When a radical act of mercy and forgiveness serves as the climax of a film, the love it has for all its characters is apparent. When that act references Babette’s Feast, Chef, and Ratatouille, the love extends not only to the characters but to our Read More …
From the start of his feature debut, 2000’s shaggy-dog tale documentary, Mysterious Object at Noon, where the truck-mounted loudspeaker advertisement urges the public to use a particular brand of incense “whenever you want to worship the Buddha…”, the films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul (or Joe, to call Read More …
“I feel like it should mean nothing or everything,” Travis says of the Christianity that he sees professed by others and lived by Martin, “and I can’t get to either place.” This is Martin Bonner is the rare recent film where Christian characters talk like Read More …
It is tempting but insufficient to parse Nazarin as a satire. Buñuel is capable of biting, even scathing satire when he looses his wrath and indignation towards the hyporcritical. He may even be capable of conveying scorn towards the sincere believers, such as Viridiana, who Read More …
Still Life is director Jia Zhangke’s meditation on the effects—personal, societal, and environmental—that occur during the building of the magnificent Three Gorges Dam across the Yangtze River in central China. As the dam moves closer to completion, authorities hold back more and more water, meaning that Read More …
Places in the Heart (1984), written and directed by Robert Benton, won two Academy Awards—Best Original Screenplay and Best Actress for Sally Field. The film also received nominations for Best Film, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (Lindsay Crouse), Best Supporting Actor (John Malkovich), and Best Costume Read More …
Timbuktu is one of several films using the legal system of a religion, and specifically the courtroom, as a space to test our assumptions about that religion and its adherents. Similar to that of Kiarostami’s Close-Up or the Elkabetzes’ Gett, the centerpiece of Timbuktu is a series of court scenes and Read More …
The most famous line in The Red Shoes is probably an early exchange between Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) and Victoria Page (Moira Shearer). The director of a prestigious ballet company asks the aspiring ballerina why she wants to dance. Her reply: “Why do you want to live?” Read More …
“Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper. The storm clouds did not release a ‘gentle rain from heaven,’ but a whirlwind, which has not yet spent its force or attained its full momentum.” – Martin Luther Read More …
