What is the relationship between military duty and human emotion? Clare Denis explores this dichotomy in her film Beau Travail, an adaption of the Herman Melville’s novel Billy Budd transported to post-colonial Africa. Beau Travail tells the story of Galoup, an officer leading a troop of the French Foreign Read More …
John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath opens with a view of the “scarred earth,” then lifts its eyes to consider the scarred people that lived on that earth. It finds these people staggering through the Dust Bowl storms that struck the Southern U.S. in the 1930’s. This Read More …
Most everyone has heard of Bicycle Thieves. Even those who have never heard of neorealism. Even those who might not know the name Vittorio De Sica. It is the original film celebrity — famous for being famous. Woody Allen named it one of his five favorite Read More …
This beautifully animated short film begins before World War I in the deserted and desertified foothills of the Alps in southern France, where the narrator, on a hiking excursion, meets the peasant Elzéard Bouffier. Having lost his family, Bouffier has decided to dedicate the rest Read More …
The Tree of Wooden Clogs is empathetic to its peasants without sentimentalizing poverty. It appears on an Arts & Faith list for the first time in 2020, testifying to the influence of the Criterion Collection for nudging world cinema’s gems into our consciousness. There are Read More …
The Southern tradition of Pentecostal preaching focuses on power – primarily on the power of the “Holy Ghost”, the “blood of Jesus”, and the declared “Word of God”. The expression of this power is most often offered up as fiery, exuberant sermons delivered to congregations Read More …
Spirited Away, perhaps Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki’s greatest work of art, is the beautiful and engrossing tale of a young girl, Chihiro, who enters a magical world through an abandoned amusement park. Of course, such a summary necessarily fails to do justice to the Read More …
Agnès Varda tells as much about her own experiences and feelings growing older as she does about the history and practice of gleaning, an occupation that has itself grown old. By placing herself as the documentary’s ultimate gleaner, she collects wisdom about her subjects, her Read More …
That To Sleep With Anger represents Charles Burnett on the A&F Top 100 rather than his more lauded Killer of Sheep was one of the bigger surprises of the 2020 list. Perhaps its selection simply illustrates the preference for drama over documentary. But there is Read More …
In Close-Up, Abbas Kiarostami retells the true story of the trial of Hossein Sabzian who fraudulently convinced a family that he was the famous film director, Mohsen Makhmalbaf. The entire incident comes about in a seemingly innocent way; however, the moral struggle surrounding the deception involves a complex wrestling with Read More …