What is the relationship between military duty and human emotion? Clare Denis explores this dichotomy in her film Beau Travail, an adaption of the Herman Melville’s novel Billy Budd transported to post-colonial Africa. Beau Travail tells the story of Galoup, an officer leading a troop of the French Foreign Read More …
John Steinbeck’s 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath opens with a view of the “scarred earth,” then lifts its eyes to consider the scarred people that lived on that earth. It finds these people staggering through the Dust Bowl storms that struck the Southern U.S. in the 1930’s. This Read More …
Most everyone has heard of Bicycle Thieves. Even those who have never heard of neorealism. Even those who might not know the name Vittorio De Sica. It is the original film celebrity — famous for being famous. Woody Allen named it one of his five favorite Read More …
This beautifully animated short film begins before World War I in the deserted and desertified foothills of the Alps in southern France, where the narrator, on a hiking excursion, meets the peasant Elzéard Bouffier. Having lost his family, Bouffier has decided to dedicate the rest Read More …
Appreciation coming. Directed by: Ermanno Olmi Produced by: Written by: Ermanno Olmi Music by: Cinematography by: Ermanno Olmi Editing by: Ermanno Olmi Release Date: 1978 Running Time: 196 Language: Italian Arts & Faith Lists: 2020 Top 100 — #36
A sensitive cultural ethnography of the exotic, much-maligned world of Southern Pentecostalism; a complex study of a character whose many contradictions startlingly combine sacred and profane dimensions; a spiritual exploration of the inscrutable workings of guilt and grace: The Apostle—long labored over by writer, director, producer, Read More …
Spirited Away, perhaps Japanese animation master Hayao Miyazaki’s greatest work of art, is the beautiful and engrossing tale of a young girl, Chihiro, who enters a magical world through an abandoned amusement park. Of course, such a summary necessarily fails to do justice to the Read More …
Agnès Varda tells as much about her own experiences and feelings growing older as she does about the history and practice of gleaning, an occupation that has itself grown old. By placing herself as the documentary’s ultimate gleaner, she collects wisdom about her subjects, her Read More …
Review coming. Directed by: Charles Burnett Produced by: Thomas S. Byrnes Caldecot Chubb Michael Flynn Danny Glover Linda Koulisis Edward R. Pressman Darin Scott Ron Stacker Thompson Harris Tulchin Written by: Charles Burnett Music by: Stephen James Taylor Cinematography by: Walt Lloyd Editing by: Nancy Read More …
In Close-Up, Abbas Kiarostami retells the true story of the trial of Hossein Sabzian who fraudulently convinced a family that he was the famous film director, Mohsen Makhmalbaf. The entire incident comes about in a seemingly innocent way; however, the moral struggle surrounding the deception involves a complex wrestling with Read More …