A popular singer anxiously waits for her medical test results in this charming yet reflective drama that remains one of Varda’s best-known works from the French New Wave era.
Continue reading →
Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962)
Continue reading →
Author / Eternality Tan
Continue reading →
Hole, The (1998)
An exceptional if bleak drama with musical interludes, Tsai’s prescient work explores a virus epidemic and severe climate change hitting Taiwan—his style is still unmistakable and, best of all, he finds new levels of miserabilist humour.
Continue reading →
Shadow of Fire (2023)
Tsukamoto’s latest is somewhat a mixed oddity, set in the torrid aftermath of WWII and centering on several characters who must eke out a survival while confronting personal trauma, shot in a handheld style with a digital indie look.
Continue reading →
Innocence (2004)
This haunting debut feature about a group of schoolgirls shielded from the modern world is best described as ‘Dogtooth’ meets ‘Petite Maman’, marked by an unsettling sound design and an acute sense of false normalcy.
Continue reading →
Smoke Sauna Sisterhood (2023)
Women bare their bodies and souls in this excellent intimate, inward-looking Estonian documentary set in a private smoke sauna.
Continue reading →
Exploring #8: Jacques Tati
‘Exploring’ features the filmographies of filmmakers that I’ve largely completed and celebrates them on the week of their birthdays.
Limite (1931)
An extraordinary silent feature from Brazil set to a playlist of classical music, so unique, enigmatic and dreamlike that it still carves out new, profound possibilities for cinema.
Continue reading →
Inshallah a Boy (2023)
A widow’s anxiety and frustration over a feisty inheritance tussle reflects entrenched patriarchal thinking in both domestic and legal arenas in this fine debut feature, which is also the first film from Jordan to compete at Cannes.
Continue reading →
Passenger, The (1975)
Antonioni brings his enigmatic style to striking locales around Europe and Africa in this tour de force work about identities and personas.
Continue reading →
Kagero-za (1981)
Suzuki’s middle entry of his arthouse ‘Taisho’ trilogy sees a playwright get bogged down by his own shifting realities, fictive or otherwise, spawning a spectral meta-theatrical experience that is largely inscrutable yet weirdly transfixing.
Continue reading →
