ESSAYS
March 22, 2010
It was a pleasant surprise to see Alice doesn’t live here anymore. Is it a feminist film? Can a male filmmaker look at a woman through a female perspective?
October 1, 2010
The transatlantic slave trade was one of the most disruptive acts in history, separating Africans from their backgrounds, traditions, and identities. This has had a significant impact on diaspora films.
March 22, 2010
Knocks at my door explores the political instability that has plagued Latin-American countries and Third-world countries in general.
March 22, 2010
Although separated by more than a decade, Funny Dirty Little War and Macunaïma both try to provoke social change by using satire.
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 […]
September 30, 2010
Central Station is one of the most popular and internationally acclaimed Brazilian films of the 1990s. It heralded a renaissance in Brazilian cinema.
September 28, 2010
David Ehrenstein condemns melodramas like Coming Home for perpetuating the illusion that they can affect social change instead of creating real change.
March 26, 2010
In Felicidades,several lives intersect on Christmas Eve in Buenos Aires as they all strive not to spend the holidays alone.
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.
September 28, 2010
Wong Kar-Wai is considered influential. In the Mood for Love (2000) was a big commercial success for him. How does it compare to Wong Kar-Wai’s other work?
September 28, 2010
Hou Hsiao Hsien’s depiction of life in Flowers of ShanghaÏ explores the inherent contradictions in the era’s Chinese society.
October 1, 2010
What is independent cinema? Critics and film scholars have wrestled with a definition of independent for most of cinema’s existence.