‘Amrum’ Presents Wartime Distress with Visual Grace
Fatih Akin’s visually beautiful wartime drama, Amrum, turns a child’s survival into a memory handed from one talented filmmaker to another.
Film
Features, reviews, interviews, and lists about film, covering the latest as well historical topics.
Sound of Falling’s Slow Exhaustion of Memory
In Mascha Schilinski’s moody psychological drama Sound of Falling, we sense that a place can outlast the lives shaped inside it: what happened there does not disappear.
Why Steely Dan’s “Dirty Work” Is the Ultimate Screen Song
The lyrics to Steely Dan’s 1972 song “Dirty Work” are not the enigmatic stanzas that make up most of their discography, so why is it still used in films and TV to this day?
‘I Swear’ Is Carried by Robert Aramayo’s Performance
Robert Aramayo’s performance in Tourette syndrome drama I Swear is the leap in his career: the performance that turns his early promise into an actor we are compelled to watch.
Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ and the Three Ghosts of Subjectivity
Every brick in Pink Floyd’s The Wall shows that haunting lies not in wailing and chain-rattling but in trauma, alienation, and absence.
‘Palestine 36’ and the Limits of a Settled History
A film about Palestine does not need to claim neutrality. The trouble is that Palestine 36, despite its force, oversimplifies the complicated history.
‘Broken Voices’ Records the Sound of Institutional Abuse
Drawing on the scandal around one of the Czech Republic’s most admired choirs, Broken Voices shows, once again, how institutions meant to exalt can perpetuate abuse.
‘Hold That Blonde!’ Hilariously Attempts Hysterical Slapstick
If George Marshall’s Hold That Blonde! can’t rise to the brilliance of a Preston Sturges movie, it’s an often-hilarious attempt.
The Catalytic Power of Basic Instinct’s Interrogation Scene
In Basic Instinct‘s interrogation scene, Sharon Stone’s body becomes both lure and barrier, asserting agency while destabilizing authority.
One World Film Festival Refuses to Make Human Rights Easy
One World Human Rights Film Festival’s political force is in its willingness to remain in contradiction, where justice can arrive too late and survival can depend on fragile acts of self-invention.
‘The Sandbox’ Only Touches the Surface of Surveillance
Without digging too deeply into the subject, as it warrants, The Sandbox contends that border zones are experimental grounds for hi-tech surveillance of vulnerable people.
‘The Blue Trail’ Traces the Exile of Growing Old
From August Winds to Neon Bull and now The Blue Trail, Gabriel Mascaro observes characters pushed to the margins of systems that organize desire, work, family, and belonging.