Appreciation coming.
Arts & Faith Lists:
2020 Top 100 — #50
If, as they say, writing about music is like dancing about architecture, then how does one describe a film like Koyaanisqatsi (1983), which has no actors, no dialogue, and no plot, but consists instead of nothing but music and images (some of which, incidentally, do happen to revolve around architecture)? Well, we can begin by looking at…
Drawing upon a semi-autobiographical novel of the same name, Isao Takahata’s animated masterwork Grave of the Fireflies tells the story of two orphans caught in the middle of the firebombing that decimated the cities of Japan in the final months of World War Two. Seita is in many ways an ideal big brother, adoring and protecting his…
L’Avventura (1960) has long been known as the first feature in Michelangelo Antonioni’s “alienation” trilogy, which includes La Notte (1961) and L’Eclisse (1962). Yet the term “alienation” is too simple and too succinct a descriptor; this film is about emotional, social, and spiritual enervation, about something nightmarish. The inhabitants of Antonioni’s post-industrial, post-war West are profoundly sick, dysfunctional, wayward, and…
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 phantom who drives Death’s titular carriage. As the film shows…
Appreciation coming. Directed by: Chang-dong Lee Produced by: Lee Hanna In Soo Kim Written by: Chang-dong Lee Chung-Joon Lee Music by: Christian Basso Cinematography by: Yong-kyou Cho Editing by: Hyun Kim Release Date: 2007 Running Time: 142 Language: Korean Arts & Faith Lists: 2020 Top 100 — #67
The great and final act of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s remarkable career was the production of a trilogy called Three Colors—Blue, White, and Red—that represents the colors of the French flag, and the values they represent: liberty, equality and fraternity. Filmed in three countries (France, Poland, Switzerland), their plots overlap only slightly. Watch closely, and you’ll see the different…