Broad Horizons and Shallow Vistas in Chloé Zhao’s ‘Nomadland’ —TIFF 2020
As I write this, the reviews for Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland, which premiered earlier this week at the Toronto International Film…
Festivals
The 57th New York Film Festival: Looking Towards Convergences in a Cluster of Films
Having just seen Alla Kovgan’s documentary about the monolithic figurehead of modern dance, Merce Cunningham, it is now my job…
Mati Diop’s ‘Atlantique’ (‘Atlantics’) turns to the women left behind
In Mati Diop’s short film Atlantiques (2009), three young Senegalese men sit around a bonfire in Dakar at night, one…
Céline Sciamma’s ‘Portrait de la jeune fille en feu’ (‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’) explores the boundlessness of poetic love
“Do all lovers feel like they’re making things up?” one woman asks another in Céline Sciamma’s Portrait de la jeune…
Jordan River Anderson, The Messenger: A Canadian Wake-Up Call —TIFF
“Racism and discrimination is what’s keeping services away from our children and that’s the bottom line.” So says Carolyn Buffalo,…
Fantasy Without Catharsis: María Paz González’s ‘Lina From Lima’ —TIFF
María Paz González’s first narrative feature Lina from Lima (2019) is a musical comedy about migrant life in Chile that…
Fate and the State: Sophie Deraspe’s ‘Antigone’ —TIFF
Sophie Deraspe’s film adaptation of Sophocles’ Antigone updates the central themes of the original – family, exile, state power and…
On Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn’s ‘The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open’ —TIFF
Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn’s The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open follows a day in the life of…
Finding freedom in Sturla Pilskog and Sidse Torstholm Larsen’s ‘Winter’s Yearning’ —Open City Docs
It would have been too precious for Winter’s Yearning to have been titled Waiting for Alcoa, yet Beckett’s existential drama…
Notes on the City: Andrea Luka Zimmerman and Adrian Jackson’s ‘Here For Life’ —Locarno
In an interview in 1968 Pasolini described going especially from Casarsa to Udine to see Vittorio De Sica’s The Bicycle…
A House That Is Not A Home: Yoon Sung-A’s ‘Overseas’ —Locarno
How can cinema show social reproduction? Yoon Sung-A’s documentary Overseas (2019), focuses on a training centre for overseas domestic workers…
On Mourning and Paralysis: Anna Sofie Hartmann’s ‘Giraffe’ —Locarno
In Anna Sofie Hartmann’s debut feature Giraffe (2019), the underwater tunnel being built to connect Denmark with Germany is bestowed with a kind…
In The Name of The Mother: Maura Delpero’s ‘Maternal’ —Locarno
What is motherhood? Maura Delpero’s Maternal (Hogar, 2019) shows a world in which two paradigms of maternity – the single…
Aude Léa Rapin’s ‘Les héros ne meurent jamais’ (‘Heroes don’t die’) takes on the ethics of the documentary film – Cannes
Aude Léa Rapin’s Les héros ne meurent jamais (Heroes don’t die) begins with Joachim (Jonathan Couzinié), a thin, bearded young…
Rebecca Zlotowski’s ‘Une fille facile’ (‘An Easy Girl’) takes on the cliché of the woman of leisure – Cannes
Rebecca Zlotowski’s Une fille facile (An Easy Girl) opens with a contradiction. A quotation from 17th-century mathematician and philosopher Blaise…
Chaining Female Reproduction to Analogy: Kantemir Balagov’s ‘Beanpole’
“What would happen to a woman after the war, when there is a tectonic shift in her mind, her nature?”1…
Zabou Breitman and Eléa Gobbé Mévellec’s ‘The Swallows of Kabul’ (‘Les Hirondelles de Kaboul’) Takes a Rosy Look at Female Sacrifice – Cannes
In their adaption of Yasmina Kadra’s novel The Swallows of Kabul (2002), director/actress Zabou Breitman and animator Eléa Gobbé Mévellec…
Monia Chokri’s ‘La femme de mon frère’ (‘A Brother’s Love’) ventures beyond the hellscape of the self – Cannes
La femme de mon frère opens to a combative discussion between four philosophy professors about whether they should pass a…
On Solitary Companionship: ‘A Wild Stream’ (‘Una corriente salvaje’) by Nuria Ibáñez Castañeda at Cinéma du Réel
Nuria Ibánez Castañeda’s Una corriente salvaje (A Wild Stream, 2018) opens on Omar, wading waist-deep off a remote beach in…
Review: Hikari’s ’37 Seconds’ – Berlinale
A balancing act between dependence and self-determination characterises Yuma Takada’s (Mei Kayama) story as told in 37 Seconds, a film…
Macabre Dancing: ‘Die Kinder der Toten’ (‘The Children of the Dead’) – Berlinale
Elfriede Jelinek’s novel Die Kinder der Toten [The Children of the Dead,1995], which has yet to be translated into English, tends to be…