Letterboxd — Your life in film

Juror 8 > Juror 4 > Juror 5 > Juror 9 > Juror 11 > Juror 1 > Juror 6 > Juror 2 > Juror 3 > Juror 12 > Juror 10 > Juror 7. Fuck Juror 7.

Anyway, this is certainly one of those films that’s quality will never drop in my eyes. The argument that 12 Angry Men has the greatest screenplay in the history of cinema is not a weak one. The way the film develops and unravels itself is narrative mastery seldom reached in any art form.…

I love this film more than I can express. There is nothing so tender, so bitter, or so human in the annals of cinema. The fact that such a film can carry a degree of depth as immense as this, that something so simplistic can be so incredibly layered and nuanced, is a testament to the beauty, complexity, and quiet struggle of the human plight. Not a character, not a scene, not a line of dialogue is wasted in this…

Words are futile. A yearning for reversion into child-like wonder and naïveté, and a celebration of primitive, purely human thought. The scope of the narrative lies within its intimacy, the story of man and of love and of art and of war and of peace being told between the ears of distant, wandering souls, their heavenly thoughts plucked from the soil of the earth. We weep and we yearn, our bodies ache and our hearts strain, and that is the…

I feel as though it is more difficult to talk about Ozu films. There is something that constantly evades me when I try to express my admiration for him and his work. To try and transcribe such plain and simplistic beauty into crude words seems almost trivial. I will, however say this much: more-so than with any other director, it is a pleasure to watch Ozu films. They are not thrilling or piercingly philosophical, merely pleasant. There is a particular…

I had an inkling that this would become my new number one Hitchcock on a rewatch, and that inkling has been justified. Just pure, consistent mastery. The way Hitchcock is able to sustain intrigue so effectively is just astounding. And in particular, this is certainly the Hitchcock film with the best use of tension - of which there are many. The vibrancy with which he scans over New York suburbia, the way his camera movements alone develop the narrative, the…

Probably the closest I have come to giving a film five stars and ultimately resolving against it. I am often wary of highly stylised films, because they tend to be so at the expense of substance, for it requires the most masterful of masters to make it work at an exceedingly high level. Then, occasionally, you get a film like The Cranes are Flying. This is one of the boldest films I’ve ever encountered. Mikhail Kalatozov makes the most outrageous…

If Fernando Rey existed today, he would 100% be a Reddit moderator.

On a more serious note, I can now gladly say Buñuel has his masterpiece. It is incredible how he is able to show such disgusting depravity and gratuitous gluttony, the depths of greed, the depths of pride, the depths of hypocrisy and exploitation, with such artistry and with such poise; with a highly indulgent style that always feels tasteful and is administered with grace. The overtones in his…

And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.

And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.

And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.

And…

I feel it wrong that I watch all of Bresson’s most famous films and not once write a piece about it, and L’Argent, being the last film and being the magnum opus of cinema’s truest auteur, more than warrants this. There is something transcendental about Bresson’s work that I can’t quite grasp. It’s not entertainment for it lacks emotion. It’s not some great spiritual tapestry which transcends the bounds of art either. In immediacy, his films are bland. His films…