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Continue reading →: Invention – the emotional wavelength of inheritanceThe first scene in Invention, co-directed by Courtney Stephen and its lead actress, Callie Hernandez, signals two key aspects that contribute to the overall tone and atmosphere of the entire film. First, the elliptical and free-wheeling sequencing of shots. We see a wide shot of an old man standing in…
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Continue reading →: Boogie Nights – Hedonism and Its DownfallsHow to discuss a film as hectic as Paul Thomas Anderson’s sophomore feature Boogie Nights? By asking this question, I have already fruitlessly initiated such discussions. This is a film that has progressively disappointed me through repeat viewings. Rewatching it in 70mm this last weekend – I’d imagine the ideal…
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Continue reading →: Too Early / Too Late – An Introduction to Straub / HuilletA recent surge in interest in the texts of Serge Daney has led me to Too Early / Too Late, subsequently leading me to watch a film from the filmmaking couple Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet for the first time. My previous assumption of the challenging nature of their cinema…
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Continue reading →: Hard Eight – Paul Thomas Anderson’s Debut Feature Short of a Fully-Formed VisionWith the imminent release of Paul Thomas Anderson’s newest and tenth feature film, One Battle After Another, in September, it would be a good time to settle my relationship with one of the preeminent American filmmakers of his generation. Perhaps ‘settle’ is not the most fitting word, as films are…
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Continue reading →: Familiar Touch – Tender Drama Lost at the Heels of Its DispositiveFamiliar Touch, Sarah Friedland’s debut feature, follows the journey of an aging Ruth (Kathleen Chalfant), as she struggles with dementia and enters into assisted living. The film has an elliptical quality to it, as if our perception of the events occurring onscreen is synchronized with Ruth’s own obfuscation of the…
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Continue reading →: Four Favourite First-Time Watches of JuneBigger Than Life Nicholas Ray crafts a domestic theatre made of mirrors, staircases, and door frames. This is the fourth film I have seen from Ray, and every one of them has made me more invested in his oeuvre. His main characters always feel like they are being eroded by…
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Continue reading →: Like Someone in LoveThrough the canonization of the Criterion Collection, Kiarostami has become a keystone filmmaker and a monolithic representation of Iranian cinema at large, almost ten years since his passing. Perhaps his formidable run of films through the 90s has left such an unerasable impression, but during the later sections of his…
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Continue reading →: In Theatres: The Life of Chuck“I contain multitude”, a quote from Walt Whitman’s poem Song of Myself, is the most recited line in Mike Flanagan’s genre-blender The Life of Chuck, an adaptation of the Stephen King short story of the same name. To tell the story of an accountant born to the name Charles Krantz,…
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Continue reading →: Out of the Fog: Coastal Thriller Regarding CommunityAnatole Litvak’s 1941 noir thriller Out of the Fog employs the setup of a detective noir to portray the gentle spirits in a small community. A suspicious man named Goff (John Garfield) enters a small seaside community, lights a boat on fire, and enters a bar with a grin on…
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Continue reading →: MouchetteRobert Bresson is a filmmaker whose style has been revered, studied endlessly, and regurgitated by many who claim to have been influenced by him. In the TIFF Wavelength screening that took place this last Wednesday, Mouchette, one of Bresson’s slightly lesser-known works, was preceded by Nadine Nortier, a 2012 short…
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If we consider the overview of the world of cinema as a map, then the voyage to connect the scattered dots in between is what we’re invested in. Serge Daney once described voyage as ‘without luggage, totally self-sufficient in his dispossession’. Being a citizen of world cinema is to abandon the luggage of predefined cultural expectations and meet each film and each filmmaker on their own cinematographic terms. If you are down for this journey, please consider subscribing to this travelogue.
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