Category: Reviews
Lars von Trier’s Antichrist: Grief, Pain, Despair
Lars von Trier is, beyond a doubt, one of the boldest directors of our time; he never balks at digging a hole in the soil of human emotion with the sole intention of getting well and dirty. Von Trier’s Melancholia (2011) is a meditation on self-destruction, on one’s inner life being untameable, overbearing and suffocating. Antichrist (2009) is…
Chef and Conflict: The Dramatic Imperative
There are people on this planet who believe the Apollo 11 moon landing was faked. There are people who believe Howard the Duck is underrated. There are people who believe bacon is not good. But you know what no one believes? That conflict isn’t the root of drama. That’s the first thing they teach you…
The Lunchbox: Moments that Shine
When the lights came on and the credits began to roll, my confused fellow filmgoers remained in their seats, blinking at the screen as if to ask “Wait, that’s ALL?” One by one, they shuffled from the theatre like dazed sleepwalkers, rudely jostled from their dreams of a perfect, Hollywood ending. Warning: spoilers for The…
Lot in Sodom: Reading Film Against the Grain
Many of the film reviews that circulate in the blogosphere are written by and for laymen. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that (I’m more or less a layman, after all), but every now and then I crave a deeper analysis—specifically, one that takes into account the formal elements of filmmaking. In addition, I often notice…
Blue Ruin: Deconstructing the Storyteller
Unless you are intimately involved in a movie’s production, it can be virtually impossible to determine where the writer’s role ends and the director’s begins, or how much credit/blame to assign to the actor or the cinematographer. One of the reasons the auteur theory gained such credibility in the past half century is that it…