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Continue reading →: Henry Fonda for PresidentImages from movies are always those of myth extracted and sublimated from truth, and the power of this realist art to make fiction seem as if it were part of reality is its ultimate testament. Alexander Horwath’s essay film Henry Fonda for President is free on Le Cinema Club this…
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Continue reading →: FlowingLike the opening dichotomous image of the wooden poles stuck in water and their wavering reflections, there is an impending doom haunting the impeccable unity from Naruse’s great-as-usual narrative instincts and dramaturgy. Similar to The Whole Family Works, the film’s progression seems to be dictated by passage of days itself instead…
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Continue reading →: YearningOstensibly a two-hander, but the movie feels like Naruse’s largest film in terms of scope (not just because it’s shot on TohoScope). The opening scene, following an advertising truck of the new supermarket in town, proposes an external force that complicates Naruse’s usual examination of society through an individual’s navigation…
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Continue reading →: Die My LoveImage: Courtesy of MUBI Usually, in a movie with a subject matter similar to this, the husband’s role is played with naturalism that serves as a hypocritical “voice of reason,” juxtaposed with the outward psychological torment of the leading female, thus making her the outsider to the film’s realism. But…
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Continue reading →: The BirdsThe connection with Psycho lies beyond the stuffed birds inside the Bates Motel. It’s also how the mommy issue becomes externalized not only with an actively tormented mother-figure in full flesh with strange psychological attachment with her son, but also through the malevolent attack of the birds that exacerbated the strange…
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Continue reading →: TIFF 50: LeversImage: Courtesy of TIFF In 2021, Rhayme Vermette’s debut feature Ste. Anne, a film about a woman’s (played by Vermette herself) return to her hometown in Manitoba, surprisingly won the Best Canadian Film Award at TIFF. I would call that a surprise, not because of its quality (which, let’s be…
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Continue reading →: TIFF 50: The SeasonImage: Courtesy of TIFF Close to the beginning of Maureen Fazendeiro’s solo debut feature (given that a feature is >45 minutes long), The Seasons, a wide shot tracks a man pushing a wheeled land surveying device. As one would expect the camera to continue following the man and his equipment,…
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Continue reading →: TIFF 50: Miroirs No.3Image: Courtesy of TIFF Christian Petzold is simply incapable of orchestrating an uninteresting shot/countershot, a cinematic tradition that relies on finding the balance between two opposing frames and somehow relating them to one another. Complementarily, he has also been one of the finest directors working today at capturing the act…
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Continue reading →: TIFF 50: MeadowlarksImage: Courtesy of TIFF Meadowlarks follows a group of long-separated siblings who, in attempting to reconnect and rediscover their familial roots, go on a trip to spend time with each other. The group consists of 3 sisters and 1 brother, with an additional brother refusing to join the retreat. The…
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Continue reading →: TIFF 50: Powwow PeopleImage: Courtesy of TIFF The visual plan of the long take can often be associated with a showcase of technical bravura, the imprimatur of a director’s “genius” that is inextricately linked to a “look at me” quality that points the frame back to the director themselves. What does a long…
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If we consider the overview of the world of cinema as a map, then the voyage to connect the scattered dots in between is what we’re invested in. Serge Daney once described voyage as ‘without luggage, totally self-sufficient in his dispossession’. Being a citizen of world cinema is to abandon the luggage of predefined cultural expectations and meet each film and each filmmaker on their own cinematographic terms. If you are down for this journey, please consider subscribing to this travelogue.
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