Growing up is difficult already, so having the constant threat of inter-faith violence lingering over your quaint Irish neighbourhood is not the most pleasant experience for a young boy trying to make his way through a world he has barely begun to understand. This is the starting-point for Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast (quite literally, with the…
The Thing Called Love (1993)
When it comes to the subject of Nashville, you essentially get two different kinds of films – those about outsiders making their way to the notorious Music City, or those bursting to get out of there and explore the wider world. Regardless of the specific approach, it is almost impossible to find a film set…
An American in Paris (1951)
Whether or not you find his particular brand of filmmaking effective, there are few names that evoke the idea of quality quite as much as Vincente Minnelli, whose career is filled to the brim with every kind of film, ranging from big-budget musicals to lush melodramas, intimate character-studies and barn-burning extravaganzas that have solidified their…
The Bright Side (2021)
“Dying is easy, comedy is hard” – these words appear whenever someone is talking about the frequent excursions many artists make when it comes to the subject of death. The great inevitability is a subject that has provoked and inspired directors for generations, especially when it comes to looking at it through the lens of…
Drive My Car (2021)
From a contemporary cinematic perspective, there are few artists quite as interesting as Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, who has steadily found his status growing in esteem, moving from the director of films like Happy Hour (more known for its intimidating running time than it is for the contents of those five hours of stunning filmmaking) and Asako…
People Will Talk (1951)
At the perfect intersection between screwball comedy and romantic melodrama resides People Will Talk, a daring and provocative film by the legendary Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who was operating at his creative peak around this time, having just redefined the Golden Age of Hollywood with the iconic All About Eve, as well as a range of…
The Lovers on the Bridge (1991)
Once you spend a considerable amount of time with Leos Carax and his films, you start to realize that he is not a director all that interested in playing by the rules, preferring to entirely dismantle the art of filmmaking on both the narrative and visual level, while still retaining a sense of control and…
Rosalie Goes Shopping (1989)
The sheer amount of stories that we’ve seen written about capitalism, either its joys or failures, is almost too staggering to count, especially since they extend to the very outset of the idea of free-market economy, which some viewed as being indicative of a new level of outright freedom, others seeing it as a way…
The Worst Person in the World (2021)
There comes a point in everyone’s lives where we just wish to freeze time, and run through the streets, liberated from the need to partake in a world that grows increasingly more hostile the more we uncover its secrets, which is one of the inevitabilities of venturing into adulthood. This concept is the centrepiece scene…
Carmen Comes Home (1951)
There are many ways to describe Carmen Comes Home (Japanese: カルメン故郷に帰る), but the most appropriate would be to call it a film built on contradictions. It is bawdy yet elegant, hilarious yet melancholy, dignified yet playful, and simple but always consistently striking. Keisuke Kinoshita was a director who had a strong grasp on his craft,…
The Postmodern Pelican 