A short film with some amazing outdoors camerawork, this is a student film about two men in a desert. one of them is searching for the edges of the world, the other for escape. The original poster of this video writes: Yet this journey itself is a scenic and timeless humanscape which reflects and blends…
Culture & Society
Cinema and Eastern Culture/Identity in a Globalized World.
Such is the state of representation of eastern cultures, that while western world may admire typical aesthetics of these films, the native audience often wonders if their own culture is being represented in a fair way. While Globalization, in the cultural sphere has been accused of destroying native identities in favour of a new homogenized,…
El Mariachi 1992 (Robert Rodriguez)
Robert Rodriguez isn’t exactly a nobody now, but this is 1992 and Robert Rodriguez is indeed a nobody. The film was shot on 16mm and Rodriguez raised $3000 out of the $7000 budget, as a volunteer for experimental drug testing. The story is about a wannabe Mariachi, who is a guitar player. He gets mistaken…
Csillagosok, katonák (1967) a.k.a The Red and The White.
Another, and more widely admired film of Hungarian director Miklos Jancso, this film concentrates on a group of Hungarian soldiers supporting the Bolsheviks (Reds) against the Czarists (Whites), set in 1919. Not following any central character, this film goes on to depict the senselessness of war, no matter whose side one is on. this film…
Soredemo Boku Wa Yattenai (2006)
This film investigates the Japanese justice system through the case of a young man, who is trying to defend his innocence against a false ‘groping’ charge. With a 99.9% convinction rate in Japanese courts (I was so shocked to learn that!) the chances of acquittal are extremly unlikely, despite the charge being minor. The man…
Dogme # 1 Festen (The Celebration) (1998)
The Celebration is a Danish film, made by director Thomas Vinterberg, in 1998, which centres around the gathering of an upper class family for the 60th birthday celebrations of its patriarch, Helge Klingenfeldt-Hansen (Henning Moritzen) – soon after the mysterious death of his daughter, Linda. But what initially appears as a stuffy formal occasion begins…
Film Review: L’Age d’Or (1930)
This surrealist film, directed by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, made in 1930, continues to shock, repel, scandalize cinema goers for over seventy-five years now. When L’Age d’Or had its first public showing in 1930—and its only public screening until 1979—it caused a riot. The film premiered at Studio 28 in Paris on November…
FILM REVIEW: Családi Tüzfészek (Family Nest) (1979)
Family Nest is a Hungarian film, directed by Bela Tarr in 1979, which shows the domestic problems of Laci (László Horváth), a soldier who has just returned home, and his wife Irén (Laszlone Horvath), set among the backdrop of an increasingly lackadaisical bureaucratic system and troubles of getting a flat sanctioned from the government. He…
Give me “MAGIC”!
Many of us consider ‘serious cinema’ or ‘reality cinema’ as good and the commercial mainstream productions that Bollywood churns out to be inferior, in some way, and by the looks of it detrimental to the civic health. I have come across countless articles that rant on about how there is an absolute lack of serious…
Film Review: Family Viewing (1987)
The title of the film is slightly misleading. The film is neither entertaining in the conventional sense, nor is it meant to be seen with one’s family. The film is directed by Armenian-Canadian director, Atom Egoyan, and the impact it had, at the time of its release was primarily limited to film critics. Deploying dark…