Know the Cast & Characters: ‘Narvik’
‘Narvik’ Cast: A Vague Visages guide for every actor and character in Erik Skjoldbjærg’s 2022 movie.
Know the Cast & Characters: ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’
‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ Cast: A Vague Visages guide for every actor and character in Edward Berger’s 2022 Netflix movie.
Vagabond Noirs and Tramp Westerns: The Films of Hugo Fregonese at Il Cinema Ritrovato
“Hugo Fregonese is a director ripe for rediscovery.”
Soundtracks of Cinema: ‘Operation Mincemeat’
‘Operation Mincemeat’ Soundtrack: A Vague Visages guide for every featured song in John Madden’s 2021 movie.
Recovery, Survival and Extinction: Abel Ferrara’s Exile Cycle
“Few artists have dreamt more boldly and defiantly in their exile than Ferrara; he has faced up to the dark towers of commerce and coercion, the systemic violence that is rationalized and sanctioned to peak efficiency by the prevailing conditions.”
‘Coach to Vienna’ and the Muddied Waters of History
“The power of ‘Coach to Vienna’ today rests in its mythic quality. The crux of the story may well be placed in the ‘real,’ but the affect of the mise-en-scène is that of a murderous fable.”
Know the Cast: ‘The Bombardment’
‘The Bombardment’ Cast: A Vague Visages guide for every main performer and character in Ole Bornedal’s 2021 movie.
Nine-to-Five Fellows: The Company Man Comes Home
“The generation that had fought the war was confronting the generation that had overseen it, staging a sub-rosa assault on entrenched power.” – D.M. Palmer on ‘Patterns,’ ‘The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit’ and ‘The Apartment’
The Light of Human Love and Community: On ‘Moontide’ and ‘Port of Shadows’
“‘Moontide’ and ‘Port of Shadows’ offer a fascinating study into key differences in Hollywood and European filmmaking and storytelling during the 1930s and early 1940s, a time when the studio system reigned supreme…”
Know the Cast: ‘The Forgotten Battle’
‘The Forgotten Battle’ Cast: A Vague Visages guide for every main performer and character in Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.’s 2020 movie.
Memory and Style: The Threads of a Collective Experience in Marcel Ophuls’ ‘The Sorrow and the Pity’
“‘The Sorrow and the Pity’ is surgical and functional, yet unquestionably a reflection of the imagination of an artist.”
Why Criticism: The Difficulties of Depicting Genocide in ‘Quo Vadis, Aida?’ and ‘La Llorona’
“Roger Ebert once wrote ‘it’s not what a film is about, it’s how it is about it,’ and it’s this phrase that I usually return to when thinking about cinema that deals with humanity’s worst impulses.”
Review: Predrag Antonijevic’s ‘Dara of Jasenovac’
“Given that ‘Dara of Jasenovac’ is the first Serbian film to cover the camps, the implicit didacticism would actually be more welcomed if it did its job and taught viewers something.”
Review: Roseanne Liang’s ‘Shadow in the Cloud’
“The ‘Shadow in the Cloud’ team acknowledges gremlin mythology with genuine admiration and respect.”
Kantemir Balagov’s ‘Beanpole’ Makes Oscar Shortlist
“‘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.”
Understanding Nobuhiko Ōbayashi: From ‘House’ to ‘Hanagatami’
“No director has been able to replicate Nobuhiko Ōbayashi’s iridescent, hallucinatory and infectious passion for film.”
Review: Spike Lee’s ‘Da 5 Bloods’
“One of the most effective storytelling strategies in Spike Lee’s ‘Da 5 Bloods’ is the application of the simple and elegant dichotomy.”
Review: Spike Lee’s ‘Da 5 Bloods’ Matters
“As always, Spike Lee asks all the right questions, and it’s up to us to recognize that even though the answers may not be ones we want to hear, we need to grapple with them all the same.”
Why Criticism: Nichols / Soderbergh
“In their conversations, Soderbergh and Nichols work together to dismantle the artificial dividing line between art and criticism, neatly moving between the two…”
Review: Kantemir Balagov’s ‘Beanpole’
“Many directors twice Balagov’s age could only dream of making a film this unwavering and unsettling — so explicit in its understanding and exploration of extreme female pain.”