Helen Keller has always been a historical figure that I’ve been profoundly fascinated by – from the early days of elementary school where we were told about her valiant efforts in overcoming both deafness and blindness, making her one of the most inspiring historical figures, to my in-depth exploration of her life at the postgraduate…

In serene suburban Los Angeles reside an ordinary family. They’re led by the rugged but well-meaning Gideon (Paul Butler) and his wife, Suzie (Mary Alice), who have two grown children (Richard Brooks and Carl Lumbly), who have offspring of their own. Their lives are, on the surface, the definition of traditional – they attend church,…

There are certain qualities embedded in the films of Arnaud Desplechin that show him as a director whose films often touch on very real issues, but the one that perhaps stands out the most is his incredible ability to look at the human condition in very different ways, focusing on the trials and tribulations of…

Émilie (Catherine Deneuve) and Antoine (Daniel Auteuil) are middle-aged siblings that live radically different lives. She is a successful lawyer who is in an unhappy marriage with her legal partner (Jean-Pierre Bouvier), who are together only for the sake of their children (Chiara Mastroianni and Anthony Prada), who are now adults in their own right…

Something that has become quite apparent as I’ve worked through the career of Frank Perry in order to shed light on him as one of the most underpraised American masters, is that as he progressed in the industry, he became a better filmmaker. His first films were slightly weaker and far less-interesting that some of…

Yuichi (Yuichi Ishii) is a mild-mannered entrepreneur whose business is gradually becoming quite a formidable force in contemporary Tokyo. His job description is simple: he pretends to be people for a living. He calls his company “Family Romance”, where he and his colleague (Takashi Nakatani) spend their days completing contractual obligations by a variety of…

I’m not quite sure what Jean-Luc Godard was trying to achieve with Contempt (French: Le Mépris), but if it was to make a good film, he didn’t quite reach that goal. My own challenges with Godard are well-documented, but I’ve always admired his gall as a filmmaker, and someone who essentially helped define postwar European…

You can say a great deal about John Ford, but you can’t ever accuse him on not delivering exactly what he promised – when looking into Young Mr. Lincoln, one shouldn’t expect to find anything other than what the title proposes, and for better or worse, Ford’s dramatization of an early chapter in the life…

The Mazumdar family are an ordinary working-class clan living in 1960s Calcutta. The patriarch of the family has always been Subrata (Anil Chatterjee), a banker who has made it his life’s intention to provide for his family, which includes his wife Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee), his younger sister (Jaya Bhaduri), his son (Prosenjit Sarkar) and his…

Immersing yourself in the world of Luchino Visconti is an experience like no other. His films are brimming with an effervescent energy and boisterous grandeur that are simply unprecedented, and go into the almost factual belief that he is one of the finest filmmakers to ever work in the medium. Much like many of the…