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This Is Not A Burial, It’s A Resurrection
If faith can give meaning to one’s life, conversely, losing the meaning of life can make one lose faith. We may look at the heroine of This is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection, Mantoa, an old widow who first suffers from bereavement and then eviction with all her neighbors. In this plight, what does…
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A Hidden Life
Have you ever watched a movie that hit you so squarely it left you without words? I don’t remember the last time I felt that way about a movie. I’ve watched some great films, but discussion seemed so natural and readily available almost before the credits began rolling. I have not hidden my personal sentiments…
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Just Mercy
Reproductive justice. Climate justice. Food justice. Social justice. Append the word “justice” to any other word and you’ve got a ready-made brand platform for niche activism. As cultural forces shape the meaning of words over time, they risk losing their specificity and sharpness. The word “justice” risks dissipating into a partisan nebula. Depending which side…
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The Irishman
Christmas movies are overrated. Why not spend the holidays with a film full of sociopaths instead? That was Netflix’s gamble when they released Martin Scorsese’s latest offering on their streaming platform in December. According to them, 26 million people have streamed the movie to date. Clearly, the gamble paid off. Scorsese has made a lot…
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I lost my body (J’ai perdu mon corps)
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Under the Shadow (زیر سایه)
The “haunted house” trope – an abandoned Victorian mansion sitting alone in the middle of a great estate or a crumbling castle on a rain-swept hillside – has been urbanized over the last thirty years. Our modern cities don’t have enough noise and technology to keep ghosts away. Candyman sets a vengeful spirit among Chicago‘s…
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Let The Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in)
Let the Right One In is a foreign, art-house, vampire film starring a bunch of weird-looking Swedish kids. But also it’s a haunting look at isolation, childhood trauma and intimacy somewhere in the hazy realm between friendship and first love. Stark and matter-of-fact about its subject matter (Swedish vampires), this minimalist film was good enough…
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A Dark Song
If occult magic had real power, what would it take to achieve it? If humanity could summon and control transcendent spirits, would the process be painless? Empowering? Academic? A Dark Song, an Irish independent film from first-time writer/director Liam Gavin, speculates quite the opposite. By turns intense, exhausting, brutal and horrifying, the filmic magic of…
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Paddleton
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The Snowman
