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Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles 1975
Andromeda unchains herself.
Jeanne Dielman is a hero of action, but she is also a nonentity. A housewife, a subservient mother, a prostitute; a woman objectified. She is why feminism must exist.
Jeanne Dielman, the film, is a neo-Lumière. A physical cinema (in the kinetic sense) where everything is essentially defined by action.
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Journey to the West 2014
What was slow motion?
This film is Tsai Ming-Liang’s answer (I suspect) to those who would accuse him of navel-gazing. Contemplation lies in the fulfillment of ephemeral and ordinary actions and movements regardless of time (in shot length), and any acuity of feeling resulting therein is an addendum outside of the filmmakers’s control (or conditioning, as it is said by Tsai Ming-Liang and The Diamond Sutra) but inside the viewer’s experience. Thus CCC and Slow Cinema are useless terms and…
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The Virgin of Pessac 1969
During their convention one gets the impression that the townsfolk are about to elect a new goddess of the universe, yet the chosen girl is the personification of modesty. All the pomposity of the ceremony is concentrated in the person of the town major, who is an obvious reincarnation of the Légion d'honneur chasers that Flaubert ridiculed.
La rosière de Pessac is a companion piece to Le Cochon. Both are neo-Lumières, elaborate non-fictions. Anti-cinema vérité that reveals ancestral facts.
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Lady of the Pavements 1929
It's yet another one of the tragedies of the cinema that the soundtrack of this film is lost. Griffith's touch is absent and in total control and Lupe Velez is a goddess.
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Pasolini 2014
A day in a life. And I cannot stress the word day enough. Ferrara has not been this tender since 'R Xmas and the editing is almost as compact as New Rose Hotel's.
"This film isn't about Pasolini, it's about you, me, all of us as individuals who go about their lives. No one was probably more surprised about Pasolini's death than Pasolini." - Ferrara
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The Long Goodbye 1973
Lit cigarettes as continuity marks. A dog will keep you company but a cat will open up new destinies. One of the great neo-noirs.
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Pompeii 2014
I saw Pompeii to have a laugh at vulgar auteurists. But, my God, I didn't laugh. I saw a great deal that was strange, even stupid. But I also saw CGI that was delicate, almost too sensitive. A city washed through by the ocean and ravaged by fireballs. Impossible details. The earth fissured into catacombs. I felt as though I touched and heard the panic of doomed lives struggling with their fate. No sound came from their breasts as they embraced alone when the fire engulfed them. My God, I didn't laugh.
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From Today Until Tomorrow 1997
The camera turns the opera into an intimate affair, wherein we witness a symphony of physical movements, entrances and exits from the frame, and most astonishingly: faces. Where does your hidden smile lie? It depends on how many frames it takes to show it.
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Westfront 1918 1930
Among the greatest anti-war films I have seen. A film as removed from the silent film as films made today.
If God is a shout in the street, then God is a scream on this film.
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Artemide's Knee 2008
Devastating. There's probably no man in the world who feels more sorrow as he sits down to edit a film than Jean-Marie Straub.