A man with telepathic ability is recruited to infiltrate a clandestine group led by a nefarious ringleader with a similar ability in Cronenberg’s breakthrough sci-fi thriller that reveals his marked distaste for corporations and authorities that exploit humans and their bodies.
An exquisite and meditative biopic about a Japanese tea master who became influential with the shoguns during the 16th century as Teshigahara conflates the personal with the political in a beguiling way.
Linklater’s breakthrough indie has the kind of anarchic energy that still feels relevant today, capturing America at the crossroads of stagnation and progress, as his camera roams from one character to another like a stream of consciousness.
Seduction and intimacy seem to be desirable and repulsive at the same time in this key work of the Greek Weird Wave as the greyish, emotionless world of a young woman and her dying father is depicted with eccentricity.
Tightly structured, verbose and eschewing high-stakes action, Soderbergh’s deceptively genial chess game of a spy thriller conflates the professional and the personal as one half of a married couple working for the same intelligence agency is suspected of being treasonous.
A Korean man is hanged but doesn’t die in Oshima’s complex if puzzling political farce, built out of layers of thematic juxtapositions and performative gestures, as the ghastly spectre of Japanese imperialism and social injustices rear their ugly heads.
Aster reinvents his wheel of perverse creativity with this epic three-hour odyssey as a man (Joaquin Phoenix in a fantastic performance) suffering from chronic anxiety and the inability to take responsibility embarks on a Freudian journey of self-confrontation.
Varda’s Golden Lion winner is a bleak exploration of a young female drifter’s (Sandrine Bonnaire in an extraordinary performance) unapologetic defiance of the personal and social obligations that seek to tie down her free self.
A cautionary tale with impressive world-building, Szulkin’s totalitarian mini-universe on the verge of anarchy—or annihilation—is set in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust as people are holed up in a crumbling dome.
‘Exploring’ features the filmographies of filmmakers that I’ve largely completed and celebrates them on the week of their birthdays.
Eternality Tan 