Active Vague Visages Film Series
“Masculinity in Mann’s world is its own prison, a conundrum of duality, a question of what someone will stand for and the masks they may wear while striving for an identity.”
Mannhunting #3 by Bill Bria (‘Ali,’ ‘The Insider’ and ‘Collateral’)
Mannhunting #2 by Bill Bria: “In Mann’s duality of man, cop and robber are, in Stevenson’s words, ‘radically both’ one and the same.”
Mannhunting #1 by Bill Bria: “The protagonists and antagonists in Mann’s films tend to be mirror images of each other, all of them caught within masculinity’s shackles.”
“‘Memories of Underdevelopment’ shares with ‘Pixote’ a cautious destabilization, a sense of how long can this last, of tipping points, radical reform and the capricious aftermath.”
Part Four of a Four-Part Disaster Movie Series by Bill Bria
“One of the great joys in viewing the films amassed under the World Cinema Project banner is discovering the richness of a nation’s cultural and scenic backdrop.”
“The accumulated effect of ‘Find Me Guilty,’ with its litany of absurdities, is that it is better to deliver the accused from continued subjugation than to maintain faith in a system that has lost all claim to its moral authority.”
Part Three of a Four-Part Disaster Movie Series by Bill Bria
Part Two of a Four-Part Disaster Movie Series by Bill Bria
“As with the underlying creed of Trances, the unambiguous intent of Redes’ communal message resonates in its country of origin and around the world, communicating the pleas for justice, egalitarianism and independence that are vital facets of life and are so often central to the best of all cinematic documentaries.”
“In ‘Night Falls on Manhattan,’ Lumet arrives at acceptance — the system is what it is. He is resigned to his inability to chronicle any meaningful change through his work.”
“It is during the 70s that the disaster film’s most pure and admirable entries were made, bookended by two significantly different stories involving air travel fiascos.”
“Abstract and disjointed, the narrative of ‘Mysterious Object at Noon’ is progressively piecemeal, and what occurs in ‘Limite’ is even more inconclusive.”
“As a chronicler of the justice system in a dozen or more films, Lumet is intimately concerned with the ways in which it represses individual thought and fails to live up to its supposedly defining principles.”
“‘Dry Summer’ and ‘Law of the Border’ remain available as fascinating, engaging documents of a national cinema often forgotten.”
“The thrill of a film like ‘Q & A’ comes in watching how Lumet finds new ways to level his criticisms, harnessing the cynicism that has propelled his work and suffusing each frame with deep, corrupting rot.”
“For those suffering from the same dissatisfactions depicted in ‘Touki Bouki’ and ‘Taipei Story’ — be they based on economics, vocation, familial and romantic relations or a broad national uncertainty — hope may be all there is. And that, at least, is something.”
“Though Sidney Lumet is by and large a classical filmmaker who privileges wide shots, staging and judicious framing over highly expressive techniques, ‘Daniel’ is one of his most formally adventurous works.”
“‘The Verdict’ is Lumet’s morality play, a palate-cleanser after the bitter cynicism of his previous film that affirms the fundamental goodness of a few ordinary people within the justice system.”
