The Green Knight
The only mystery in THE GREEN KNIGHT is why it’s so mild, when it should be something rich and strange. Marc Nelson reviews.
All posts by Marc Nelson
Open City Documentary Festival 2021
Though the big tent film festivals are the ones that hoover up the most attention, discussion, and coverage, it’s the specialist festivals that harbour the best surprises. Marc Nelson on Open City Docs 2021.
The Story of Looking
Over Britain’s documentary and film commentary sectors, Mark Cousins exerts something like an inexorable influence. Such recognisability means he’s a favourite of film festivals, such as Sheffield Doc/Fest, where his latest, THE STORY OF LOOKING, premiered as the closing night film.
All Light, Everywhere
ALL LIGHT, EVERYWHERE succeeds as a primer on visual literacy, always questioning its images, asking what they omit, how they are structured, how the form makes claims on the visual information it contains.
Alvorada
In THE EDGE OF DEMOCRACY, director Petra Costa’s camera flows through the sleek and spacious rooms of the Palácio da Alvorada, Brazil’s presidential residence designed by modernist architect Oscar Niemeyer, in slow travelling shots. As the camera traipses around the empty, noiseless halls and doorways, it becomes clear that the stillness and quietude of these … Continue reading Alvorada
Summer of Soul
SUMMER OF SOUL assumes a natural position alongside a group of the essential American music documentaries.
Back to the Wharf
Taking a decidedly more casual approach to its noirish stylings than Diao Yi’nan’s THE WILD GOOSE LAKE (or even the second chapter of Jia Zhang-ke’s ASH IS PUREST WHITE), Li Xiaofeng’s BACK TO THE WHARF has a quality that could trip a viewer up on occasion.
Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets
Beneath the documentary textures of BLOODY NOSE, EMPTY POCKETS, its vérité camerawork and calm but quick editing schemes, something planned and constructed is at work. The Ross brothers transform a concocted scenario into a space full of what seems like extempore feeling and lived-in experience. Marc Nelson reviews.
The Chess Game of the Wind
That the story behind THE CHESS GAME OF THE WIND’s premiering, banning, rediscovery, and eventual restoration isn’t more extraordinary than the film itself should emphasise the exceptional nature of director Mohammad Reza Aslani’s achievement.
The Disciple
By comparison with Chaitanya Tamhane’s debut, COURT, the direction in THE DISCIPLE is more insistent and the style less static, which are both to the film’s benefit, and, at times, not.