Reviews
Oppenheimer, with its achronological historical narrative, crosscuts among different time frames, and though it has just one inevitable outcome (the annihilation of humanity), its biopic structure gives it an inherent tidiness it is constantly working against.
The Barbie doll itself implicitly communicates the paradox of womanhood. Think of the mothers who bought their daughters dolls that promised adulthood would be effortless and beautiful, when they knew that womanhood often meant disappointment, loneliness, and above all, effort.
The film is a stark departure from the mythical terrain of Undine or the hauntological anachronism of Transit. History is here only vaguely alluded to.
Dial has five credited writers and cost 300 million, yet the film plays it safe, which is the worst thing a big budget film can do. It is, as is usually the case these days, an impersonal, idling piece of intellectual property.
The new film by Alain Guiraudie takes place in a world where sexual desire is not just acknowledged as protean and unpredictable but also freely expressed and even accepted.
Casa Susanna is a critical elegy for a time long since passed. The true stories behind these photos offer crucial insight that for years was missing or left as a question mark whenever they were displayed in galleries.
Eleven features and nearly 30 years into his career, it is a given that the form and content of his films are irrevocably intertwined. His controlled aesthetic tends to echo his characters’ meticulous personalities, environments, and routines.
This is a film about two people contemplating the possibilities of what could have been and what still might be, but it is also about the electric charge and covert forces that draw two bodies and souls together.
Alexander Sokurov is renowned for his oblique directorial style, with mesmerizing, painterly effects, so it is surprising that he is proving to have had such influence on the new school of Russian realism.
They both want the relationship to continue, not simply for financial or sexual reasons, but, as it becomes clear, because of things far more significant, and far more connected to their inner selves than their outer circumstances.
Starring the luminous Trace Lysette as a trans woman returning home to aid her estranged, dying mother, Eugenia (Patricia Clarkson), the film dramatizes the conflicts and reconciliations that are spurned by the prospect of death, both literal and metaphorical.
Employing text, voice, and photography in literal, informational modes, What Are the Wild Waves Saying? shows how the most complex questions and quandaries often lie directly on the surface of history.
Unrest exists at the confluence two crucial historical currents. Its title refers to the part of a watch known as the unrueh or balance wheel, whose oscillations regulate the entire mechanism, and thus to the rapid consolidation of factory labor that occurred in the late 19th century.
The film has a knack for unexpected turns, avoiding the obvious in favor of sly emotional crescendos. The Eight Mountains takes care to do just enough dramatic sculpting to make sure its emotional inflection points resonate.