Alex Garland’s ‘Civil War’ Refuses Righteousness
Alex Garland’s Civil War refuses righteousness. Instead, it takes a hard, unflinching look at the true costs of war for everybody and everything it touches.
Alex Garland’s Civil War refuses righteousness. Instead, it takes a hard, unflinching look at the true costs of war for everybody and everything it touches.
The same lack of control and uncertainty that hounds Kafka’s Josef. K haunts the lost protagonist in Shannon Triplett’s sci-fi horror Desert Road.
Pablo Berger’s animated Robot Dreams is a near-perfect marvel of silent cinema nearly a century after talkies ended the silent era.
Kore-eda Hirokazu’s Monster has striking moments, but casually skips over details, reducing its characters to incomplete fragments.
Radu Jude’s gonzo satire of post-Soviet Romania, Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, hits a sweet spot between Luis Buñuel and Béla Tarr.
Rose Glass drenches Love Lies Bleeding in sensation and texture, as if she dragged the film through pools of viscera on the floor of a Foley sound effects studio.
Michel Franco’s Memory explores the premise of entrapment in the context of trauma and dementia and, in its repression of truth, builds to a chilling moment.
Sabu and a tiger foreshadow Byron Haskin’s special effects and science fiction adventures of humans vs. the elements in Man-Eater of Kumaon.
India Donaldson’s directorial debut Good One leans into gender distinctions, but goes beyond them to offer incisive and observant critique of human nature.
Which is the greater horror, Small Things Like These asks; the women who suffered under Ireland’s abusive Magdalene Laundries or the citizens’ complicity?
Frida Kahlo speaks from beyond her grave about the institutionalization of art and culture and the dangers posed by intellectuals warming their precious asses.
1930s cinema gets wild and funny with French Revelations: Fanfare d’amour and Mauvaise Graine, talkies with impolite elements from Pottier, Wilder, and Esway.