An entertaining blockbuster, but I came out with a definite preference for Part 1 (which I saw a month ago). Part 1's big advantage for me is that it was structured like a Shakespearean tragedy, with a lot more room to breathe for tablesetting before its grandiose, operatic climax which I don't think anything in this movie quite matched. Part 2 rushes through events to get through its runtime and suffers for it dramatically. The evolution of Paul/Chani's relationship, especially,…
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Tokyo Story 1953
What a privilege to see a 35mm print of this. Still absolutely crushing on a rewatch
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Mami Wata 2023
The Kurosawa influence is very noticeable here, definitely has the aspirations to be a Seven Samurai-esque allegorical epic. Doesn't live up to its ambitions for me, but the chiaroscuro photography lends itself well to the abstract mythological sequences (although, the action scenes don't really work).
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Stonewalling 2022
Follows the trail of other 21st century Chinese social realism films with a dash of sentimentality near the end. Most notable to me for the fantastic use of ambient sound that is frequently contrasting the events on-screen.
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Pacifiction 2022
I'm not sure whether I felt like this was too long or too short. I'll admit to some initial boredom sitting through static scenes of political dialogue, but I ended up being captivated watching these enigmatic characters navigating their way through opposite ends of this post-colonial world. I would have liked to have seen the political narrative taken beyond its conclusion here (and also because the imagery was peaking in the final act and I wanted more of it).
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Reflection 2021
I saw this a few days after Atlantis and both were such morbidly beautiful films. While Atlantis's imagery felt somewhat surreal to me like something out of a parallel world, here the violence and brutality is much more of a punch-to-the-gut. But again, it succeeds in carving out sensations of compassion and warmth that prevail over the despair that pervades most of the film. Also again, Vasyanovych's protracted, static takes (mostly) work for me because of how striking the imagery is that he's created—they're images that will linger on my mind well beyond the movie's runtime.