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Over the course of its (remarkably still ongoing) 34-season run, Matt Groening has only asked that his name be scrubbed from the credits of The Simpsons on one occasion. Let that sink in for a moment. When jerkass Homer refused to give poor old Abe his kidney not once, but twice, Groening’s name was there. When Homer got botched laser eye surgery and his eyes made that horrible sound as they crusted over, Groening’s name was there.

In a Western film market saturated with Übermensch police propaganda in the form of superhero movies, and an art cinema stuffed with placifying bourgeois masturbation, it's easy to forget the revolutionary power cinema can hold. And yet images continue to cut through state disinformation—whether it's the proliferation of videos on TikTok depicting the war crimes being committed in Gaza, or the utility of social media during the Arab Spring protests between 2010-2012.

What is a courtroom if not a staging ground for storytelling? Every aspect of a trial, be it criminal or corporate, hinges on two opposing sides laying claim to a particular version of events, each new witness and piece of evidence placed in a neat order to lead their audience, the jury, to a set conclusion. In the end, the victor will be the side that spins the most convincing yarn, regardless of any overriding “truth” of the matter.

In I, the Executioner (1968), there's little room for complacency. The opening frame—a woman's face, locked in silent terror as she faces an off-screen assailant—sets the tone for a particularly distressing picture, one that begins with an expressionistic montage of sexual violence and only delves deeper into the mechanisms behind human misery. Certainly, this isn't a film for those of a gentle disposition.