Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is the second animated film by famed director Hayao Miyazaki based on his own Manga series. The film’s success was an influential part of the launch of Studio Ghibli, the Japanese animation film studio that has for the last Read More …
This film’s Anatoly is a priest who lives among a remote monastic community as prophet and provocateur. Director Pavel Lungin’s story about him is of course a film, but it seems to be of a piece with the great Russian literary tradition. Anatoly’s actions toward Read More …
There is no resolving the debate over which of beloved animator Hayao Miyazaki’s masterworks is his greatest, but Spirited Away is a popular choice—and it’s not just about the sumptuous colors and detail. It’s also about a remarkable twist on Alice in Wonderland, in which an insecure girl Read More …
Sometimes an act of mercy is also a leap of faith, or at least of hope. Writer-director Hedges’ dysfunctional-family comedy-melodrama is about the risk we take offering a second chance when it isn’t the second, third, or even fourth. Oliver Platt and Patricia Clarkson play Read More …
The childlike Céline/Hadewijch (Julie Sokolowski) believes herself to be undeserving of God’s grace and mercy. Yet she still seeks God and she does so with a passion and an intensity that alarms and disturbs her fellow believers. Unlike others, she is hyper-sensitive to the beauty Read More …
Adapted from a short story by Stephen Vincent Benét, William Dieterle’s film, starring Edward Arnold as the titular statesman and Walter Huston as his diabolical opponent Mr. Scratch, creates additional backstory for farmer Jabez Stone (James Craig) and his relationship with Daniel Webster before Stone Read More …
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” Hood’s adaptation of the brutal South African crime novel Tsotsi by eminent South African novelist and playwright Athol Fugard (who also wrote the film’s screenplay) is about a seemingly soulless young thug (Presley Chweneyagae) whose predatory lifestyle is Read More …
In The Phantom Carriage, director Victor Sjöström plays David Holm, a heartless unrepentant rascal who receives two summons one New Year’s midnight. The first is from a dying nun who showed him the most undeserved act of mercy he ever received; the second is from the Read More …
In one long shot from Lee Isaac Chung’s Munyurangabo, we watch a family raise their picks and strike at the hard, dusty ground again and again. It may as well be a picture of what must happen to hardened hearts across Rwanda, which—as this intimate drama Read More …
Love & Mercy stands out among biopics for its unusual approach in portraying the life of its subject, Brian Wilson. Effortlessly jumping back and forth between Wilson’s tortured youth in the midst of musical triumphs (a brilliant Paul Dano) and his later years of abusive treatment Read More …