Author Archive

  • 13 Mar

    Posted by


    Category

    An Early Taste of the 2012 Shinsedai Cinema Festival

    0

    In one corner, a fiction-nonfiction hybrid following innovative rock band Shinsei Kamattechan and a number of their fans. In the other, a dark and eccentric tale in the vein of David Lynch. These are the films that will be bookending the fourth annual Shinsedai Cinema Festival in Toronto this upcoming summer. Last Saturday (March 10th), the festival organizers hosted a special screening of the 2011 omnibus film Quirky Guys and Gals at the Cinecycle event space on Spadina Avenue. Along with the screening, the event helped raise $151 for the Niji-Iro ‘Rainbow’ Cinema Support Project, which aids those still affected by the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami one year later, and gave people a glimpse at some of the Japanese independent films that the festival will be featuring.

    Here, you can see the trailers for the opening and closing night films. They are Yu Irie’s Ringing in Their Ears (pictured above) and Masafumi Yamada’s Tentsuki, both of which seeming to promise a refreshing and eclectic selection of films for viewers to dig into in a few months’ time.

    The 2012 Shinsedai Cinema Festival will be hosted at the Revue Cinema in Toronto from July 12th to 15th. Check out the festival’s website for more information and to keep track of upcoming developments via Facebook and Twitter.

  • 04 Mar

    Posted by


    Category

    Review: The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962)

    0

    [Toronto's TIFF Bell Lightbox program The Poetry of Precision: The Films of Robert Bresson is currently underway, and will be continuing through Sunday, March 18th. Film blogger Corey Atad has provided a summary of the program over at Dork Shelf.]

    For many cinephiles, the absolute pinnacle of cinematic interpretations of the Joan of Arc story is Carl Theodor Dreyer’s silent masterpiece from 1928, The Passion of Joan of Arc. When one first watches Robert Bresson’s 1962 film The Trial of Joan of Arc, it is all too easy to mentally compare it to the Dreyer film – especially since both works specifically limit themselves to the peasant-born leader’s trial and execution. Yet, as with Lancelot du Lac, Bresson’s specific vision quite clearly distinguishes his take on the much-retold tale from other artists’. Closely adapting the actual records of the trial, his film clocks in at a lean 65 minutes and, fittingly, quite ably exemplifies his rigorously crafted aesthetic.

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 22 Feb

    Posted by


    Category

    Review: Lancelot du Lac (1974)

    3

    [Throughout February and March, Toronto's TIFF Bell Lightbox will be presenting a retrospective of French master Robert Bresson's films entitled The Poetry of Precision: The Films of Robert Bresson. Film blogger Corey Atad has provided a summary of the program over at Dork Shelf. Lancelot du Lac will be screening once more on Tuesday, March 6th.]

    Lancelot du Lac was a major passion project for Robert Bresson that took him several years to eventually make. However, it isn’t the sort of grand, large-scale epic that one might imagine given both the great importance placed on it by its creator and, especially, the mythic nature of the story material. After all, the tales of King Arthur, Sir Lancelot du Lac and the other Knights of the Round Table make up some of the most oft-told tales in history, usually illustrated with magnificent portrayals of castles, battles and adventures. Yet Bresson offers a very different take; one very much exemplifying his strict ideas regarding control, minimalism and muted expression in the cinematic medium.

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 15 Feb

    Posted by


    Category

    Review: A Man Escaped or: The Wind Bloweth Where it Listeth (1956)

    2

     

    [Throughout February and March, Toronto's TIFF Bell Lightbox will be presenting a retrospective of French master Robert Bresson's films entitled The Poetry of Precision: The Films of Robert Bresson. Film blogger Corey Atad has provided a summary of the program over at Dork Shelf.]

    With his 1956 film A Man Escaped, Robert Bresson may very well have made the definitive prison escape film. Based on real-life prisoner of war André Devigny’s experiences and set in the Nazi-run Fort Montluc in Lyon, 1943, it depicts the experiences of a captive named Fontaine (François Leterrier) as he carefully tries to form a plan to liberate himself. He relies on the precious few resources available to him: the meager furnishings of his cell, crucial windfalls of information and extra materials provided by his fellow prisoners, the inner strength he gathers and clings to as he carries out his dangerous actions. Often, pure, blind luck fortuitously intervenes, carrying Fontaine along a little bit further. He is eventually informed that he has been sentenced to death; very soon thereafter, he gains a cellmate in a young man named Jost (Charles Le Clainche). This causes Fontaine to consider whether to place his trust in his newfound acquaintance or take proper measures to ensure his own safety.

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 05 Feb

    Posted by


    Category

    Review: Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945)

    5

    [Starting Thursday, February 9th, Toronto's TIFF Bell Lightbox will be presenting a retrospective of French master Robert Bresson's films entitled The Poetry of Precision: The Films of Robert Bresson. To celebrate the event, here is a review of Bresson's second film, which will be playing at the Lightbox on February 23rd and March 5th.]

    Here, in Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne, is a story that might have been given an unsatisfactory treatment, like so much melodramatic drivel, and instead is carefully invested with some actual weight. Each of the central characters and their concerns are represented with an admirable amount of depth and conviction, elevating the narrative to nearly grand proportions. This shows how, even at just his second feature film, Robert Bresson had a firm grasp on his craft. That craft would eventually grow into a singular, pure style far more severe than what he uses here, yet Les Dames still certainly deserves recognition as a notable (and entertaining) entry in the great filmmaker’s body of work.

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 17 Nov

    Posted by


    Category

    Review: Breaking the Waves (1996)

    0

    With 1996’s Breaking the Waves, Lars von Trier made his first proper venture into the territories of female martyrdom and suffering that he would become so well known for. It features one of his most memorable characters: Bess McNeill (Emily Watson in a one-of-a-kind performance), a child-like young woman who lives with her mother (Sandra Voe) and sister Dorothy (Katrin Cartlidge) in an isolated coastal community in Scotland. At the start of the film, she gets married to Jan (Stellan Skarsgård), who works on an offshore oilrig. Their early days together are happy ones, but he soon returns to the rig to continue his work, plunging the fiercely affectionate Bess into sadness. Then disaster strikes when an accident leaves Jan paralyzed. After a period of slow healing and depression, he makes an unusual request of her: Bess is to pursue sexual encounters with other men and tell him about them as a sad substitute for the moments of carnal bliss they once shared together. With difficulty, Bess complies, leading to tragic consequences in her relationships with Jan, her family, the town and God.
    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 12 Nov

    Posted by


    Category

    Review: Europa (1991)

    7

    Being the third and final film in Lars von Trier’s Europa trilogy, Europa occupies quite a pivotal place in the Danish director’s career. At the time, it was his most thematically and stylistically ambitious achievement, escalating his ongoing study of European society to impressive new heights. At the Cannes Film Festival, it received no fewer than three awards, including one for “Special Artistic Contribution” – yet this didn’t keep von Trier from playing the sore loser when he didn’t get the Palme d’Or by calling Jury president Roman Polanski a midget. As if in response to this “loss,” von Trier then embarked on a new stage in his work, adopting the rougher, more emotionally lacerating approach seen in films like Breaking the Waves (1996), Dancer in the Dark (2000) and Dogville (2003) that he is perhaps best known for. This drastic shift makes Europa all the more fascinating as an exhilaratingly bold flirtation with large-scale filmmaking and outright spectacle.

    Jean-Marc Barr stars as Leopold Kessler, a naïve American who goes to Germany shortly after the end of World War II to work as a sleeping car conductor. Accompanied by his German uncle (Ernst-Hugo Järegård), he begins to socialize with the Hartmann family who run the Zentropa railway line. He becomes romantically involved with Katharina (Barbara Sukowa), daughter of the company’s owner, Max Hartmann (Jørgen Reenberg), while facing pressure from both an American colonel (Eddie Constantine) and the branch of Nazi supporters known as the Werewolves to aid their respective sides. Eventually, the non-committal Kessler is pushed to finally decide where his loyalties truly lie.
    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 11 Nov

    Posted by


    Category

    Review: Epidemic (1987)

    1

    For the second film in his Europa trilogy, Lars von Trier went in a noticeably different direction than the one he tread for his debut effort, The Element of Crime (1984), and the trilogy’s third film, Europa (1991). Both of these works are distinguished by their boldly stylized aesthetics and involving narratives, with Element providing a feverish, orange-tinted variation on the noir genre while Europa weaves a spellbinding tale of postwar Germany. In comparison, Epidemic (1987) feels completely different right from the start, with its sensibilities more rooted in documentary than fantasia – initially, at least.

    The film opens with the writer Niels Vørsel calling his creative partner Lars von Trier (the two men collaborated on the scripts for the Europa trilogy and the television miniseries The Kingdom, and here essentially play themselves) about their latest screenplay. Lars goes over to Niels’ place only to discover that the disc containing the script (entitled The Cop and the Whore, a cheeky nod to The Element of Crime) has been erased. Left with just a few days before they have to hand in their work to their producer, they scramble to write up a brand new script. They decide to create a new story about the spread of a deadly plague across the world and begin to conduct research and map out a plot. They make progress and see to other matters like a road trip to Germany while remaining unaware of an actual outbreak that is quietly making its way across Europe.
    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 08 Jul

    Posted by


    Category

    Toronto Preview: Shinsedai Cinema Festival 2011

    1

    [With less than two weeks to go before the Shinsedai Cinema Festival arrives in Toronto, here is a friendly reminder for the event and a look at some of the films audiences can look forward to catching]

    Now entering its third year, the Shinsedai Cinema Festival will once more be bringing a slew of independent Japanese films to Toronto this summer. Began in 2009 by author and Midnight Eye co-founder Jasper Sharp and Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow founder and editor-in-chief Chris MaGee, the festival is designed to highlight some of the newest filmmakers to emerge from Japan, giving North American viewers a rare chance to take a look at noteworthy films that have received attention elsewhere in the world. This year’s guests will include Kiki Sugino, the lead actress and producer of the opening night film, Koji Fukuda’s Hospitalité; comedian and director Devi Kobayashi, whose films Mariko Rose the Spook and Hikari will be shown back-to-back; and Ryugo Nakamura, a fifteen year-old filmmaker who already has an impressive number of short films (thirty, to be precise) to his name and will be presenting his latest feature, The Catcher on the Shore.

    This year’s lineup looks like quite the diverse grab bag of cinematic treats, offering a wide selections of genres to choose from. Along with the above-mentioned films, I am quite intrigued by a few films I recognize from this year’s lineup from Frankfurt’s Nippon Connection film festival, which I had the pleasure of attending. Besides highlights like Koji Shiraishi’s Shirome, a mockumentary that features girl group Momoiro Clover thrust into a horror film scenario, and Yoichi Higashi’s Wandering Home, a family drama starring Tadanobu Asano as the alcoholic photojournalist Yutaka Kamoshida, I am perhaps most excited about Keita Kurosaka’s Midori-ko, a positively brilliant, beautifully strange work of hand-drawn animation that took its maker over ten years to complete.

    Check out the trailers for Hospitalité and Midori-ko, both tucked under the seat.

    The 3rd Shinsedai Cinema Festival will run from July 21st-24th, 2011, at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in Toronto. Full details on the films, schedule, tickets and passes and location can all be found at the festival’s main website.

    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 22 Jun

    Posted by


    Category

    Exploring Kieslowski’s Three Colors Trilogy: Red (1994)

    5

    As I mentioned in my previous review of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Blue, the films that make up his Three Colors trilogy can be considered as responses to specific genres. While Blue is said to be an anti-tragedy and White an anti-comedy, Red is the anti-romance – and, I believe, the film that best fulfills its designation. It certainly addresses love, but does so in a curious, indirect way, circling questions and elements of romance without ever delivering the full emotional payoff one might expect. One of the film’s relationships, between a young man named Auguste (Jean-Pierre Lorit) who is studying to become a judge and his blonde girlfriend Karin (Frédérique Feder), is only presented in short, fleeting scenes mainly focused on him. Another is stretched thin across Europe, tying together Geneva-based model Valentine (the enchanting Irène Jacob) and Michel, a university student living in London, through increasingly fraught phone conversations. It feels like Kieslowski uses these two storylines to examine contemporary relationships – or, rather, how certain relationships were never meant to work.
    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 13 Jun

    Posted by


    Category

    Exploring Kieslowski’s Three Colors Trilogy: White (1994)

    6

    Sandwiched between the opulent Blue and the more elusive Red, White suffers to a degree from the “middle film syndrome” found so often in film trilogies. There are numerous possible reasons behind this specific case: it is a comedy (of sorts) amid two more deeply serious films, its titular hue doesn’t promise as much visual splendor as blue or red does, and it possesses a more surprising and quirky quality than what one might initially expect before viewing it. That final point partially stems from certain promotional images for the film focusing mainly on actress Julie Delpy. It makes sense in the context of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors trilogy and the marketing for it as a whole: three colors, three films, three lovely leading ladies (with Delpy joined by Juliette Binoche and Irène Jacob).
    » Read the rest of the entry..

  • 08 Jun

    Posted by


    Category

    Exploring Kieslowski’s Three Colors Trilogy: Blue (1993)

    12

    Until recently, Krzysztof Kieslowski remained one of my biggest blind spots in the gallery of world cinema’s quintessential auteurs. One of those figures who continually lingered in my peripheral vision, the Polish filmmaker bears a reputation that ranks him among the likes of Bergman and Tarkovsky, Almodóvar and Haneke. But besides his prominence in the European arthouse scene, I was intrigued by the nature of his films – deep, mesmerizingly shot considerations of chance, fate and humanity. It wasn’t until after I read Roger Ebert’s Great Movies essay on Kieslowski’s Three Colors trilogy that I learned of the warmth and empathy he was capable of. Basically, he seemed like someone whose perspective I could readily appreciate and even grow fond of, and thus my appetite was properly whetted.

    So I took it upon myself to pick up the trilogy and watch it over the course of a few nights. Consisting of Blue (1993), White (1994) and Red (1994), they mark the end of Kieslowski’s directorial career. Shortly after completing Red, he announced his retirement from cinema. Sadly, approximately two years later, he passed away when he had a heart attack during an open-heart surgery operation in March of 1996. Yet he left behind an impressive body of work that concludes with a final run of films that any filmmaker would be proud to go out with.
    » Read the rest of the entry..

Page 1 of 41234»