Relic is a nifty work of ambiguous horror built on the duality of destruction and creation. Relic, the debut feature from Japanese-Australian director Natalie Erika James, is a haunted house drama with a thrillingly cerebral core. Edna, the family matriarch (Australian theater veteran Robyn Nevin),…
Set in the small coastal town of Oiso, Takuya Misawa’s sophomore feature is a crisp, withholding tale of pent-up aggression and toxic masculine friendship. A small crew of young men in matching bomber jackets gamble, smoke, and drink together in a garage, nominally employed…
At the crossroads of about a half-dozen genres and borrowing the best that each has to offer, there’s no other movie quite like Ridley Scott’s Thelma & Louise. It’s remarkable that a Brit previously known for atmospheric slow-burns like Alien and Blade Runner helmed…
Those familiar with Tawainese auteur Tsai Ming-liang will know what to expect from his latest feature, Days, which won the Teddy Award at the 2020 Berlinale. With his trademark slow-burn style, Tsai assembles 46 shots over 2 hours, eschewing script, storyboards, and other conventional filmmaking processes for…
In 2003’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn, Tsai Ming-liang’s gentle ode to cinema, the Taiwanese director’s famously steady camera trains on a handful of moviegoers catching a late-night screening of wuxia classic Dragon Inn. Tsai’s funhouse mirror is subtle and suspenseful, and he carves out a…
Haunting, melancholy, and achingly cool, Louis Malle’s 1958 debut Elevator to the Gallows (Ascenseur pour L’échafaud) laid the cinematic foundations for motifs and aesthetics that are now shorthand for French New Wave. This tautly paced noir thriller, which takes place over the course of…
The Wild Goose Lake is a thrilling neon noir and incisive commentary on the degradation that comes with rapid economic boon. There’s a particularly pleasing synesthetic joy to watching a movie that values style as much as substance; Drive’s shimmering neon palate immediately comes to mind,…
“I didn’t know you never wake up from some dreams.” says Officer 663 (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai), one of many lovelorn characters in Wong Kar-wai’s 1994 cult classic Chungking Express. Shot in less than a month on handheld cameras, it was meant to be something…
Using the infamous Lorraine, France coal miner strike of 1995 as a launchpad for his debut feature, Strike or Die director Jonathan Rescigno explores various meanings of the word “strike” while drawing a line between the class struggle of the miners and its legacy…
“Whatever was going to happen has already happened,” says the protagonist of Marco Bellocchio’s 1965 debut feature, Fists in the Pocket (I pugni in tasca). This is one of many tautologies Alessandro (Lou Castel) will pronounce throughout the film, adding to an already stifling cinematic experience…
