By Parviz Jahed and Amir Ganjavie. [Editor’s note: The upcoming issue of Film International (issue 69, vol. 12, no. 3/2014) is dedicated to “Contemporary Independent Iranian Cinema.” This is a slightly abbreviated version of the introduction to this issue, written by the issue’s guest editors Parviz Jahed and Amir Ganjavie. […]
Whiplash (2014)
October 30, 2014
By Sam Littman. Is Whiplash the most controversial film of the year? In January, the film was anointed the American indie to keep an eye on through its festival run and eventual October release after taking both the Jury Prize and Audience Award at Sundance. October has finally arrived and […]
The Malick Illusion: Perceptual segmentation in The Thin Red Line
By Luis Antunes Rocha. “The image, in terms of sound, always has the basic nature of a question. Fundamental to the cinema experience, therefore, is a process – which we might call sound hermeneutic – whereby the sound asks where? and the image responds here!” (Altman 1980: 74) “With the […]
Eraserhead: David Lynch’s ‘Subconscious Experience’ Released on Criterion
October 26, 2014
By Jeremy Carr. David Lynch, via the Criterion Collection’s newly released Blu-ray of Eraserhead (1977), includes a television calibration option as a supplemental feature. With this, Lynch emphasizes that what we are about to see is a visual experience. It is important, therefore, and rightly so, that we adequately prepare […]
Toward the Limit: Michael Bay’s Transformers: Age of Extinction
By Carol Vernallis. Michael Bay poses a problem. He is the second-highest-grossing director, after Spielberg, so it’s not surprising that critics and connoisseurs love to take him down. But neither supporters nor detractors have been able to say exactly what he does. Is he just good at making Hollywood blockbuster […]
Adam Saunders on Launching Footprint Features
October 23, 2014
Actor and producer Adam Saunders recently helped to launch Footprint Features, which is dedicated to creating “character-driven stories that appeal to a mainstream audience.” In conversation with Film International’s Paul Risker, Saunders discussed his new endeavour along with his previous career in film. Why a career in acting and producing? […]
Ida: The Woman’s Path?
By Christopher Sharrett. The films of Pawel Pawlikowski have only intermittently interested me. I found his Woman in the Fifth (2011) utterly empty. My Summer of Love (2004) had much to recommend it, that is, up to the point where lesbian sex is conflated with psychopathology (the film shares some […]
Benny Loves Killing (2012)
October 19, 2014
By Jude Warne. Benny Loves Killing is director Ben Woodiwiss’ debut feature British film, and has multiple festival awards to its name, including the award for best horror film at the Oregon Independent Film Festival. Despite this particular genre categorization of the film as a “horror film,” it is up […]
Remembering Mani Kaul: A Commemorative DVD Collection
October 18, 2014
By Elroy Pinto. On the first anniversary of his death, the Films Division of India released a DVD set that features all of Mani Kaul’s documentaries. However, it is important to note that Kaul’s visually formidable Mati Manas (1985) never made it to the DVD. Kaul, born in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, […]
Kill the Messenger: Necessary Politics
By Christopher Sharrett. Michael Cuesta’s Kill the Messenger strikes me as a necessary film at a time when the US political cinema is at a low ebb – excluding the many fine straight-to-DVD documentaries by Robert Greenberg and others, about the criminal wars on the Middle East by the Bush […]