A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
Charlie Deaux, “Zoetrope” (1999) Based on my favourite Franz Kafka short story “In the Penal Colony”, this is a stunning-looking short piece about a man’s last…
Italian and Italian-language Films
Pier Paolo Pasolini, “Salò or the 120 days of Sodom” / “Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma” (1975) Grim and harrowing to watch but an…
Australian and New Zealand Films
Anthony Lucas, “The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello” (2004) A nominee for a Best Animated Short Film Oscar in 2006, this is a visually beautiful…
Ignacio Cerdà, Ethan Jacobson, Francisco Stohr, “The Awakening” (1991) This 8-minute short is the first of three films forming a trilogy about death and how we…
Shuhei Morita, “Kakurenbo: Hide and Seek” (2004) A very lavish short film that uses cel-shaded animation to render the CG imagery three-dimensional, “Kakurenbo” has a definite…
Chris Cunningham, “Rubber Johnny” (2005) Started small as a commercial based on the idea of a raver’s body morphing into different shapes as he dances, then…
Gus van Sant, “Psycho” (1998) A shot-for-shot remake of the Hitchcock original with much the same dialogue and even reconstructions of the original sets, this film…
Shinya Tsukamoto, “Tetsuo: The Iron Man” (1989) Once again Tsukamoto has remade “Tetsuo: The Iron Man” in the form of “Tetsuo: Bullet Man”, the previous remake having been…
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…
Georgiy Kropachyov and Konstantin Yershov, “Viy” (1967) A rare 1960s Soviet film in the horror genre, “Viy” is more Gothic fairy tale than a straight horror…