Surviving Lockdown With Mubi

Portrait of a Lady On Fire available in the Mubi library

What with the temporary closure of the Hyde Park Picture House and the lockdown of other venues, I was really missing my regular cinema visits.

I took out a free 90 days trial of MUBI (still available via the Picture House). which I had never used before. You have to give MUBI your card details when you sign up and if you don’t unsubscribe in time you they start charging you monthly until you do. Current rates are £9.99 a month or £95.88 for a year. You might find some other free trials, for example through Amazon Prime.

MUBI is a streaming platform https://mubi.com which they say will work on any device, (computers, mobile devices iPad, iPhone, Android and smart TVs). They have an ever-changing collection of international, classic, arthouse and indie films. It’s a good chance to see films that you missed first time round, and explore ones that you’ve never even heard of before. Every day MUBI adds a new film that stays online tor 30 days, and they’ve just added a lot more from their film library too.To give a glimpse of what is on offer, here are some titles to give an idea of the range:

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) feminist tale of lesbian desire
Frank (2014) comedy
Persepolis (2017) animated story of girl growing up in Iranian revolution
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) dark fairy tale
Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) satire
Orgy of the Dead (1965) cult classic
Army of Shadows (1969) French resistance, suspense
The White Sheik (1952) early Fellini
La Bête Humaine (1938) psychological thriller
Grand Illusion (1937) anti-war classic

Let us know in the comments if you’ve joined Mubi (or other services) and have any recommendations.

Bill Walton

3 thoughts on “Surviving Lockdown With Mubi”

Hello Bill, yes I too took advantage of MUBI’s generous offer. Hardly the same as going to a cinema, but very welcome during our confinement.
I’ve enjoyed some wonderful classics such as Ran, The Servant, Le Doulos, and Park Chan-wook’s Vengeance trilogy, and they occasionally show new prestige releases such as Ema and Bacurau, both great.

John

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They’ve now removed Persepolis from view so I couldn’t watch it, but instead I was directed towards the delightful Virus Tropical (2017), an animation from Colombia.

The layering of several illustrative styles throughout made it come alive in every detail. The same attention was given to each character of the main family, and was wholly enjoyable.

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