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The Bitter Tea of General Yen
(1933)
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Kevin B. Lee
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This is what I find to be of such value in [it]; that it risks offence for the sake of constructing a dialogue, one fraught with so many perils in the realms of politics, religion, cultures and sex, that it would not be worth it if it weren’t necessary.
Posted Apr 25, 2023
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Vampyr
(1932)
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Catherine S. Cox
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This eccentric film offers an original, and many would say unique cinematic perspective on the psychology of terror and the elusiveness of clarity, both existential and empirical.
Posted May 20, 2022
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The Ascent
(1977)
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Barbora Bartunkova
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The Ascent is uncompromising in its representation of the cruel realities of war.
Posted Mar 01, 2022
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The Ascent
(1977)
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Shari Kizirian
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The breathless immediacy of [The Ascent,] about two Belarusian partisans during World War II, combines with a profound understanding of human vulnerability to make the film, Shepitko’s last, a masterpiece of war cinema.
Posted Mar 01, 2022
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Nights of Cabiria
(1957)
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Pedro Blas Gonzalez
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Nights of Cabiria is very much a study of the strength of will and resilience in light of the resistance that life and the world place in Cabiria's path.
Posted Feb 28, 2021
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Merrily We Go to Hell
(1932)
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Wheeler Winston Dixon
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Sold as a comedy, the film is anything but; Arzner views café society as a snake pit, in which people use and discard each other without a backward glance.
Posted Sep 07, 2020
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Olivia
(1951)
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Eloise Ross
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Audry's film manages to explore complexities and subtleties in how women act in their relationships and in their professional spaces, precisely by allowing them an unresolvable ambiguity.
Posted Aug 27, 2019
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Atman
(1997)
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Jordan M. Smith
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...Atman maintains a tone of positive transformation, tenuous as it may be, through Pirjo's rigorous and patient observation of Jamana Lal's world weary face as he discovers love in the throes of grief.
Posted Jul 11, 2019
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A Wild Stream (Una corriente salvaje)
(2018)
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Jordan M. Smith
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...A Wild Stream felt like a rejuvenating reprieve from the madness of the world, where cowboy bromances can enigmatically flourish on the glimmering seashores of Mexico before a looming camera held by a strong willed, visionary woman.
Posted Jul 11, 2019
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Lucifer Rising
(1972)
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James Magrini
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The film perfects Anger's use of myth, ceremony, and ritual.
Posted Jun 05, 2019
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Splendor in the Grass
(1961)
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Arthur Rankin
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An excellent critique of a specific historical moment in US history and reveals the flaws that were present in its belief system.
Posted Mar 04, 2019
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The Beast
(1975)
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Cerise Howard
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A satirical, Buñuelian comedy of manners brimming over with pre-nuptial intrigue.
Posted Feb 07, 2019
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Won't You Be My Neighbor?
(2018)
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Jordan M. Smith
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Neville's film proves that despite an aesthetic approach that mimics its subject's vintage gentility, if one is keen to read between the lines, politically profound ideas ... might be at play in even the most wholesome of places.
Posted Dec 05, 2018
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Bisbee '17
(2018)
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Jordan M. Smith
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The play between past and present political predicaments of immigration, unionisation and corporate corruption piercingly resonate thanks to Greene's ingenious sense of staging...
Posted Dec 05, 2018
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Kinshasa Makambo
(2018)
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Jordan M. Smith
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Kinshasa Makambo daringly depicts the resistance as a fractured assemblage of discordant voices - including the filmmaker himself - at once forlorn and unfaltering.
Posted Dec 05, 2018
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América
(2018)
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Jordan M. Smith
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América reverberates with deep emotion as it explores the power and limits of caring for ailing loved ones on the homefront...
Posted Dec 05, 2018
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The Portrait of a Lady
(1996)
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David Kelly
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The point of this imagery is not that Isabel has relapsed into the figure of the Gothic heroine, but that that figure in part informs her sense of self.
Posted Oct 26, 2018
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Feathers in My Head
(2003)
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Dan Sallitt
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The subject matter... could have been unbearable to watch, but [director Thomas] de Thier finds in the woman's solution the springboard of an artistic approach built around emotional counterpoint.
Posted Oct 18, 2018
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Zhou Yu's Train
(2002)
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Dan Sallitt
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One can quibble with the film here and there, and it takes a turn toward conventional sentiment at the end, but it's a pleasure to be able to describe a film as Hollywoodish and mean it as a compliment.
Posted Oct 18, 2018
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The Brown Bunny
(2003)
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Dan Sallitt
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I couldn't appreciate Gallo the director's Cassavetes-like taste for the realism... But Gallo films locations with a stranger's lucidity and an impressive commitment to natural sound and undoctored images.
Posted Oct 18, 2018
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Identity Kills
(2003)
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Dan Sallitt
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Despite its modest presentation, Identity Kills eventually impresses with its undeniable intelligence and its knack for hiding its story in plain sight.
Posted Oct 18, 2018
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The Magic Gloves
(2003)
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Dan Sallitt
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[Director Martin] Rejtman depicts every crisis and solution in the film in the same unflappable, static style, generating humor from the characters' and the camera's persistent lack of reaction.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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8:17 p.m. Darling Street
(2003)
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Dan Sallitt
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[Director Bernard] Émond's account of the fall and rise of a fragile man covers little new territory as a story, but his intelligent script immerses us in the literate sensibility of his protagonist.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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Shara
(2003)
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Dan Sallitt
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Connection is entirely what [director Naomi] Kawase is about, and the film's narrative strands come together in... a scene that does just about everything that cinema can do.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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Storm Season
(2003)
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Dan Sallitt
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The overt realism of [director Solveig] Anspach's camera style is a cover for a dreamlike, melodramatic narrative where will and emotional connection transcend practical considerations.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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Chokher Bali
(2003)
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Dan Sallitt
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Serene and pictorial, Chokher Bali becomes convincing as a social critique by taking a genuine interest in the minutiae of family life and the interaction between erotics and politics.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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Memories of Murder
(2003)
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Dan Sallitt
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A perplexing film in many ways - and one that must play quite differently to South Korean audiences, who are familiar with the unsolved murder case - Memories is almost too much of a good thing in the variety and complexity of its director's sensibility.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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Ana and the Others
(2003)
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Dan Sallitt
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[Director Celina] Murga's sympathy for Rohmer's aesthetic is so natural that she is able to create with freedom and inspiration within the parameters of his conventions.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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Raja
(2003)
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Dan Sallitt
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Depicting both French and Moroccan culture with sympathy and wit, Raja uses the language barrier between the would-be lovers as an excuse to throw up a network of perpendicular commentary.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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Gaz Bar Blues
(2003)
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Dan Sallitt
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A nostalgic story of a family-owned gas station... [director Louis] Bélanger's film plays just a little cute, but is perceptive and light-footed in sketching the anxiety of the benevolent paterfamilias.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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Los Angeles Plays Itself
(2003)
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Dan Sallitt
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Ultimately, Los Angeles Plays Itself plays out as a document of the conflict between Anderson's love of movies and his distrust of mass media.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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Nathalie...
(2003)
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Dan Sallitt
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One fears at this point that [director Anne] Fontaine's considerable talent has been submerged for the sake of Euro-prestige.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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Toutes Ces Belles Promesses
(2003)
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Dan Sallitt
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Certainly it's been a while since any filmmaker saw fit to express the joys and sorrows of the human condition through the very serious business of women trying on hats.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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Errance
(2003)
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Dan Sallitt
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And yet Errance is ultimately a film about true love - a love helpless in the face of human weakness and doomed from shot one, but nonetheless enduring and inevitably moving.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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November
(2003)
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Dan Sallitt
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Achero Mañas's November (2003) a mock-documentary account of the history of a street theatre troupe, is more ambitious than the director's earlier El Bolo (2000) but somewhat less satisfying.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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Happiness
(2007)
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Dan Sallitt
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Beneath the emotive surface of Happiness, its melodrama is inflected with stoical detachment, right up to the beautiful desolation of the final crane shot.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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The Far Side of the Moon
(2003)
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Dan Sallitt
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Unflagging in visual and verbal wit, and yet emotionally true to its protagonist's weltschmerz, [director Robert] Lapage's meditation on reconciling the banal and the essential calls to mind the work of Sacha Guitry.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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The Story of Marie and Julien
(2003)
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Dan Sallitt
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I can't always see what [director Jacquees] Rivette gains by stripping his presentation down to such bare patterns of encryption, but his cerebrality paradoxically heightens the sensual impact of his imagery.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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Oliver Twist
(2005)
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Dan Sallitt
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Certainly Polanski deserves our gratitude for obliging the cast not to sink their teeth too deep into Dickens' juicy dialogue.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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C.R.A.Z.Y.
(2005)
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Dan Sallitt
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Playing the charismatic, androgyne hero in his older incarnation, Marc-André Grondin is surprisingly able to hold his own in his lifelong power struggle with veteran Michel Côté's ultracool patriarch.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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Sa-kwa
(2005)
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Dan Sallitt
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Often very funny, Sa-kwa nonetheless delves into uncomfortable relationship problems that the audience cannot expect to vanish after a last-scene reconciliation.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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You Bet Your Life
(2005)
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Dan Sallitt
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The film is a showcase for the oily charisma of Georg Friedrich, playing Kurt, a ne'er-do-well and gambling addict who threatens to take the film down with him to the depths of sociopathic self-destruction.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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Backstage
(2005)
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Dan Sallitt
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Feet of clay notwithstanding, [Emmanuelle] Seigner's larger-than-life idol never completely loses her magical quality... and ultimately Backstage's considerable pleasure comes from the breathless feeling of making a map of sacred ground.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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The Forsaken Land
(2005)
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Dan Sallitt
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Only 27 when the film was shot, [director Vimukthi] Jayasundara already displays a complete command of the medium.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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Time Off
(2005)
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Dan Sallitt
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Like François Truffaut, [directors Francisca Schweitzer and Pablo Solís] deploy conspicuous technique in order to obscure psychology, introducing an element of poetry into the simple task of making story connections.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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April Snow
(2005)
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Dan Sallitt
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[Director Hur Jin-ho] defers the melodrama as long as possible in his quiet, stoical way, but the characters never become more than pawns, moved from place to place to suit the needs of the purely sentimental story.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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Cold Showers
(2005)
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Dan Sallitt
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The script by Cordier and Julie Peyr is full of characterizations and incidents that are too neat or too cute, all of which Cordier the director hypes enthusiastically.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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La Neuvaine
(2005)
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Dan Sallitt
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Though the intertwining of these story lines is disorienting at first, each story fragment is quiet and direct, and the tension of the film eventually empties out into the still landscapes of rural Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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Wassup Rockers
(2006)
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Dan Sallitt
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So often called exploitative, Clark instinctively avoids exploitation where most filmmakers plunge in, showing both the terrors and joys of the kids' inner city existence without amplifying them into dramatic hooks.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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Angel
(2005)
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Dan Sallitt
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[Director Jim] McKay never finds an effective way to drive this paradox home, though he is an honest enough filmmaker to expose it.
Posted Oct 17, 2018
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