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  • A Man Escaped

    BySheikh Javed Mansuri

    In her essay “Spiritual Style in the Films of Robert Bresson,” Susan Sontag argues that “All of Bresson’s films have a common theme: the meaning of confinement and liberty.” A Man Escaped develops this theme more explicitly than in any other of his works, making it the best entry point into Bresson’s oeuvre.  The film details the…

  • Won’t You Be My Neighbor?

    BySheikh Javed Mansuri

    It seems hardly coincidental that two films on the life of children’s television host and ordained Presbyterian minister Fred Rogers were released in as many years.  A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019), a feature starring Tom Hanks and directed by Marielle Heller, was nominated for the Top 100 but didn’t make the cut.  Morgan Neville’s 2018 documentary, Won’t…

  • The Child

    BySheikh Javed Mansuri

    After four consecutive “masterpieces,” what did the Dardenne brothers do? Make another movie every bit as good as those. Like La Promesse, Rosetta, and The Son, The Child (L’Enfant) is a subtle parable about tests of conscience and character in a punishing world. We’re introduced to Bruno (the extraordinary Jérémie Renier). He’s young, but he’s already a hardened criminal….

  • Paris, Texas

    BySheikh Javed Mansuri

    Travis Henderson (Harry Dean Stanton) has been wandering in the desert for some four years at the beginning of Paris, Texas, and it shows. His suit is so begrimed with dust that it’s hard to tell what color it originally was, and in his eyes is the look of a man who does not know where…

  • The Red Shoes

    BySheikh Javed Mansuri

    The most famous line in The Red Shoes is probably an early exchange between Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) and Victoria Page (Moira Shearer). The director of a prestigious ballet company asks the aspiring ballerina why she wants to dance. Her reply: “Why do you want to live?” The answer impresses Lermontov enough to earn her a small…