A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
Alexander Dovzhenko, “Aerograd” (1935) It’s a well-made film with stunning shots of wilderness and planes flying in the sky but where would a Dovzhenko film be without…
Australian and New Zealand Films
Lee Tamahori, “Once Were Warriors” (1994) An intense film from New Zealand of a family in an impoverished and degraded social environment dominated by alcohol, a…
Ari Folman, “Waltz with Bashir” (2008) Few movies about war must be as personal and intense as this animated film about an Israeli ex-soldier’s gradual acknowledgement of the…
Chuyen Bui Thac, “Living in Fear” / “Song trong so hai” (2005) It’s mid-1975, the war has ended and the Americans have gone, and the North…
Mikhail Karyukhov and Alexander Kozyr, “The Sky Calls” / “Nebo Zovyot” (1959) A visually stunning film about space exploration, “The Sky Calls” was the first in…
Northern European Films, Russian and Soviet Films
Risto Orko and Alexander Ptushko, “The Sampo” (1959) A joint Finnish-Soviet fantasy production aimed at a family audience, “The Sampo” is a very loose retelling of…
Eastern European Films, Russian and Soviet Films
Alexander Dovzhenko, “Arsenal” (1928) Notable for its skilful use of montages of images to create and build tension, excitement, urgency and other moods, “Arsenal” revolves around an incident…
Eastern European Films, French and French-language Films
René Laloux, “Fantastic Planet” / “La Planète Sauvage” (1973) A very absorbing animated science fiction film that superficially looks as if it might have been created…
Sergei Eisenstein, “Alexander Nevsky” (1938) Unashamedly patriotic and stirring action-movie propaganda for the masses and the Soviet government under Joseph Stalin at the time of release,…
Martin Scorsese, “Taxi Driver” (1976) As a character study of a lonely and alienated man whose mind collapses under the strain of the life he leads…