ESSAYS
March 26, 2010
he City and the Dogs, based on the popular novel of the same name by Mario Vargas Llosa, is an allegory of power in South America.
March 22, 2010
One of the most interesting aspects of South-American cinema is its post-colonial perspective. Having lived myself and being raised in a Third-world country, I can identify and relate to the plight of South-American characters, living up to their (displaced) roots while fighting their imposed colonial heritage. I’ve seen firsthand the social stratification that the colonial rule instilled into the indigenous […]
October 1, 2010
There are some movies that change your perception of what is possible, what is allowed. Alexander Payne's Election was that for me.
March 22, 2010
What I found most interesting in The World Of Apu is how much the representation of India came so close to my vision of Haiti, my native country.
September 28, 2010
Hou Hsiao Hsien’s depiction of life in Flowers of ShanghaÏ explores the inherent contradictions in the era’s Chinese society.
July 24, 2011
The world is whole beyond human knowing. -Wendell Berry The Tree of Life, by renowned director Terrence Malick, is years in the making. Its history starts even before Malick’s previous film, The New World, was distributed in 2005. After generating a substantial amount of ink in the media, and hot on the heels of the film’s highly publicized win of […]
October 1, 2010
In Come Drink With Me, King Hu considers each of the director’s tools, using camera movement differently than editing or the wide-screen space.
June 3, 2011
“Most critics really don’t get it.”, as they say. I feel compelled to respond to the casual filmgoers who don't understand the critic’s perspective.
March 26, 2010
In I Don’t Want To Talk About It which precedes her sudden death in 1995, Maria Luisa Bemberg explores the same themes as in her most famous movie, Camila.
March 22, 2010
Argentina has one of the most impressive cinematography in the world. Within that cinema, Fernando E. Solanas is a director of seminal importance. In his essay, Towards a Third cinema, Solanas and his co-writer, Octavio Getino, galvanize the overall revolutionary ideas of the time into the concept of a decolonization cinema, denouncing the weak, liberal arts that have, up until […]
March 22, 2010
The most striking aspect of the movie Araya is its beautifully contrasted black-and-white photography. Benacerraf effectively conveys her love of Venezuela.
March 22, 2010
Knocks at my door explores the political instability that has plagued Latin-American countries and Third-world countries in general.