A woman of unknown origin and, for a time, unknown purpose, Mira (Larissa Corriveau) observes. For some, her observation is distant, silently watching the people…
True objectivity is, practically speaking, virtually impossible when analyzing art. Each individual approaches each work of art, whether film, painting, music, literature, or so on,…
Representation does not equal inclusion. With ostensibly good intentions and plenty of compassion, Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh’s attempt at telling the story of refugee…
Troubled souls trapped: the parameters of a typical Claire Denis narrative are rarely complex. Beau Travail’s French Foreign Legion soldiers were confined to their base…
Pain is not a present sensation. Pain is a memory. Like all sensations, by the time information — be it visual, aural, or anything else…
In dreams, everyone is equal. Regardless of age, status, or character, we all sleep. In sleep, we all dream. And there, what happens is, for…
If who you are is a sin, what are the consequences of simply living your life? Traditional spiritualism clashes with modern individualism in Nader Saeivar’s…
“I have to find a way.” This opening voiceover, soothing yet fraught with anxiety, doesn’t initially sound ironic. It sounds sincere, and fitting, as the…
Couture’s scenario reads like something straight out of the 1950s. Three women — an ingenue model from a humble background, a struggling makeup artist with…
Two young boys, one reserved and one outgoing, become fast friends at elementary school in Kohei Kadowaki’s ambitious and thoughtful animated film We Are Aliens,…
As an adult, returning to watch a beloved film from childhood can be a most delightful experience. That which charmed you then may still charm…
A moment of peculiar poignancy opens Erige Sehiri’s sensitive, if somewhat unremarkable, Promised Sky. A young girl is being bathed by three women as she…
It’s hardly surprising when a filmmaker rejects labels placed upon them by others. To put years of diligent, thoughtful work into a personal project and…
The pursuit of meaning in life is a negatory one. The more one seeks understanding, the more mystery one discovers. The more one learns to…
As landmark movies go, Lisandro Alonso’s 2001 debut Freedom could hardly have been less fitting. A documentary/fiction hybrid chronicling one day in the life of…
What better medium for communing with the spirits than film? Sights and sounds of eras since passed, or visions of things unknowable in reality —…
Can there be any reward for tolerance in an intolerant world? Fatih Akin’s Amrum opens with the arrival of German refugees to the titular German…
Why are filmmakers today so afraid of melodrama? Many’s a recent feature, from the acclaimed (Celine Song’s Past Lives) to the less so (Luca Guadagnino’s…
Chaos reigns in Yasuhiro Aoki’s anarchic, wildly imaginative feature directorial debut ChaO, a whirlwind exploration of the breadth of storytelling potential in animated film. Almost…
The mounting anxiety experienced by the protagonist of Petra Biondina Volpe’s Late Shift — Floria, a nurse on a badly understaffed surgical ward — hardly…
There is a scene, not long into Werner Herzog’s Ghost Elephants, that may explain the purpose behind not only this movie, but the entire catalog…