-
Tears at a Noh Play in Yasujirō Ozu’s “Late Spring”
There is a certain sadness that permeates Ozu’s films, of the passing of time and an era; of transience, of a time that will be long gone, but needs to be preserved. This is most particularly true for his so-called “Noriko Trilogy”, which stars Setsuko Hara, Ozu’s muse; Last Spring is a part of the…
-
Three Colors: Blue (Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1993) “Blue Is the Coldest Color”
Three Colors: Blue came out half a year after the Maastricht Treaty was signed, transforming the European Community into the European Union. The film was supported by the Council of Europe, but mostly financed by the French. It celebrates the idea of the European unity and integration, but also the three principles of the French…
-
Reliving the Memory: Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”
Alfred Hitchock’s desire was to make movies in which dream and reality are indistinguishable. In his Vertigo, he creates a nightmarish world in which Scottie (James Stewart) draws the female progatonist into a surreal ordeal, or it is the other way around; at certain moments we cannot really tell. The film is centered around several…
-
Celestial Purity and Carnality in Wim Wenders’ “Wings of Desire”
The original title of the film Wings of Desire is Der Himmel über Berlin (Sky Over Berlin); the English title beautifully captures the main antinomy present in the film – the one between spirituality and celestial purity and the carnal, eroticism and sensuality. In Marion’s character, the sensuality and existentialist wondering about being-in-the-world (Heidegger) are…
-
Fight for the Cursed World in Miyazaki’s “Princess Mononoke”
In 1995 Hayao Miyazaki took a group of artists and animators to the ancient forests of Yakushima, which inspired the landscapes in the film. At the beginning, the narrator says: “In ancient times, the land lay covered in forests, where from ages long past, dwelt the spirits of the gods. Back then, man and beast…
-
Soulless and the Sublime: Terrence Malick’s “Badlands”
[This article has been edited on 11.3.2018] Badlands, Terrence Malick’s first film is loosely based on real-life events following the murders a couple had commited in 1958, in the United States. In 1993 the United States National Film Registry elected Badlands for preservation since they considered the film to be “culturally, historically and aesthetically significant”. The…
-
L’Eclisse (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1962) “Looming Shadow of Modernity”
It is somewhat ironic that we are commemorating a total solar eclipse which occurred in the United States a week ago, with a film that can be easily interpreted through Marxist lenses. Although, since the Cold War is over, one can afford such leeway. Speaking of the Cold War, L’eclisse was filmed in the aftermath…
-
Four Perspectives Echoing the Truth in Kurosawa’s “Rashōmon”
To claim that Akira Kurosawa is an enigmatic director would be an understatement. One of the greatest filmmakers in cinema history, but also a paradigm (and a synecdoche) of post-war Japan, he combines influences from Western literature (e.g. Dostoyevsky) and philosophy with distinctive Japanese aesthetics and tradition. After the American occupation, Japan found itself flooded…
-
Poetry of Destructive Love in Wong Kar-wai’s “2046”
Wong Kar-wai is not just a movie director, he is a psychologist and a poet dealing with romantic love. His style is so nuanced and brought to perfection that he can be put in the same sentence with the great Italian poet Dante Alighieri; the early poems of the aforementioned poet are not his authentically,…
-
Follow
Following
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Vigour of Film Lines 