The preservation and evolution of South Korean cultural traditions became the dominant focus of Im Kwon-Taek’s films after the ease of censorship in a change of government regime. A number of his post-genre cinema began to address this though the real cultural reactions can be found in later work which can effectively be called post-Cannes; meaning the cinema he made during his currently slow but … Continue reading Chi-hwa-seon (2002) – Im Kwon-Taek.
Tradition vs. Globalisation: The Relationships between South Korean Film Music and Its Ease of Consumption and Distribution. Introduction The Effect Of Globalisation Pressure On South Korean Cinema. “The core problem is no doubt that most of us in the West know little or nothing of Korea’s modern history. It’s impossible to understand Korea’s artists without knowing the context in which they worked…” (Rayns, 2012, p.40). … Continue reading South Korean Film Music and Ease of Distribution – Part 1 (Tradition vs. Globalisation).
Celebrating loss can be a difficult task even for the more optimistic of personas. The idea of someone being physically and emotionally lost is not a pleasant experience which, at best can provide some cathartic character building in between the tears and complete incomprehension as to what exactly it means to live or die. It’s a theme familiar in many filmmaker’s auteur driven, thematic catalogues, … Continue reading Festival (1996) and the Acceptance of Loss – Im Kwon-Taek.
Part 1. Ideas In Later Films By Godard. Godard would continue to subvert the role of record players in his work to similar but more extreme effects. It seems odd that the connecting factor to all the scenes mentioned is the presence of his, then wife, Anna Karina. Godard is capable of presenting her dancing and singing with a relatively normal relationship between the visual … Continue reading Avant Godard! – Part 2, Musical Subversion (Bande à Part and Pierrot Le Fou)
Avant Godard! Musical Subversion And Fictional Interaction With Non-Diegetic Music In The Films Of Jean-Luc Godard. Introduction – French New Wave As Avant Garde. When discussing Avant Garde cinema, the most obvious choices of cinematic subject would no doubt be linked to the likes of Dali, Buñuel and Cocteau. However, the gradual movement from Avant Garde to Art House cinema presents a more interesting case for Avant Garde … Continue reading Avant Godard! Musical Subversion In The Films Of Jean-Luc Godard. (Part 1)
Despite the horrific elements contained within, Kuroneko is ill served by being pigeon holed into the genre of horror. The genre as a whole has a huge spectrum of intelligence and allegory but there’s more to Kaneto Shindo’s film than this, quite malleable, label. It of course gives scares, and Japanese “horror” is well ahead of the western game in terms of sheer scare value but its … Continue reading Kuroneko – Kaneto Shindo (1968)
This review contains spoilers. Barbet Schroeder’s Maîtresse (1976) is a film that is extremely hard to classify. Even with the hindsight of almost forty years, its apparent bed fellows all share a stubborn resistance to classification. The collection of films with vaguely similar themes and tendencies to push boundaries of explicitness that came out in the 1970s such as Salò Or 120 Days Of Sodom … Continue reading Maîtresse – Barbet Schroeder (1976), BFI.
It’s hard to imagine a film made today being as unashamedly honest and personal about its director’s past as Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1975 film, The Mirror. The title alone informs the viewer all they’ll need to know about the personal reflection that is about to unfold before their eyes over 101 minutes worth of some of the most beautiful and affecting images ever caught on camera and … Continue reading The Mirror – Andrei Tarkovsky (1975)
Werner Herzog is a dangerous director. Not content with simply make believe, he appears to enjoy a masochistic relationship with actually putting himself through his own film’s narratives and challenges. Perhaps he feels that it yields the best results but it’s obvious when watching any of his films that more blood, sweat and tears have gone into making them than pretty much any other filmmaker … Continue reading Aguirre, The Wrath of God – Werner Herzog (1972)
A dark vein of sorrow flows through many films by Swedish auteur Ingmar Bergman. With his constant obsession with death, whether it be in the physical sense of the metaphorical death of emotion or belief, his films often pack a punch way ahead of their times. In his so-called “Faith trilogy”, Bergman assesses the death of things dearest to the human psyche such as religion, … Continue reading Winter Light – Ingmar Bergman (1963)
