By Paul Risker. I still recall the scene in Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers (2003) when the father tells his offspring that they cannot live separately of the world. It is a scene that has replayed itself numerous times in my mind since I first encountered what could be called Bertolucci’s […]
Berlin Replayed: Cinema and Urban Nostalgia in the Postwall Era by Brigitta B. Wagner
A Book Review by Tony Williams. This book falls into the now familiar category of Cityscape Studies but focuses on representations of Berlin from the period of Walter Ruttmann’s well-known documentary Berlin – Symphony of a Great City (1927) to more recent depictions of a landscape that has been drastically […]
Cannibalized Chaos: Iago, The Joker and the “Good Sport” of Postmodernism
By Richmond B. Adams. During a conversation approximately one-third of the way through The Dark Knight (2008), Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) expresses to Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Caine) his view concerning the escalating rampages of The Joker (Heath Ledger) across Gotham City.[1] Wayne states that “Criminals aren’t complicated, Alfred. We just […]
Life Falls Apart: Sibylle
By Elias Savada. The ominous hum of unease that saturates Swiss-born director Michael Krummenacher’s effective yet derivative German thriller Sibylle – being sold worldwide under the title Like a Cast Shadow – sounds distinctly familiar. Is it a doppelganger? A transference tale? A journey-into-madness melodrama? Take your pick. You might see pieces […]
“A Strange, Organized Mixture”: David Farr on The Ones Below
March 15, 2016
By Paul Risker. David Farr’s directorial feature debut The Ones Below (2016) reflects ambition stemming from the storyteller’s youth, before his career in theatre that held back work in film. As Farr explains: “I came out of university in the early to mid-nineties and it was just a very difficult environment in those […]
Breaking Waves with Neptune
March 12, 2016
By Elias Savada. Spiritual and haunting in its low decibel manner, the New England coming-of-age drama Neptune is an indie effort that follows a young teenager’s soul-searching excursion along a disconcerting and sometimes allegorical path. The film is a proudly-shot-in-Maine effort from Portland filmmaker Derek Kimball, making a solid, passionate feature […]
A Conversation with Marco Berger
March 11, 2016
By Mark James. Argentinean director Marco Berger first gained notoriety for his 2009 Berlin Film Festival hit, Plan B—a film that explored modern gay romance in an ironically authentic Buenos Aires where nothing is as it appears on its surface. In the film Berger fuses genuine erotic suspense with romantic comedy […]
Fools Stalk at First Sight
March 10, 2016
By Elias Savada. A semi-creepy opening sequence for director-writer Benjamin Meyer’s micro-budget feature directorial debut Fools had me wondering whether stalking can be an acceptable dating platform. Two people exchange glances and touch hands on a passenger pole aboard a Chicago El train. He moves his grasp higher. Her hand follows. […]
The 2016 DC Independent Film Festival
March 9, 2016
By Gary M. Kramer The DC Independent Film Festival, billed as “the oldest independent film festival in our nation’s capital,” started screening dozens of features, documentaries, shorts and animated films March 4-13. Here are some of the highlights from this year’s program. Train Station (March 10, 8:15pm) is an impressive […]
Secrets Haunt Our Past: The Automatic Hate
March 7, 2016
By Elias Savada. Listen, I have three vices. Movies. Craft beer. And genealogy. Shortly after Justin Lerner’s second feature, The Automatic Hate, begins, there’s an uncomfortable meeting between socially awkward Alexis Green (Adelaide Clemens), an amateur stalker, and Davis Green (Joseph Cross), a bearded chef for a casually refined Italian café […]