Tag: Arthouse Cinema

  • License To Live (1998)

    License To Live (1998)

    There’s a shot in License To Live (1998), directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, where the main character’s father sits in a chair at the foot of his bed. Cast in shadows, the father is telling his son that he’s leaving after their brief reunion, and he resembles a ghost drained of colour. Kurosawa is best known… Read.

  • Still Life (2006)

    Still Life (2006)

    I was watching Still Life (2006) in several sittings due to timing and being away on holiday. Not an ideal way to experience the film, and one I would have loved to have seen in a cinema, but its approach and tone suited the intermittent immersion. Dipping in and out of the movie like I… Read.

  • Born In Flames (1983)

    Born In Flames (1983)

    File this under “Why didn’t I watch this earlier?” and “This is as great as they say…” Maybe I thought that a film about activism would be a bit like homework. Directed by Lizzie Borden, Born In Flames (1983) captures a moment of time – 1980s New York, in the No Wave era – but… Read.

  • Please Baby Please (2022)

    Please Baby Please (2022)

    Director-writer Amanda Kramer’s Please Baby Please (2022) reminded me of discovering Johnny Suede on SBS when I was young. The discovery of an arthouse American indie cinema morphing together the past and the present, a receptacle for a filmmaker’s fetishes. Empty alleys or street facades. Apartment interiors on a studio set. Creating a whole situation to let make-up, hair,… Read.

  • The Wild Pear Tree (2018)

    The Wild Pear Tree (2018)

    Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan uses the three-hour running time of The Wild Pear Tree (2018) to give considerable scope to individual encounters. Sinan (Dogu Demirkol) spends a lot of the movie walking, often wandering around deep in thought, and a recurring pattern within the narrative is Sinan bumping into someone, and beginning to chat with… Read.