This may be an unpopular opinion, but I'm absolutely loving Ceylan's evolution with his two recent features. Yes, his films have become longer, talkier, more prosaic. That languid, poetic style he was known for in films like Uzak? Few and far between. But what I find interesting here is this: Ceylan, who I had previously regarded as somewhat of an arthouse charlatan, has for his past two features been criticizing lofty self-important artists. There's just a delicious irony in this;…

A nation's tumultuous history as painted by the naturalistic bravura of Hou Hsiao-hsien's skill, filtered through the microcosm of a family and granted resounding soul in the contrast of silence and violence where Tony Leung's necessitated deafness serves as foil for the mayhem of petty gangster scuffles and the broader social unrest. Shots of the land echo throughout as if to signal some sort of impending change of culture, language or history; sure enough Taiwan stood on the brink of…