The Forest For The Trees (2003)

Around the hour mark in The Forest For The Trees (2003), I finally had to close my eyes, not being able to bear watching another scene of social embarrassment. I usually have a high tolerance for cringe-inducing comedy, but I think I needed one sensory break for the continued awkwardness and loneliness of Melanie (Eva […]

A Tale Of Sorrow And Sadness (1977)

My knowledge of Seijun Suzuki as a director is around his 1960s gangster movies like Youth Of The Beast, Tokyo Drifter and Branded To Kill. All of which are shot through with distinctive black comedy and visual panache that made Suzuki beloved to directors he later inspired like Quentin Tarantino and Jim Jarmusch. While there’s […]

Rodrigo D: No Future (1990)

Imaginalia is a free film club held at Fremantle Buffalo Club – projecting a movie in a bar, basically – that finished up their first program, which had included screenings of Cruising (1980) and Effi Briest (1974). The organiser and programmer, Juan Mora, is from Colombia and selected for the last night of Program 1, […]

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 […]

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 […]