Passion Imperfect: On Danielle Arbid’s Simple Passion
Midway through Simple Passion (2020) the protagonist, Hélène, played with studied poise by Laetitia Dosch, announces to her lover, “I…
2020
Layers of Reality: Zheng Lu Xinyuan’s ‘The Cloud in her Room’
“Dreamlike”, “transitory”, “driftily disjointed” – reviewers have used these terms fittingly to describe Zheng Lu Xinyuan’s debut feature, The Cloud…
Charlie Kaufman’s ‘I’m Thinking of Ending Things’ begs for forgiveness yet again
What might Charlie Kaufman have left to say about himself after writing about himself and his screenwriter ego personified as…
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…
Cao Fei’s ‘Blueprints’ finds freedom in fantasy
Cao Fei’s ‘Blueprints’ begins in a room decorated to look like a mid-20th century foyer in China: the kind you…
Against Inheritance: Stanya Kahn’s ‘No Go Backs’
Stanya Kahn’s latest short film ‘No Go Backs’ (2020) opens with two teenage boys pissing into the grassy scrub with…
As a Woman in America, Always: Eliza Hittman’s ‘Never Rarely Sometimes Always’
Autumn, the 17-year-old protagonist of Eliza Hittman’s sophomore film Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020), first stands out because of her…