Schmuel (Géza Röhrig) has recently lost his beloved wife to cancer. The well-liked cantor and father of two finds his world thrown into disarray with this tragic incident, and as a result, he recedes from public view, becoming a shadow of his former self, constantly burdened with nightmares and dark thoughts about his late wife,…
Author: The Postmodern Pelican
Shadow (2019)
Shadow (Chinese: 影 or Yǐng) is an astonishing achievement. Zhang Yimou has established himself as perhaps China’s most important filmmaker, at least from the perspective of the worldwide resonance of his films. This film, in particular, sees the master returning to form, creating a film that will undoubtedly exist alongside his towering masterpieces such as…
Giant Little Ones (2019)
Franky (Josh Wiggins) lives a pretty happy life. He has a loving family, is extremely popular at school, has many girls fighting for his affection and most importantly, has a solid friendship with Ballas (Darren Mann), who has been at his side since they were children. However, below the surface, there is something deeper troubling…
Xala (1975)
“Modernity must not make us lose our Africanity” Senegal in the 1970s. The nation has just declared independence from the French, and have chosen to create their own government to rule over the people in the African way, establishing a fiercely proud politician as the President, and employing a range of businessmen and influential thinkers…
Barry Lyndon (1975)
I was recently talking to a friend, and I mentioned that there are few words that are more profoundly striking at the end of a film than “Directed by Stanley Kubrick” because naturally, you’d have just been through a period of great existential manipulation, as was par for the course for a man who relished…
Farewell, My Lovely (1975)
Phillip Marlowe (Robert Mitchum) is patiently waiting inside a hotel room. The famous detective is now older, more grizzled and has a certain world-weariness that only comes with decades of dealing with the most sordid and deplorable of individuals, being a servant to the deviants and an ally to the law enforcement. He is approached…
Coonskin (1975)
Ralph Bakshi is renowned for The Lord of the Rings, revered for Wizards and infamous for Fritz the Cat. Yet, none of these films can be called his masterpiece, which is reserved strictly and without any hesitation for Coonskin, his magnum opus, a film of such undeniable brilliance, its relative obscurity (salvaged only by its…
Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)
Before he was the cinematic stalwart he is seen as today, the creator of such inventive and brilliant visual odysseys such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Life of Pi, Ang Lee was just another young Taiwanese filmmaker crafting intimate dramas that portrayed his home country and its rapidly changing social and cultural situations…
Spotlight on a Murderer (1961)
Upon viewing Spotlight on a Murderer (French: Pleins feux sur l’assassin), I realized something – no matter how original the idea, or how gorgeous the visual aesthetic, a film means nothing if it isn’t executed well. Georges Franju will forever have his name engraved in the canon of great artists purely because of his brilliant…
The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987)
Judith Hearne (Maggie Smith) is an Irish spinster who has recently taken occupancy in a small boarding house in Dublin. A profoundly lonely woman, she has been forced to be constantly on the move due to her diminishing funds, and the fact that her career as a piano teacher is hardly enough to sustain her,…
