The title is certainly not the only provocative element of Jean Eustache’s magnum opus, the daring social odyssey The Mother and the Whore (French: La Maman et la Putain). A deeply fascinating investigation into issues facing the French youth at the time, such as sexual identity, gender politics and the role of of the individual…

A few years ago, I went through a period of intense interest in the work of Diane Arbus, captivated by her ability to capture reality in a way that was most beautiful but grotesque, simple but layered with meaning, all portrayed through the most gorgeous photographs I’d ever seen, which spoke to me unlike anything…

Life is full of mystery, and there are certain things we can never truly understand: are we alone in the universe? What is the meaning of life? Is there a higher power? These are the questions that keep me up at night, or least they used to up until yesterday. These existential quandaries have now…

There’s a certain sensation I very rarely get when watching a film – as much as I love cinema, I’ve been conditioned to the fact that many movies are really great, and you start to develop an inability to be truly amazed by films as regularly as you used to, with that childlike wonder seemingly…

Conversation Piece is the kind of film that reminds someone precisely why they love cinema. I know it definitely evoked deep and visceral emotions deep within me when watching it. Luchino Visconti had the ability to create the most hypnotic, beautiful expressions of existential issues, and in crafting this film, which is unquestionably one of…

Daniel (Martin Loeb) lives a very pleasant life. He grows up in the French countryside, under the care of his loving grandmother (Jacqueline Dufranne), where he spends his day engaging in beautifully reckless childhood activities with his coterie of friends. He is a young man who enjoys the simple pleasures in life because that is…

“Taking pictures is a way of proving things. Waiting for the image to develop, I was often filled with a strange unease. I could hardly wait to compare the picture with reality. But comparing them wouldn’t reassure me either. As the still images were always overtaken by reality“ Reality is one of the most pivotal…

In the pantheon of great cinematic artists, there are few that can hold the prestige and pedigree as Ingmar Bergman, whose reputation as one of the finest filmmakers to ever work in the medium is undoubtedly and thoroughly earned – over the course of a career that lasted half a century, he blazed a trail…

Rick Alverson truly embodies the idea of outsider art – his films have digressed so far from anything even remotely understandable or normal, and extend further from the very definitions of independent filmmaking, defying even the most transgressive of filmmakers. Yet, his work is always so astute and brilliant and demonstrates an individual with one…

The 1940s, Hungary, during the height of the Holocaust. Maximilian Theo Adolfer (Dirk Bogarde) is a Nazi prison guard stationed at one of the notorious extermination camps, where he masquerades as a doctor, as a way of satiating his perverted desire for voyeuristic dominance by invading the personal space of the prisoners by photographing them…