Advertisements Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low is the kind of film you watch in a state of quasi-paralysis. The 1963 noir is both taut moral thriller and enthralling procedural — a film of relentless jaw-clenching tension and compulsive rhythm that sets the…
« read »Advertisements Wes Anderson is, quite famously, a details guy. Perfect symmetry, immaculate composition, and absolute devotion to every tiny element of his dollhouse creations — his work (and that of his behind-the-scenes collaborators) is dazzling in its dedication to the little things.…
« read »Fittingly, Kelly Reichardt's Cannes-closer is a portrait of a power-keg period of history glimpsed from the periphery, and a wry, withering film about living without integrity in an era that demands it.…
« read »Advertisements “The epic [is] for Israelis and the documentary for Palestinians.” That’s how legendary filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard is said to have wryly described Palestinian cinema — as being confined by its political reality to capturing only that reality. In the weeks following…
« read »Advertisements “You have to believe in the illusion, or you’ll go mad.” So says an anonymous speaker in Payal Kapadia’s glittering All We Imagine As Light. The film opens on documentary footage of Mumbai’s hustle and bustle, accompanied by voiceovers from real…
« read »Advertisements Director Ali Abbasi’s breakthrough came by way of Border, a singularly strange fairy tale about a troll who stumbles upon a child trafficking ring while working as a Swedish customs agent. Six years later, there’s little trace of that same eccentricity…
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