Russian and the other Norwegian. The new book, The Third Realm, is like a reflection on the events of the first from characters who were in the background. And that, at least for me, completely changes the scenes and shows how the world really is.

To hear the full interview with Karl Ove Knausgaard, tune in to the latest episode of ‘The Big Interview’ on Monocle Radio. ‘The Third Realm’ is published in English this week.

At a tough time for downtown districts, we visit San Francisco and Seattle to find out how the urban centres are trying to encourage more footfall and appeal to the public during work and leisure hours.