While the 1960s saw a rise in Japanese noir, many of these films—like the popular Nikkatsu noir and Yakuza films—centered on the criminal underworld as it adapted to modern times. Masumura, however, used the genre to expose the crime embedded in what was considered just regular business tactics and found ways to bring these noir … Read more
In the neat, uniquely conceived apocalyptic film”Brutal Heat”—competing in the Proxima section—a solar fragment is hurtling toward earth. No one knows if it’s going to hit the planet or just barely miss. But it is making everything hotter, consequently making everyone more violent, and hornier. To escape his contentious relationship with his dad, the teenage … Read more
KVIFF was also filled with wonderful retrospectives. “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World,” Peter Weir’s feast of masculine tenderness wrapped in a nautical epic, screened in 35mm. John Cassavetes’ romantic screwball “Minnie and Moskowitz” was also shown. But the major highlight was curator Joseph Fahim’s richly programmed series on mid-century Japanese author … Read more
While the film also doesn’t remake the wheel for these kinds of narratives, the vision is so otherworldly and Mohylová’s physically attuned performance so immersive, that “Restore Point,” an imaginative, propulsive thrill ride, offers well–paced entertainment attached to a subject we all fear. The near-death experience that rocks Etero (Eka Chavleishvili) at the start of … Read more
Another of the film’s memorable sequences involves the final search by Thien for his brother. In a film brimming with natural, reverent metaphors—the birds, the wind, and rain—and an invocation toward a divine law that seems to bend time, the final shot, a quietly cathartic baptism, gives An’s “Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell” a sense … Read more
The Proxima Competition, in its second year of existence, will present ten world and two international premieres, nine of which are fictional features alongside two documentaries from filmmakers like Swiss author Thomas Imbach, Poland’s Olga Chajdas, Cyprus-born Kyros Papavassiliou, French filmmaker Émilie Brisavoine and Romanian documentarist Alexandru Solomon, etc. NRC critic and Rotterdam International Film … Read more