Dick Johnson is Dead forgoes potentially rich avenues of more universal concern, but remains a heartfelt portrait and preservation of the filmmaker’s father. Documentarian Kirsten Johnson is magnificent at integrating certain presentational modes — montage, time capsules — into works of memory preservation. She…
Alain Resnais’s ingenuity as a filmmaker is on full display in his adaptation of one of the British theater’s most complex and rewarding works, Intimate Exchanges. A theatrical octet written between 1982 and 1983 by prolific playwright Alan Ayckbourn, the work is comprised of…
Over the course of his half-century career behind the camera, 72-year-old French master Philippe Garrel has traversed a multitude of styles. From his 1964 debut project, Les enfants désaccordées alone, one can already see the idiosyncrasies and trademarks that would define his career. But…
A driving force behind the work of Andrew Bujalski is his passion to transcend the vapidness found in so much of contemporary American independent filmmaking. Funny Ha Ha inaugurated “mumblecore” — one of the most important and influential movements in international cinema since the French New…
There’s scarcely been a better time for a film like BPM (Beats Per Minute), with its genuine and rare sense of empathy, and its yearning spirit of liberation from the influence of oppressive forces. Unfortunately, Robin Campillo’s third feature is bogged down by the shortcomings of its filmmaking. BPM follows…
Frederick Wiseman is one of a handful of contemporary filmmakers who can make duration a virtue: Ex Libris uses its staggering, 197-minute runtime to thoroughly examine the institution of the New York Public Library. Going back to the 1960s, Wiseman has proven a master of vivisecting spaces and…
