IN FOUR DAYS YOU WILL BE DANCING ON THE BEACH
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The Marriage of Maria Braun 1979
Ein Pakt mit dem Teufel. Even in a 16mm print so faded it was basically tinted red, projected in the basement of a library with some lady’s hair bun blocking half of the subtitles, this resonates as one of Fassbinder’s finest accomplishments: the slow burn tragedy of a nation inventively rebuilding itself from the rubble only to find it’s lost its soul. Insane that such a dizzyingly ambitious and unambiguously political endeavor to re-evaluate several decades of German history could be expressed in what is perhaps the most narratively and formally accessible (though not uncomplex!) film this director ever made.
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Summer of 85 2020
Such a nothing movie: too much plot for a “vibes”-centric experience, but not a strong enough narrative to be at all dramatically compelling (and the framing device—it’s useless!); nice colors and textures but little in the way of interesting composition or camera movement; completely limp characters and zero atmosphere; the half-hearted sputters of would-be high melodrama in the latter end failing to redeem the film’s essential inertness, its blandness, indeed its mediocrity. I do ardently believe with all my heart that the angelic Félix Lefebvre is one of the most beautiful creatures ever to walk the earth, though, so it almost balances out
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The Scarlet Empress 1934
Cinema is about pervert sex nightmares and stunning lighting. Dietrich and Sternberg understood this more than anyone before or after them