In Lee Chang-dong’s latest masterwork Burning, mystery is everything. The two-and-a-half hour epic lives and breathes the tiniest ambiguities of every waking moment, refusing to come to anything resembling true clarity, but in its way offering as clear a depiction of the stresses and concerns of modern life. The film, Lee’s first as director since 2010’s Poetry, is based on the short story “Barn Burning,” by Haruki Murakami, and tells the story of Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in), a young man living without much means close to the border with North Korea. On a visit to Seoul he bumps into a childhood […]
by Corey Atad on Oct 25, 201822 July is a difficult film. Any film about the 2011 terror attack and massacre on Utøya island in Norway would have to be. Less expected is the film’s strong political edge. In that sense, 22 July is something of a return to roots for Paul Greengrass. Before taking on the Bourne franchise, the director made a mark with his 2002 docudrama Bloody Sunday, about the Bogside massacre of Northern Irish protesters by British soldiers in 1972. In that film, as in his new one, Greengrass combined his trademark visceral, shaky-cam documentary aesthetic with a strong sense of political urgency. […]
by Corey Atad on Oct 10, 2018French directing duo Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani burst onto the genre scene with their mesmerizing, impeccably crafted 2009 giallo film Amer. The married couple followed it up with the even more daring spiritual sequel The Strange Colour of Your Bodies Tears. Now, Cattet and Forzani are back and bringing their talent for precision filmmaking into other genres. In Let the Corpses Tan, based on the book Laissez bronzer les cadavres by Jean-Patrick Manchette and Jean-Pierre Bastid, thieves steal a pile of gold and getaway to a coastal village, the home of Luce, an enigmatic artist involved in a seedy, […]
by Corey Atad on Aug 31, 2018