A Study of Fragmentation in the Aftermath of World War II in Christian Petzold’s Phoenix (2014)
Phoenix (2014) opens at night, and we follow a car carrying two Jewish women past a military checkpoint into Berlin,…
Joint [2021] NYAFF Review: A Generic Albeit Fresh Spin on the Yakuza narrative
Joint [2021] Review: The concept of a yakuza in Japan has existed since the 17th century. A Yakuza, for the…
Soul of a Beast [2021]: ‘Locarno’ Review – A Visual Fantasy with Entertainingly Deranged Moments
On the surface, Soul of a Beast (2021) is one of the most conventional narratives to have resurfaced in the…
Roots [2021]: ‘KVIFF’ Review – A Distinctively Minimalist Portrait of Landscape and its People
Sometimes the largest of human stories can be contained in the smallest (of space, of moments, etc). It’s what Tea…
The Sadness [2021]: ‘Locarno’ Review – An Interesting Gore Fest that Never Takes Off
It would be too straightforward to brand ‘The Sadness’ as a zombie film. Despite the lack of official word, the…
A Thousand Fires [2021]: ‘Locarno’ Review – A Bewitchingly Intimate Slice-of-Life Documentary
Documentaries’ sole purpose isn’t to convey certain information or to educate the audience. It can artfully put us into the…
Zero to Hero [2021]: ‘NYAFF’ review – A compassionate look at the Life of a Paralympic champion
Zero to Hero, based on the true story of So Wa-wai, a sprinter who raced for Hong Kong in five…
The River [2021] Locarno Review: An Overlong, Tedious Mystery Replete With Lazy Filmmaking
Lebanese writer-director Ghassan Salhab’s Locarno-premiered film The River (2021) is the last of his landscape trilogy, the previous two films…