Shadow
The wuxia pian, the Chinese martial arts film, seems just as vital today as it did in the days of King Hu. Zhang Yimou’s SHADOW shares a good deal in common with HERO, if not quite assuming a role as its equal. Marc Nelson reviews.
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Martin Eden
The surface pleasures of MARTIN EDEN are profound in themselves, but the pleasure they provide compounds when you realise that surface itself is a tissue of lies. The screenwriter Maurizio Braucci described the film, with a shocking eloquence, as “a dream of the twentieth century”, and it’s difficult to express how accurately the phrase represents … Continue reading Martin Eden
Beanpole
In BEANPOLE, spaces are rendered with a genuine beauty, in composition, in colour, in light. The film holds an intense sympathy for its characters in balance with a need to be honest. Marc Nelson reviews at LFF 2019.
It Must Be Heaven
IT MUST BE HEAVEN is Suleiman’s funniest film, the comedy laced up with his elegant, rebarbative vision.
Ad Astra
Gray’s cinema, for all its motifs, perfect shot- and sequence-making, musical movements, and technical daring, is a cinema first and foremost of direct emotional sincerity and force. Marc Nelson reviews AD ASTRA.
Une Femme Douce
UNE FEMME DOUCE (1969) features one of Robert Bresson’s sharpest, bluntest images on the degradation of the spiritual. Marc Nelson reviews.
MS Slavic 7
MS SLAVIC 7 is a witty hybrid film, better when it follows what its character does rather than what she says. Marc Nelson reviews.
American Factory
While there are profound shortcomings to Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar’s AMERICAN FACTORY, what can’t be denied is the film’s felicitous ability to both depict bewilderment and itself bewilder. Marc Nelson reviews.
Domino
It’s good to note that when De Palma the sequence-constructor is allowed to emerge from cracked casing of DOMINO, he can still sing. Marc Nelson reviews.
The Souvenir
Marc Nelson discusses THE SOUVENIR after its EIFF 2019 showings, where director Joanna Hogg casts her critical-yet-compassionate eye toward a stand-in for her younger self.