We loved director Sergei Loznitsa’s previous work A Gentle Creature despite not understanding many parts of it so I was looking forward to this newer film. However this turned out to be less of a coherent film than a series of unrelated vignettes, many shot in a way as to suggest a documentary style. This one may be even more difficult for foreigners unfamiliar to the region to understand but the expressive power and sense of outrage present here transcend language and culture.
We’re dipping back into Woody Allen’s extensive filmography. This one isn’t particularly well known but I’ve heard that it’s underrated and it marks the first collaboration between the director and Scarlett Johansson. This is also a British film though Allen originally didn’t mean for that and changed the locale for the sake of raising money. This does matter as it feels like he doesn’t quite know what to do with the British setting.
A lighter watch today in the form of a musical, actually a British musical film that focuses on American country music. This falls solidly under the familiar genre of aspiring singer reaches for stardom and this is not an ideal playground in which to search for great cinema. All the same, this is good enough entertainment with a dramatic arc that is decent enough.
This is one of the higher profile Hong Kong films of recent years and the only wonder of it is that I took so long to get around to it. This is especially cogent for us as the film deals with bipolar disorder with which we are both familiar. As is so often the case nowadays, it was directed by a young and virtually unknown newcomer Wong Chun and immediately racked up a whole slew of awards.
After watching so many of the classics of cinema, I thought that I’d had at least heard of all the greats by now but this recommendation from our cinephile friend still managed to surprise me. It was directed by Shūji Terayama who it seems was a true artist in every sense of the word: a poet, writer, playwright etc. in addition to being a director. This highly experimental film was itself loosely adapted from his own poetry.
As I’ve mentioned before, I have a bit of a weakness for coming of age films and this certainly counts. It does seem rather more juvenile than I would usually like but it’s has been well reviewed and even showed up on the best of lists of a number of critics. Interestingly it’s also the debut directorial feature of Olivia Wilde who is of course best known as an actress.
I like to think I give all genres of film a fair shake while I go through the classics but the truth is that action films suffer disportionately as stunts and action shots that were great back in there just can’t compare to what studios can achieve now. Bullitt was once known for one of best car chase scenes in cinematic history though by modern standards it’s only ordinary. Still, I believe that this is the first film I’ve watched starring Steve McQueen, another legend of Hollywood.
