Trenque Lauquen (2022)

I only heard about the film Trenque Lauquen (2022) through Simon Miraudo reviewing it on Letterboxd. A four hour shaggy-dog mystery from Argentina might have passed me by, but it completely sounded like something that I’d like to seek out. Directed and co-written by Laura Citarella, this is a mystery that ventures off into different […]

The Day He Arrives (2011)

In Hong Sang-soo’s The Day He Arrives (2011), a young film director Seong-Jun (Yoo Jun-sang) walks down the street of Seoul, wearing a puffy coat and a travelling backpack, intending to stay with a friend, a film critic, Young-ho (Kim Sang-joon). The director has made four movies but is in an on-going hiatus, living further […]

House Of Tolerance (2011)

Languid exhaustion. Service workers at the Eyes Wide Shut orgy. Punching the clock in a 19th century bordello to pay off never-ending debts. Even the madam taking the money has to deal with rental negotiations. Sadness flows as the rot continues to set in. Well-dressed men acting the part of dilettantes, patrons and artists, using […]

Fruit Of Paradise (1970)

When it comes to the avant garde as long as it looks good, I don’t care if it’s incomprehensible. Not that I really think Czech director Věra Chytilová’s Fruit Of Paradise (1970) is incomprehensible. I have seen Chytilová’s most famous film, Daisies, twice in my life and enjoyed it. In the first ten minutes of […]

Claire’s Camera (2017)

I think it was Gene Siskel who determined a movie’s quality by the following dictum: Is this film more interesting than a documentary of the same actors having lunch? The films of Hong Sang-soo sometimes feel like you’re just watching a documentary actors sitting around and eating, though a key difference in the Sang-soo world […]