This review contains various thematic spoilers but only vague allusions to plot spoilers. Read at your discretion.
A Brighter Summer Day is a truth epic, a four hour journey into the abyss of teenage disillusionment. It's about the reality of growing up and the consequences of an aimless life. It's a quiet movie, of people kissing in the dark, with conversations happening between people offscreen, of themes muted in favour of shapeless ideas. It's paced like life itself, with threads…
Werckmeister Harmonies is a film of constant symbolism and allegory. It is the greatest philosophical and political allegory since Sátántangó, another film by master auteur Béla Tarr. Werckmeister Harmonies is Tarr's most exciting film (although Sátántangó remains his best) because it's the most brimming with ideas. Adapting the novel The Melancholy of Resistance by László Krasznahorkai, Werckmeister Harmonies more than matches the quality of the masterful original text. The film is more implicit in some ways, taking the dense metaphorical nature of the novel but…
The Young Girls of Rochefort is surely the greatest tribute made to Hollywood musicals, a film in love with their style and colours. It's bright and frivolous, a work of youthful joy and believing in romance. The story follows characters all so perfectly in love, looking for each other, and yet never quite able to meet. It makes you ache. Each scene brings them closer together but never close enough. The small town of Rochefort offers little and almost all…
Cyclo is a despairing gangster film, one told through the perspective of poverty and desperation. It is powerfully done, but so very dark. The film is constructed with little dialogue and a sense of ambiguity that leaves most scenes unexplained. Yet this brutal nightmare becomes a violent poem. Cyclo is a film of mood and texture, immersing us in the world of crime that the characters fall into. Young people end up in gangs or forced into prostitution; there's little…
Bad people are complicated. There is something dark at the centre of The Lost Daughter, a film which viciously tears apart the idealism we often have about motherhood. It is a film of mothers, but not one of love. Instead we see a rot, mothers who find children a burden. The Lost Daughter is an uncomfortable movie, with a constant unease and sense of dread. We wait to be given answers, for characters to be uncovered and exposed, and yet…
SPOILERS ahead, but I would recommend reading this review regardless.
This was my own personal hell. I was actually very excited to see Weathering with You. Makoto Shinkai is a mixed director at best but his work was certainly improving over the years. Two of the friends I most trust for anime recommendations told me this was great. I even almost went to the English premiere. Boy am I glad I didn't. I hated this film. I was fine for…
