Celebrating Women's Day, try to remember at least a dozen female directors. It's probably not going to be an easy task for most of us – injustice still happening today. If you want to make a change, then a poignant but rousing feature First Cow (2019) by Kelly Reichardt might be the right start. Be... Continue Reading →
How’s the despair? The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)
As my film taste buds developed, I grew really fond of Martin McDonagh. His works like In Bruges (2008) and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) were those exceptional films that I often reminisce about. When you watch hundreds of films per year, the ones that still stick in your mind always have some special... Continue Reading →
There’s really nothing here for most of us: Pig (2021)
A thriller drama directed and written by Michael Sarnoski in his directorial debut follows a chef turned truffle forager, whose pig goes missing. Honestly, I was in because I've expected Nicolas Cage to follow the path of a vengeance-driven John Wick, but with a pig. Maybe some truffle pasta. However, it's a poetic and pensive... Continue Reading →
Not quite yet: Brief Encounter (1945)
You tell yourself: "This was the last time, I swear". All of us have at one point in our lives done something forbidden or something frowned upon. One can easily imagine continuing doing something wrong, even though you know it cannot turn out well, and yet you cannot help it. Brief Encounter (1945) is a... Continue Reading →
And there wasn’t light: The Turin Horse (2011)
A man is continually whipping his horse who refuses to move. A famous philosopher Nietzsche notices the scene, runs to the horse, breaks into tears and embraces it. He returns home, lies in his bed, utters "Mother, I am stupid", and lives the rest of his life being mute and demented. And that's the true... Continue Reading →
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
Everything is silent. Suddenly, you hear a crescendo of drums. A scream. A whistle. One of the most memorable theme songs, created by a sound magician named Ennio Morricone, instantly makes you both on the edge of your seat and with bated breath. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Il buono, il brutto, il... Continue Reading →
There is probably no one alive who has seen the 1927 Metropolis
Wealthy industrialists and magnates live in wonderful penthouses surrounded by gardens, while workers live in darkness and operate the machinery that powers the city. According to Fritz Lang, the film was born from his first sight of the skyscrapers in New York in October 1924. Even though it was conceived as a futuristic dystopia, Metropolis... Continue Reading →
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
You know the story: James Stewart is George Bailey, a man who has given up everything in his life to help others, while Henry Travers is Clarence Odbody, his guardian angel, here to intervene and show him how different and sorrowful would everybody's life be if he had not been born. It became an instant... Continue Reading →
“I met Death Today. We are Playing Chess”: The Seventh Seal (1957)
The country is ravaged by plague, and the only thing left to do is challenging Death to a chess match. What film is more appropriate in the times of a pandemic than the one depicting a strategy against death? And when the Lamb had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space... Continue Reading →
What kind of man are you, don’t you even like dolphins? Zorba the Greek (1964)
You are going to see a woman stoned just because a man killed himself because she slept with another man. You are going to see people taunt a widow just because she did not remarry. You are going to see the awful reality of past times. But then you hear the first two notes. Ta-dam!... Continue Reading →