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Hiroshima Mon Amor (1959)
From the measureless depths of a woman's emotions...
Filmmaker(s): Alain Resnais

The deep conversation between a Japanese architect and a French actress forms the basis of this celebrated French film, considered one of the vanguard productions of the French New Wave. Set in Hiroshima after the end of World War II, the couple -- lovers turned friends -- recount, over many hours, previous romances and life experiences. The two intertwine their stories about the past with pondering the devastation wrought by the atomic bomb dropped on the city.

The Pull of Connection saw this thirty or so years ago. I don’t remember it moving me profoundly, but then so many things at that age routinely inject you with massive change without you knowing. Seeing it now gives me great, great appreciation for what...


Published November 25, 2022
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Enter the Void (2009)
Filmmaker(s): Gaspar Noé

This psychedelic tour of life after death is seen entirely from the point of view of Oscar, a young American drug dealer and addict living in Tokyo with his prostitute sister, Linda. When Oscar is killed by police during a bust gone bad, his spirit journeys from the past -- where he sees his parents before their deaths -- to the present -- where he witnesses his own autopsy -- and then to the future, where he looks out for his sister from beyond the grave.

Tomorrow Never Knows of our next great filmmakers, yet another South American, makes a film about French filmmaking. That once great tradition was compromised in the sixties by a burst of non-sustainable creativity that ate itself. A decent enough metaphor is that cinema overdosed on...


Published November 25, 2022
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Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession (1980)
His terrifying obsession took them to the brink of death and beyond.
Filmmaker(s): Nicolas Roeg

Alex Linden is a psychiatrist living in Vienna who meets Milena Flaherty though a mutual friend. Though Alex is quite a bit older than Milena, he's attracted to her young, carefree spirit. Despite the fact that Milena is already married, their friendship quickly turns into a deeply passionate love affair that threatens to overtake them both. When Milena ends up in the hospital from an overdose, Alex is taken into custody by Inspector Netusil.

Doubts that Bind is internal. It is sustained by questions of doubt, tension, expectation. The solidity of the hand is strengthened by the slipperiness underfoot. So suppose you wanted to make a film about the fields that animate your anchor relationships. You couldn’t do what everyone...


Published November 25, 2022
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2046 (2004)
Are you still in the mood for love?
Filmmaker(s): Wong Kar-wai

Women enter and exit a science fiction author's life over the course of a few years after the author loses the woman he considers his one true love.

Gloved Hand Welles, Tarkovsky and Kurosawa are the three past masters. Greenaway, Medem and Kar-Wai are the three greatest living filmmakers. All three weave incredibly deep and personal stories which bleed into the act of their creating the film. Each create striking images that resonate...


Published November 25, 2022
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Anatomy of Hell (2004)
Filmmaker(s): Catherine Breillat

A man rescues a woman from a suicide attempt in a gay nightclub. Walking the streets together, she propositions him: She'll pay him to visit her at her isolated house for four consecutive nights. There he will silently watch her. He's reluctant, but agrees. As the four nights progress, they become more intimate with each other, and a mutual fascination/revulsion develops. By the end of the four-day "contract", these two total strangers will have had a profound impact on each other.

The Grace of Stupidity, the Beauty of Blood of us are more nimble than others at being and some of us hide it well, but it is the human condition to be stupid. We all are and that’s that. The best we can hope for...


Published November 25, 2022
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Junebug (2005)
Filmmaker(s): Phil Morrison

On the way to meet with an independent artist in the South, newlywed art dealer Madeleine is convinced by her husband, George, that they should stop to meet his family in North Carolina. Madeleine's affluent lifestyle clashes with the family, but she befriends George's wide-eyed and pregnant sister-in-law, Ashley, who is nearing her due date. Through the family, Madeleine gains greater insight into George's character.

July is ostensibly a movie in the old, Cassavetes tradition. I’m not a fan of Cassavetes, because he wasn’t very good at being himself. But what he indicated was a certain honesty, a sure translucency of character, beings so open that we inhabit them instead...


Published November 24, 2022
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The Business of Strangers (2001)
Filmmaker(s): Patrick Stettner

A dark thriller about a successful businesswoman and her young assistant who toy with a slow-witted businessman while stuck at an airport hotel.

The Disconnected. much of life consists of invisible missed opportunities. Usually, they are invisible because what we see appears so competent that it seems only natural that it be as it is. This is such an opportunity. Our two characters here are presented competently. Everything else...


Published November 24, 2022
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Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996)
Filmmaker(s): Mira Nair

Tara and Maya are two inseparable friends in India. Their tastes, habits, and hobbies are the same. Years later, the two have matured, but have maintained their friendship. Tara gets married to the local prince, Raj Singh, who soon succeeds the throne as the sole heir. After the marriage, Raj gets bored of Tara and starts seeking another female to satisfy his sexual needs. He notices Maya and is instantly attracted to her. He has her included as one of his courtesans, and is intimate with her. Watch what happens when Tara finds out and the extent she will go to keep her marriage intact.

Club Exotica of the several foibles of the United States is that we have no indigenous sexual exotica. All sexual archetypes are inherited from predecessor cultures (excepting the competing African-American cultures), which is one reason -- I believe -- that US popular culture is so...


Published November 24, 2022
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Appalossa (2008)
Feelings get you killed.
Filmmaker(s): Ed Harris

Two friends hired to police a small town that is suffering under the rule of a rancher find their job complicated by the arrival of a young widow.

Shifty you can see the notes of the writer in a film. It is as if he or she sat down with the intent of accomplishing certain things and wrote a story. But instead of the story, we still see the unerased list of goals....


Published November 24, 2022
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An Inspector Calls (1954)
Is he real... or the creature of conscience?
Filmmaker(s): Guy Hamilton

An upper-crust family dinner is interrupted by a police inspector who brings news that a girl known to everyone present has died in suspicious circumstances. It seems that any or all of them could have had a hand in her death. But who is the mysterious Inspector and what can he want of them?

Inspecting the Story you want to understand film, the first thing on the list is narrative structure, specifically cinematically structured narrative. If I were teaching in film school, I would introduce this subject in a semester’s worth of detective narrative. Nowhere are more tricks pulled, more...


Published November 24, 2022
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