Dogfight (1991)

It’s not a super abundant genre, but I do love a movie where two young romantics spend a night together and slowly start to develop an irresistible bond. From Before Sunrise to My Night at Maud’s to Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, it’s just a really charming genre and one that taps into the idea that anything is possible when you’re young and naive and the night offers no expectations but a good time. Granted, I don’t recall any films in this genre that begin with one of the two romantic leads doing something really shitty to the other person and then spending the rest of the movie learning to be less of a jerk. Continue reading →

Working Girls (1986)

It’s always striking to see a film that holds up so well in terms of content and yet is so tied to its time period in terms of aesthetics. I’m hesitant to use the word “dated”, because I think a film like Working Girls is aiming to portray an authentic version of its own reality, even if that reality feels unmistakably born of the 1980s. But the guiding philosophy of Working Girls seems to be that “sex work is work”, a phrase I only remember popping up in the public consciousness in the last decade or so. So to see a film that portrays sex work in terms of labor and workplace politics feels pretty remarkable, even if the hair, make-up, and name brands used in the film feel like relics of the Reagan years.

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Donkey Skin (1970)

A lot of fairy tales are pretty weird, even despite the fact that they’re an inseparable part of most people’s childhoods. Filled with eating children and killing grannies and creepy little weirdos with unpronounceable names, there are a lot of strange things in these stories that get passed down to each generation. And yet, we as children take them at face value because as far as storytelling, they’re all we know at that age. So what does it look like when a director tries to make a film that evokes that childhood purity that one gets being read a fairy tale before going to bed? Well, that’s what Jacques Demy aimed to create with Donkey Skin. However, because it’s a fairy tale that has never been all that popular in English-speaking countries, it’s hard not to be struck by its charming weirdness.

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Branded To Kill (1967)

I had become more interested in Japanese noir two Criterion Months ago after watching Pale Flower and realizing there must be more there, especially when stumbling onto the reputation that Seijun Suzuki’s Branded To Kill had within the genre. Also, taking into account that I’d seen and liked Suzuki’s earlier Tokyo Drifter, I figured this film would be a fun time. While I’m not sure I understood large portions of what this movie was going for, I can still see some of the allure of this film that seems to have influenced a fair share of filmmakers. But overall, I just found its plot and intentions a little too indecipherable, which was famously what got Suzuki fired from the Nikkatsu film studio, as they declared that he made “movies that make no sense and no money”. Continue reading →

Juliet of the Spirits (1965)

In terms of discovering classic foreign films as a budding teenage cinephile, Fellini was certainly one of my gateway directors. That said, I gobbled up a bunch of his movies in high school and early college and probably have not watched one of his films since we were still renting DVDs in the mail from Netflix. So since Criterion Month always presents plenty of opportunities for a dip into Fellini-land, I’ve always been curious to see how I feel about the director now, since he’s certainly not namechecked by filmmakers nearly as much as he was 20 or 30 years ago. However, in watching 1965’s Juliet of the Spirits, it’s easy to see how Fellini’s influence on cinema is still quite present, while a latter film like this still has the ability to challenge and disorient.

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Ashes and Diamonds (1958)

For my first foray into the career of Polish director Andrzej Wajda, I’m starting at the end. Not at the end of his career, as he would be a presence on the international film stage even into the ’80s, but more because I’m starting at the end of a trilogy. Wajda’s films A Generation in 1955 and Kanał in 1957 preceded Ashes and Diamonds as commentaries on the effects World War II had on Poland, and all three have appeared together in an early Criterion box set that is now out of print. But Ashes and Diamonds seems to be the most acclaimed of these three films, so it seemed like a good place to start. The film certainly feels like a continuation of something, as there’s an impeccable amount of craft behind it, which managed to slip in some anti-communist sympathies despite being filmed in communist Poland. Continue reading →