The Sky Crawlers (Mamoru Oshii, 2008)
Run an informal poll asking otaku to list today’s greatest anime director and two names will immediately appear at the top of the list: Hayao Miyazaki and Mamoru Oshii. But what is odd is that they’d be at that position for different reasons: the two directors and their cinematic visions could not be more opposite. Miyazaki crafts deeply human fables woven together from classic fairy tales, environmental concerns, fascinations with flight and old Europe, and traditional... Read More
Ashes of Time Redux (Wong Kar-Wai, 2008)
I’ve never been reticent when it comes to voicing my adoration for the films of Wong Kar-Wai. Admittedly, I haven’t seen all of them, but the ones that I have seen affect me like few other films. Wong’s trademark themes of alienation and loneliness, his lovelorn characters, and his inimitable style (voiceovers, meandering plots, intriguing filming and editing techniques) always draw me in and take me to that alternate world that I think all film-lovers hope... Read More
When the Road Bends: Tales of a Gypsy Caravan (2006, Jasmine Dellal)
This film is generally referred to as Gypsy Caravan, though the actual title is When the Road Bends: Tales of a Gypsy Caravan. It’s marketed as a “Buena Vista Social Club for Gypsy music”, which isn’t a bad pitch. After Jasmine Dellal, director of the documentary American Gypsy, caught the World Music Institute’s first “Gypsy Caravan” tour in 1999, she made the pitch to legendary Albert Maysles and for the 2001 follow-up tour, the two joined the caravan. Five... Read More
Scenes from a review of Lake Tahoe
[In Fernando Eimbcke's second feature, Lake Tahoe, a young man emerges from a car wreck and begins a long and maddening search for help. And it quickly becomes obvious that he's searching for something far more profound than a mechanic. Eimbcke's film feels like a search as well. The filmmaker etablishes a rhythm of expansive, colorful, long-take shots (known to the pros as "master shots"). These scenes are interrupted by bold, sometimes lengthy, blackouts. And as we stare at... Read More
Ping Pong (Fumihiko Sori, 2002)
I’ll freely admit that the first time I watched Ping Pong, I was pretty disappointed and underwhelmed. But in hindsight, I had gone in with completely wrong expectations. Based on the trailers I’d seen and some of the more effusive praise I’d read on the Web, I went in expecting an over-the-top, CGI-fueled live-action cartoon a la Stephen Chow’s Shaolin Soccer. But Ping Pong couldn’t be further from Chow’s hyperactive film. That isn’t... Read More
Vexille (Fumihiko Sori, 2007)
It’s an undeniable fact that CGI has changed the face of animation. Whether you’re talking about the style and aesthetic, the production methods, or simply the time and effort involved, the impact of computer animation has been huge. In fact, I daresay that it’s becoming difficult for some folks to think of animation as anything other than computer-generated, thanks in large part to a little company called Pixar. As a longtime fan of the art form, I find myself... Read More
Special (Haberman & Passmore, 2006)
Once upon a time, on a crowded subway platform, I heard an earnest busker straining for the heights — “I be-leeeve I can fly…” he sang with all his heart. The poor fellow’s reach, however, greatly exceeded his grasp. It would have been easy to snicker at the tone-deafness of yet another desperate soul, one who really needed to find or hold onto a day job. But I’ve remembered that moment ever after as a sweet — if bittersweet — picture of the... Read More
Sitney reviews new Lawrence Jordan set, and a few other things along the way.
In the most recent online issue of Artforum, P. Adams Sitney has put together an excellent introduction to a slice of American avant-garde cinema in the guise of reviewing Facet’s new release of Lawrence Jordan’s films. Mixed in with all the interesting tidbits of biographical info on Jordan, Brakhage, Deren, and others are comments about the effect religion and poetry had on Jordan’s filmmaking. Even if you haven’t had the opportunity to watch anything... Read More
In the City of Sylvia (Guerin, 2007)
As soon as the knee-jerk Mulvey reactions settle down, and all the mild Hitchcock references evaporate, a broad network of potential allusions begin to come into focus as In the City of Sylvia unfolds. It is a quiet film about a man (a Marienbad “El”) on a lonely holiday in the bustling but quaint Strausbourg that opens as a still life: an orange, an apple, and a map in Cezanne repose within the frame. He spends the bulk of his time either staring forlornly into space or... Read More
Heartbeat Detector (Klotz, 2008)
Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio.” (Transmission – Joy Division) The title Heartbeat Detector is an awkward anglicizing of Klotz’ La question humaine that draws attention away from his abstract universalizing of the tendency towards dehumanization that lay at the root of all Third Reich scheming. The English title refers to technology used by the Nazis during the Final Solution (like a much scarier version of Anton Chigurh’s homing device). It... Read More
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