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  • Drama (138)
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October 12, 2021

Tuvalu, A Playful Homage To The History Of Film

German director, Veit Helmer, made Tuvalu in 1999. It’s a fast-paced, comical, collage that runs the gamut from experimental film to melodrama. There is a little bit […]
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October 11, 2021

The Personal And The Symbolic In Óscar Catacora’s Powerful Film Eternity

It is difficult to move after watching Óscar Catacora’s 2017 film Eternity. It takes a moment or two to find your way out of its pall. […]
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October 11, 2021

Sadko, A Soviet Feast For The Eyes

Sadko was directed by Aleksandr Ptushko in 1953. It was an adaptation of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera, Sadko which in turn was based on even older Russian mythology. The […]
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October 10, 2021

Andrey Zvyagintsev’s The Return

There is more than one return in The Return, and each return orients the narrative in a different direction. Depending on who is returning and from […]
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October 10, 2021

Heritage And Identity In The Night of Counting the Years

As an American, I live in a place where almost nothing predates the 1600 hundreds. American history is above all short. Chicago, the city where […]
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October 7, 2021

The Unfulfilled Potential of The Wall

Julian Roman Polser’s 2013 film The Wall is frustrating. It has an interesting premise, a beautiful location and some very nice cinematography but it is all but […]
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October 7, 2021

A Comparison of The Turin Horse and The Naked Island

Kaneto Shindo released The Naked Island in 1960. A half century later later Bela Tarr released The Turin Horse. Both films have minimal dialogue. Both feature two people […]
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October 6, 2021

Three Movements, Three Adjectives: Surreal, Absurd, Magic Realist

In Defense of Meaning There is surely an irony in trying to define three words each of which stems from movements that problematized meaning. All […]
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October 6, 2021

Tomu Uchida’s Beautiful Film Love, Thy Name Be Sorrow

Love, Thy Name Be Sorrow is based on a Japanese folktale. It is not a hero’s journey but Joseph Campbell would recognize the narrative elements involving […]
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October 5, 2021

Ildikó Enyedi’s On Body And Soul

White is not a color. White is generated by the presence of the full spectrum of visible light. Figuratively, white can be seen as a […]
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October 4, 2021

The Red Phallus: A Harrowing Film From Bhutan

The Red Phallus is a brutal film. It treats its characters in a blunt matter of fact manner, where there is little room for rationalizations, […]
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October 2, 2021

John Waters’ Mondo Trasho

This is a profoundly unappealing film, and I’m guessing that is what John Waters was after. The whole film has a certain “fuck you” quality. […]
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October 2, 2021

Jafar Panahi’s Multi Layered Taxi Tehran

Jafar Panahi’s Taxi Tehran, also known as, Jafar Panahi’s Taxi, is a masterpiece. Not only is it an amazing piece of filmmaking, but it was […]
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September 30, 2021

The Wolf House A Completely Unique Film

The Wolf House has a look and feel like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It uses stop motion animation but exploits the technique in innovative and […]
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September 30, 2021

Crazy Love: Queer Dada

You have to be in the right frame of mind to face down the movie Crazy Love. Its overall attitude is best summed up as “Fuck […]
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September 30, 2021

Nordic Humor In The Northerners

I’m sure that the title The Northerners has some kind of special resonance in Dutch, but for me, a foreigner, the title might as well apply to […]
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September 28, 2021

Issa Lopez’s Tigers Are Not Afraid

Issa Lopez’s 2019 film Tigers Are Not Afraid has a strange relationship to Tarkovsky’s Stalker. It has too many Stalker like elements to be a coincidence. Tigers Are Not Afraid is set […]
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September 28, 2021

Before Parasite There Was Borgman

Seven years before Bong Joon-ho made Parasite, Dutch director Alex van Warmerdam released his film Borgman. The two films have superficial as well as substantive similarities in both […]
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September 26, 2021

If You Haven’t Seen A Tsai Ming-liang Film, Start With The Hole

Tsai Ming-liang films can be difficult to watch. The slow pacing is sometimes challenging, the randomness as well, and his films can also burst into […]
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September 26, 2021

Politics and Transcendence In The Tied Up Balloon

I’d guess that about one-quarter of the Privarzaniyat Balon was lost on me but the three-fourths that I understood were wonderful. Had I known more about Bulgarian […]
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September 17, 2021

The Quiet Absurdity of Sylvio

Absurd films can often be aggressive. They throw bizarre imagery at you in order to make you laugh and to challenge your perceptions. Sylvio is completely absurd […]
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September 12, 2021

Niles Atallah’s Rey

Niles Atallah’s 2017 film Rey is a cascade of associations and references. The premise and plot are simple. It is a decent into madness, road […]
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September 2, 2021

A Lion, A Tiger, A Leopard, and Mussolini Walk into a Movie, or The Strange Case of a Film Called Il Potere

​Say what you like about the movie Il Potere (The Power) but it took some seriously “grandi palle” to make it in Italy in 1971. It would take […]
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