‘The Northman’ Is Operatic But Viciously Anti-Romantic
Robert Eggers’ witchy, weird, and pitilessly violent Viking revenge saga, The Northman, features operatic scope and magical imagery that will burn into your retinas.
Chris Barsanti
Chris Barsanti is an habitual scrivener on books and film for the lucky readers of PopMatters, Film Journal International, Film Racket, and Publishers Weekly, and has also been published in The Chicago Tribune, The Millions, The Barnes and Noble Review, and The Virginia Quarterly Review. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and New York Film Critics Online. His books include Filmology: A Movie-a-Day Guide to the Movies You Need to Know, Eyes Wide Open 2013: The Year's 25 Greatest Movies (and the 5 Worst), and The Sci-Fi Movie Guide: The Universe of Film from 'Alien' to 'Zardoz'. His writings can be found here.
On Ireland’s Painful Emergence into the Modern World
Fintan O’Toole’s lucid history of Ireland, We Don’t Know Ourselves, is a vivid telling of how his country’s culture of silence and repression was broken open.
Mariama Diallo’s Horror Film ‘Master’ Blends Race-Conscious Academic Satire and Ghost Story
The subtle microaggressions in Mariama Diallo’s Master say far more about the sorry-not-sorry state of racial consciousness in America than the witch does.
Kogonada’s Sci-Fi Film ‘After Yang’ Has a Sharpened Point of View
Kogonada’s seemingly gentle sci-fi film After Yang carries an undercurrent of anger toward anthropocentric arrogance.
‘How Civil Wars Start’ Interrogates American Exceptionalism
The same forces that tore apart societies from Yugoslavia to Iraq, Columbia, Northern Ireland, and the West Bank are fully present in the US, warns How Civil Wars Start.
Fellini’s ‘La Strada’ Is a Lament for the Downtrodden
Fellini’s fable about an innocent clown roaming postwar Italy with an abusive strongman, La Strada, has the romance of his later epics but a more potent sense of tragedy.
John McWhorter’s Polemic ‘Woke Racism’ Covers Controversial Issues with Snark Gnarled by Outrage
John McWhorter’s pushback against the antiracist orthodoxy of Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi lands palpable hits but is too scattered to win the match.
‘Ratcatcher’ Shows People, Not Poverty Porn
Lynne Ramsay’s gutting, eerily beautiful first film, Ratcatcher, shows a director refusing to let the impoverished circumstances of her characters define them.
‘The Velvet Underground’ Film and the Exploding Lou Reed Inevitable
Todd Haynes’ audiovisual blast delves into the creative combat that birthed America’s first great avant-garde rock ‘n’ roll band, the Velvet Underground.
Artistry and Humanity Clash Quietly in ‘Bergman Island’
In the inside-out drama Bergman Island, a filmmaker couple vacationing in Ingmar Bergman’s old home find the lines between their work and their lives blurring.
‘The Afghanistan Papers’ Reveals How Not to Fight a War
Craig Whitlock’s searing Afghanistan war book is a jaw-dropping compilation of arrogance and stupidities that nobody wanted to see.