“Occupying a middle space between the classicism of Japan’s most well-known filmmakers and the politically charged avant-garde of the New Wave, Suzuki uses the trappings of noir to explore the ramifications of isolation.”
“‘A Colt Is My Passport’ represents a supreme tension between American and Japanese Noir, and asks questions about the past and future of international cinema.”
“‘No Man’s Land,’ Conor Allyn’s earthy effort at a serious revisionist western, is a film of good intentions that goes awry when it attempts to unpack any of its ideas.”
“A blueprint for Suzuki’s later masterpieces, ‘Take Aim at the Police Van’ is a solid cinematic vehicle full of suspense and surprises.”
“‘Pale Flower’ finds its own rhythm and mood, superimposing frictionless cool on tireless ennui, punctuating everyday boredom with an enigmatic tremble.”
“‘Pale Flower’ is a magnificently emblematic example of the stylization, self-consciousness and independent spirit that defined the Japanese New Wave.”
“In Kurosawa’s noir films, characters struggle to move beyond loss — personal, financial and national — only to find that more loss awaits them.”
“The ‘Shadow in the Cloud’ team acknowledges gremlin mythology with genuine admiration and respect.”
Dipankar Sarkar Interviews ‘Chronicle of Space’ Filmmaker Akshay Indikar
“An exceedingly dark and violent survival horror film, ‘Hunted’ will make sure you never again go out alone at night.”
“‘Beanpole’ masters the unseen, the unspoken and the ‘presence of absence’ in the way it unpacks the toll of ongoing armed conflict through a kind of metonymic expression of experience.”
“Benson and Moorhead’s typically dark, cynical tone is well-suited to the material until a too-neat ending tries to retcon ‘Synchronic’ into something else in the most jarring way possible.”
Dipankar Sarkar Interviews ‘Meel Patthar’ Filmmaker Ivan Ayr
“‘Southland Tales’ and ‘Kaboom’ aren’t defined BY their end-of-days narratives, as their apocalypses define the contents through the fulfillment of apocalyptic revelations.”
“In ‘Orquil Burn,’ an internalised inquiry meets external spaces with a quiet yet insistent beauty.”
“One of the great pleasures of ‘Nomadland’ is the consistently shrewd and perceptive manner in which Fern’s hidden depths and flinty pragmatics defy expectations.”
“‘Panda Bear It’ suggests plenty about the human condition without the need to bog itself down with exposition or endless, energy-sapping ruminations.”
“DiCaprio’s early 90s accomplishments have been widely dismissed or ignored ever since Titanic’s Jack Dawson become a beloved movie figure amongst parents and their nostalgia-loving kids.”
“For a film about anger — both that of the social movements animated in protest and that belonging to the state which will brook no challenge to its authority — ‘A Grin Without a Cat’ is surprisingly without its own anger.”
“In ‘The Bride Wore Black,’ cruel fate rips true love away from the innocent, suggesting that Truffaut believed pure happiness is only found in fairy tales.”