Somai shoots this artful Nikkatsu Roman Porno effort with trademark long takes, fusing eroticism with a sense of fate and lingering despair in the sexual encounters between a suicidal man and a woman prostituting herself for the first time.
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.
There is nothing quite like Greenaway’s perverse ‘zoological’ treatise on human and animal mortality, decomposition and disability, as a car accident leaves a despairing woman without a leg and two grieving twin brothers without their wives.
Itami’s most famous film, a ramen Western, is unpredictable but electric, showing with deadpan humour how food penetrates every aspect of life.
A work of slow and restrained beauty as Morita’s Meiji era melodrama, about a man who is still in love with a woman who has married his close friend, compels with its effective performances and deliberate mise-en-scene.
Yang’s outstanding second feature is a slow and methodical look at romance and conflict set against the modernisation of Taiwan.
McElwee’s intended docu-travelogue about General Sherman’s American Civil War campaign turns into a narcissistic look at his faltering romantic exploits with the Southern women around him, yet its unabashed subjectivity feels surprisingly fresh and compelling.
Spielberg’s overdrawn drama is a safe if underwhelming adaptation of Alice Walker’s landmark novel.
It’s not a terrific film but it’s still fun to watch the murder mystery unfold as Chabrol gives us the requisite atmosphere that balances humour with the macabre.
Eternality Tan 