Akira Kurosawa’s entire body of work—from 1943’s brash debut Sanshiro Sugata to 1993’s valedictory Madadayo—challenges viewers to awaken to their responsibility to use their talents unselfishly in a desperate world. 1965’s Red Beard is no exception. Set in feudal Japan, it opens with callow Doctor Read More …
Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari is a quietly spiritual film that gives voice to the immigrant experience in pursuit of the American Dream. The writer-director channels deeply personal sentiments in a story of vast Biblical undertones. The central metaphor of the minari plant embodies hardy resilience Read More …
As an NPR-style radio journalist, Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix) excels at asking questions that unlock people’s hopes and fears for the future. Living in the present—and for that matter confronting the past—without the mediation of a microphone is a different story. After reconnecting with his semi-estranged Read More …
CODA is one of several films from the last year that show young people struggling to carve out or create a normal existence in the midst of circumstances that can and do overwhelm many of their peers and elders. The acronym stands for Children of Deaf Read More …
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is the second animated film by famed director Hayao Miyazaki based on his own Manga series. The film’s success was an influential part of the launch of Studio Ghibli, the Japanese animation film studio that has for the last Read More …
This film’s Anatoly is a priest who lives among a remote monastic community as prophet and provocateur. Director Pavel Lungin’s story about him is of course a film, but it seems to be of a piece with the great Russian literary tradition. Anatoly’s actions toward Read More …
Sometimes an act of mercy is also a leap of faith, or at least of hope. Writer-director Hedges’ dysfunctional-family comedy-melodrama is about the risk we take offering a second chance when it isn’t the second, third, or even fourth. Oliver Platt and Patricia Clarkson play Read More …
The childlike Céline/Hadewijch (Julie Sokolowski) believes herself to be undeserving of God’s grace and mercy. Yet she still seeks God and she does so with a passion and an intensity that alarms and disturbs her fellow believers. Unlike others, she is hyper-sensitive to the beauty Read More …
Adapted from a short story by Stephen Vincent Benét, William Dieterle’s film, starring Edward Arnold as the titular statesman and Walter Huston as his diabolical opponent Mr. Scratch, creates additional backstory for farmer Jabez Stone (James Craig) and his relationship with Daniel Webster before Stone Read More …
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” Hood’s adaptation of the brutal South African crime novel Tsotsi by eminent South African novelist and playwright Athol Fugard (who also wrote the film’s screenplay) is about a seemingly soulless young thug (Presley Chweneyagae) whose predatory lifestyle is Read More …