Category: Cinema
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The First kiss in The Movie
The Kiss arrived in 1896, when movies were still a captivating new concept. Auguste and Louis Lumiere had just begun showing off their cinematograph—a hand-crank camera that included a projector—in demonstrations around Paris, three years after Thomas Edison had invited spectators to peer into the peephole of his kinetoscope and watch the flickering film inside. Continue…
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Toronto Film Festival and All the Crying Men
Crying male protagonists appeared in the first two films that I saw in this year’s TIFF. It came to my mind that maybe I should look for a trend, the unexpected snivelling men trend, men who are bawling tears or men who have no difficulty blubbering or even very comfortably bewailing in full agony. Therefore as a man who secretly finds a reason to cry…
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American Sniper and Its Ideological Contradictions
From an ideological standpoint, it is too easy to damn Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper, but from a cinematic perspective, the film relies on skilfully staged action scenes and a narrative rhythm that never loses its momentum. While watching the film, I tried to ignore its ideological agenda by being absorbed in pure drama and the…
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Oscar-nominated Leviathan
Leviathan, the new film by Andrey Zvyagintsev, is about political corruption in northern Russia. But unlike many other political films, it is not a thriller. Instead, it is a film that takes a philosophical, almost contemplative attitude, toward social decay and political corruption. The film tells the story of a working class couple whose house,…
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Toronto TIFF 2014 and Emersonian Walk
I Had a daily pass for 20 films for Toronto International Film Festival and it cost me $10 each. This year every movie I saw was great. It realty was… Maybe the the new generation of filmmakers have more visual culture or the technology of film making has become more handy and accessible. Even the…
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Wondering more about the Coen Brothers’ latest film
The Coen Brothers are no help and never will be. Go ahead and ask them. Fresh Air’s Terry Gross recently tried. She asked them how they write their films. “It’s mostly napping,” Ethan Coen answered. The Coen Brothers have been evading answers for about 30 years now, since Blood Simple came out in 1984. Asked…
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Blue Melancholia is Approaching
It’s not about death, or the end drawing near. It’s not about love or hate among sisters, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters or husbands and wives. Nor is it about ” happiness”, with its usual smirk, hiding all the depressing feelings of melancholia. It’s not “about” anything in particular to many who haven’t experienced it. It…
