Le Navrie Night (1979)

When it comes to art cinema, and slow cinema, I often think of an ideal viewer that must exist who is 100% alert and awake, and intellectually keyed into the symbolism and poetics that might take place. But then again, why should I judge myself against an ideal viewer that doesn’t exist? If you fall […]

The Creatures (1966)

I had a cursory understanding of what The Creatures (1966), written and directed by Agnes Varda, was about. The film opens with a couple – Edgar (Michel Piccoli) and Mylene (Catherine Deneuve) – driving together, Mylene warning Edgar not to drive too fast, and upon that, they inevitably crash. What I was taken aback by […]

White Material (2009)

The workers have reluctantly agreed to help. Five days at a coffee plantation as violent conflict happens. An unnamed African country. Rebel soldiers and the military fighting. The French colonialists have withdrawn, only Isabelle Huppert’s character stubbornly staying behind for a business that she married into. One more yield before they pack up and leave. […]

First Name: Carmen (1984)

Jean-Luc Godard in the 1980s is terrain I’ve always wanted to investigate. The French auteur coming back to narrative movies after the 1970s, retaining his experimentation and politics, and constantly assessed by reference to his fertile 1960s heyday aka “the fun stuff.” First Name: Carmen (1984) was the first from this 80s period that I […]

Last Year At Marienbad (1961)

Guests in suits and evening dresses. A palace repurposed as a hotel. Refinement that feels like another time, another place. The camera tracks through the hallways, taking in the space, the high ceilings, the ornate interior decoration. In the hotel, people often stand still, pausing as if waiting for direction. Like actors in the small […]