A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
Alexander Sokurov, “Russian Ark” (2002) At last a film was made with just one take and a well-executed and visually gorgeous film it is too. “Russian Ark” is…
Australian and New Zealand Films, British Films
Paul Campion, “Night of the Hell Hamsters” (2005), “Eel Girl” (2008) Film shorts are a flexible medium for telling particular kinds of stories or expressing ideas…
German and German-language Films
Josef von Sternberg, “The Blue Angel” / “Der Blaue Engel” (1930) Famous as the movie that sent its leading lady Marlene Dietrich and director Sternberg (that…
Dziga Vertov, “Man with a Movie Camera” / “Chelovek s Kino-apparatom” / “Liudyna z Kinoaparatom” (1929) No plot, no obvious characters or a point of view…
Tomasz Baginski, “The Cathedral” / “Katedra” (2002) It’s a short film – less than seven minutes – created entirely with 3D computer animation but Baginski’s “The Cathedral”…
Konstantin Lopushansky, “Dead Man’s Letters” / “Pisma myortvogo cheloveka” (1986) Depressive in tone but with a hopeful optimism at its end, this film explores how human…
Vasily Zhuravlov, “The Space Voyage” / “Kosmicheskiy reys: Fantasticheskaya Novella” (1936) In the 1930s, the youth branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, usually…
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…