By Yun-hua Chen. After a very personal debut Full of Missing Links (2012) about her journey back to South Korea in search of her father and the experience of separation on a larger scale in the country, the Korea-born and Brussels-based director Yoon Sung-a’s second documentary Overseas, a Belgian-French coproduction, […]
“All Archives Create Futures” – Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
December 19, 2019
By Alexandra Heller-Nicholas. There’s a moment in Matt Wolf’s documentary Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project where the enormous value of the VHS archival project of the film’s title spirals is captured in its purest essence. The screen is divided into four frames, live television broadcasts recorded off television on 11 […]
To Know Them Doesn’t Mean You Love Them: Bombshell
Elias Savada
December 19, 2019
By Elias Savada. The stars are blondly aligned: Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, as three of the many victims of the “real scandal” at Fox News on which Charles Randolph’s screenplay is based. John Lithgow goes on the broadside as Roger Ailes, the ugly sleaze of a human for […]
Perforation: On Ken Loach’s Factory Humans in Sorry We Missed You
Susana Bessa
December 18, 2019
By Susana Bessa. We could never say it had been the worst week of her life. Because to see it as the worst is to be hopeful on its recovery. It is to say she will, sooner or later, have a better day. And with it, all that weight taken […]
Richard Jewell and the Damn Yankees
Christopher Sharrett
December 16, 2019
By Christopher Sharrett. I have had sympathetic interest in the work of Clint Eastwood over the years, but such interest has been hard to sustain with antics like his talking to an empty chair – as a mock of Obama – during the 2012 Republican National Convention. In retrospect, it […]
A Sense of Loss: Dónal Foreman’s The Image You Missed
James Slaymaker
December 16, 2019
By James Slaymaker. Jean-Luc Godard once explained that he pioneered his late-period, archival style after realizing that “in a striking manner, film was able to recount its own history in a way quite different from the other arts. And in montage alone, there was a story, or attempts at stories, […]
And You Thought Your Family Was Dysfunctional: Mario Bellocchio’s Fists in the Pocket (Criterion Collection)
December 16, 2019
By Rod Lott. Given how ahead of its time Fists in the Pocket is, I’m surprised Mario Bellocchio’s first feature isn’t more widely known, in the way that François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows and Ken Loach’s Kes serve as cinematic shorthand for “troubled youth.” Then again, Lord, is it ever […]
This is the End: 63 Up
Michael Sandlin
December 13, 2019
By Michael Sandlin. “Give me the child until he is seven, and I will give you the man,” is the bit of ancient philosophy that serves as the abiding impetus behind Michael Apted’s five-decades-long documentary series. The participants in this ongoing sociological experiment are both male and female, privileged and […]
Real-Life Libertarian Nightmare: Luke Lorentzen’s Midnight Family
Michael Sandlin
December 7, 2019
By Michael Sandlin. From a strictly academic point of view, 26-year-old boy wonder documentarian Luke Lorentzen’s Midnight Family affecting ticks all the boxes of a classic “observational” mode of nonfiction film. No soundtrack, no incidental music, no voiceover — just simple unobtrusive camera work and a sharp eye for detail. It’s […]
Strange Metamorphosis: Jessica Hausner’s Little Joe
Thomas Puhr
December 7, 2019
By Thomas Puhr. “Who can prove the genuineness of feelings?” a scientist asks in Little Joe (2019). “Moreover, who cares?” These startling questions cut right to the heart of Jessica Hausner’s curious science-fiction film, which centers around a genetically-engineered flower that releases happiness-inducing chemicals. Are these feelings the plant elicits […]