Godland [2022] – ★★★★ “To get back up to the shining world from there/My guide and I went into that hidden tunnel,/And Following its path we took no care/To rest, but climbed: he first, then I-so far/, through a round aperture I saw appear/Some of the beautiful things that Heaven bears/, Where we came forth, and…
Category: World Cinema
“The Widow of Saint-Pierre” Review
Patrice Leconte (1947-) is a French director and writer known for such films as The Girl on the Bridge (1999) and Man on the Train (2002). Much underrated, he is also the one who directed a historical drama-comedy and Academy Award-nominee Ridicule (1996), as well as an outrageous, black humour-suffused animation The Suicide Shop (2012)….
“The Return of Martin Guerre” Review
The Return of Martin Guerre [1982] – ★★★★ From Hitchcock’s Vertigo [1958] to Mangold’s Identity [2003], there is nothing like a film that makes the audience question the identity of a character, and The Return of Martin Guerre is not only one of those interestingly-premised films, but it is also one based on a true story…
“Height” Review
Height [1957] – ★★★★ Italo Calvino, an Italian writer, said that “a classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.” If we apply this quote to a film, then Height may be one of these classics, too. Based on a novel of 1952 by Evgeny Vorobyov, Height is a…
“White Material” Review
White Material [2009] – ★★★★1/2 White Material is set in one unspecified French colonial African country, and follows Maria Vial (Isabelle Huppert), an owner of a large coffee plantation. Well-known to the area, Maria lives on the estate with her ex-husband Andre (Christopher Lambert), her ex-husband’s father Henri and grown-up son Manuel. However, there are…
“Titane” Review
Titane [2021] – ★★★★ 🔥 Titane hypnotises and mystifies as it repels and shocks, delivering not only a story, but also “an experience”. Titane is the second feature film of French director Julia Ducournau (Raw (2017)) and the Palme d’Or winner of the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. The film is not for the faint of…
“Wings” Review
Wings [1966] – ★★★★★ Larisa Shepitko was a Soviet film-maker who made only four full-length films (her film Ascent won the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival 1977) before her untimely death in a car accident at the age of 41 in 1979. Shepitko’s film Wings tells the story of a decorated…
The “Home Sweet Home” Blogathon: Nowhere in Africa (2001)
Nowhere in Africa [2001] – ★★★★1/2 When I heard about The Home Sweet Home Blogathon, I knew I had to participate. Homes and families have always been such an important theme in films, and it is one of my favourite topics. I previously talked about the meaning of homes in my post “Housing Films: 99…
“Death of a Cyclist” Review
Death of a Cyclist (Muerte de un ciclista) [1955] – ★★★★ Death of a Cyclist is a Spanish-language film that was the winner of the FIPRESCI Award at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival. Directed by Juan Antonio Bardem (Main Street (1956)), this social realist film tells of a couple of secret, privileged lovers residing in Madrid who…
Recently Watched: Raise the Red Lantern (1991), Quiz Show (1994), & Close-Up (1990)
I. Raise the Red Lantern [1991] – ★★★★★ Chinese director Zhang Yimou tells in this film, based on the novel Wives and Concubines by Su Tong, the story of a beautiful nineteen-year-old ex-university student Songlian (Gong Li) who decides to become a concubine in the 1920s China. After her decision, Songlian finds herself in the…
“Departures” Review
Departures [2008] – ★★★★1/2 Departures is the Japanese winner of the 2009 Academy Award in the category of the Best Foreign Language Picture. Loosely based on a memoir by Shinmon Aoki titled Coffinman: The Journal of a Buddhist Mortician, it tells the story of Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki), an ex-cellist who comes to his home…
“Parasite” Review
Parasite [2019] – ★★★★★ Parasite or Gisaengchung is a South Korean dark comedy-thriller from Bong Joon-ho (Okja ((2017)) that won the grandest award at the Cannes Film Festival 2019 – Palme d’Or. And, a well-deserved win, too, since this film must be seen to be believed. In Parasite, the Kim family, consisting of a mother,…
“Museo” Review
Museo (Museum) [2018] – ★★★ This heist movie is by Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacios (Güeros (2014)), starring Gael Garcia Bernal (No (2012), The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)) and Leonardo Ortizgris (Güeros). Loosely based on a real story, the film won the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay at the Berlin International Film Festival 2018, and is about…
“Happy as Lazzaro” Review
Happy as Lazzaro (Lazzaro Felice) [2018] – ★★★★1/2 Alice Rohrwacher may only have three major feature films under her belt (Corpo Celeste (2011), The Wonders (2014) and Happy as Lazzaro (2018)), but this Fiesole-born director proves to be the one to be reckoned with. Happy as Lazzaro is an unusual, surreal and imaginative drama which…
“Everybody Knows” Review
Everybody Knows (Todos lo saben) [2018] – ★★1/2 This mystery-thriller comes from acclaimed director Asghar Farhadi (The Salesman (2016)), and stars such big stars as Penelope Cruz (Volver (2006)), Javier Bardem (Mother! (2017)) and Ricardo Darin (The Secret in Their Eyes (2009)). It thus seems as though this film can do no wrong, but, unfortunately,…
The Greatest Film I’ve Never Seen Blogathon: Pickpocket (1959)
Debbie at Moon in Gemini is hosting The Greatest Film I’ve Never Seen Blogathon, which is a fabulous idea since it is an opportunity for everyone to discover or re-discover classic and “must-see” films, or even find hidden gems. I have chosen to write on Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket because it is considered one of the greatest…
“The Third Murder” Review
The Third Murder [2018] – ★★★★ “People hardly understand members of their own family, let alone strangers” (Shigemori Akihisa in The Third Murder). This film by an acclaimed Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda (After the Storm (2016), Shoplifters (2018)) begins with one scene of a murder in progress. A man kills his boss in cold blood…
“Burning” Review
Burning [2018] – ★★★ “You don’t have to convince yourself that a mandarin orange exists, you have to forget that it does not exist.” (Haemi, explaining the art of pantomime in Burning). In Chang-dong Lee’s film Burning, Jongsoo (Ah-In Yoo) is a country lad who rekindles friendship and begins a romance with Haemi (Jong-seo Jeon),…
Jean Renoir: “La Règle du Jeu” (1939) & “La Grande Illusion” (1937)
Yesterday was Jean Renoir’s 124th birthday, and, to pay tribute, I am reviewing two of this eminent French director’s most famous cinematic creations, which both influenced numerous films made after them and are now considered cinema classics – The Rules of the Game (1939) and La Grande Illusion (1937). La Règle du Jeu (The…
“L’ Amant Double” Review
L’Amant Double (Double Lover) [2017] – ★★★1/2 François Ozon (Frantz (2016), In the House (2013)) is a French director who is uninhibited when it comes to portraying sexuality/erotica on screen and was exploring it freely in his previous films Jeune et Jolie (2013) and Swimming Pool (2003). His latest psychological thriller L’Amant Double is another…
Spotlight on Film 