‘It Was Just an Accident’ Hides Life’s Extremes in Plain Sight
Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or-winning revenge thriller, It Was Just an Accident, slices into memory and the desire for revenge with a double-edged knife.
Film
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One Battle After Another’s Appealing Radical Heart
One Battle After Another‘s sympathetic portrayals of left-wing radicalized groups seems an impossible-to-resist target of the pearl-clutching, but it’s been less of a lightning rod than expected on that front.
‘RachelOrmont’ Is Peter Vack’s Candy-Colored Feel Bad Shock Cinema
Peter Vack’s candy-colored RachelOrmont dares the squeamish to reckon with the schizoid darkness happening on cellphones all around them.
Diane Keaton Was All Loveliness and Light
The incredible power in Diane Keaton’s genius is that she was all loveliness and light. She didn’t need a comedy bit to be funny or appealing. She was enough.
Claire Denis’ ‘The Fence’ Is Dense with Import and Meaning
In Claire Denis’ arch and darkly funny film, The Fence, colonialism isn’t history, it’s not even past.
Twinless’ Takes a Taste of Life’s Toxic Cocktail
James Sweeney’s Twinless argues that the loneliness of contemporary, late-stage capitalism life is perpetuated by the very things that attempt to remedy it.
‘Father Mother Sister Brother’ Traverses Those Awkward Familial Gaps
Jim Jarmusch’s low-key comedy of awkwardness, Father Mother Sister Brother explores the things we can never know about our families.
One Battle After Another’s 1960s Politics Make for a Good Show and a Dead End
In Paul Thomas Anderson’s dark comedy One Battle After Another, the liberationist politics of the 1960s make for a good show and a dead end.
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‘Israel Palestine on Swedish TV’ Is an Urgent History/Not History Lesson
Despite its flaws, Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989 is a meticulously detailed study of conflict and hauntingly foreshadows the current moment.
A Serbian Film’s Dark Comedy
As political allegory, A Serbian Film dares viewers to laugh not because it’s funny, but because the scream is too loud to hear the subtext otherwise.
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Check Out ‘The Librarians’ Before It’s Banned
The Librarians is a vital David and Goliath documentary of the fight against book banning, a harbinger of fascism, in America.
‘The Devil’s Bride’ Is Like a Lithuanian Teletubbies
The Devil’s Bride is surely one of the most bizarre films from the Iron Curtain; as hallucinatory as anything this side of Teletubbies.