This review contains various thematic spoilers but only vague allusions to plot spoilers. Read at your discretion.
A Brighter Summer Day is a truth epic, a four hour journey into the abyss of teenage disillusionment. It's about the reality of growing up and the consequences of an aimless life. It's a quiet movie, of people kissing in the dark, with conversations happening between people offscreen, of themes muted in favour of shapeless ideas. It's paced like life itself, with threads…
Werckmeister Harmonies is a film of constant symbolism and allegory. It is the greatest philosophical and political allegory since Sátántangó, another film by master auteur Béla Tarr. Werckmeister Harmonies is Tarr's most exciting film (although Sátántangó remains his best) because it's the most brimming with ideas. Adapting the novel The Melancholy of Resistance by László Krasznahorkai, Werckmeister Harmonies more than matches the quality of the masterful original text. The film is more implicit in some ways, taking the dense metaphorical nature of the novel but…
Ballerina is a much more generic action flick than the primary John Wick films. It lacks the unique style and thrilling intensity which has made the John Wick films successful. Though Ballerina is not a bad film by any means. It has a lot of exciting action scenes which are directed well, filled with creative touches and dynamic camera movement. It's a fun film and ultimately satisfying. The biggest issue with Ballerina is that its story of vengeance is just…
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is a fairly unspectacular animated film, but it concludes the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy in a satisfying manner. Hiccup now being a chieftain gives the film a fresh dynamic, as does a romance subplot for Toothless. In fact some of the romance scenes with Toothless are the best parts of The Hidden World, as they are often sweet and creatively told without dialogue. That stands in contrast to the romantic…
Princess Mononoke is Hayao Miyazaki's epic, his greatest work. It is profound and complex, and dense in mythology and history. For a man whose career was solidified by the soft and sweet nature of My Neighbour Totoro, it was bold and ambitious to make a film this long, grim, and nihilistic. Princess Mononoke is Studio Ghibli's most thematically sophisticated work. It is also the finest original animated film in history. It is one of the most perfect films ever made…
Bad people are complicated. There is something dark at the centre of The Lost Daughter, a film which viciously tears apart the idealism we often have about motherhood. It is a film of mothers, but not one of love. Instead we see a rot, mothers who find children a burden. The Lost Daughter is an uncomfortable movie, with a constant unease and sense of dread. We wait to be given answers, for characters to be uncovered and exposed, and yet…
