The US comedy drama “Marriage Story” with Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson by Noah Baumbach from 2019 on Netflix is excellent. A sensitive portrait of a break-up marriage and at the same time of a family that stays together. The acting and the dialogues are excellent and especially Adam Driver and Laura Dern, in a […]
Marriage Story – ★★★★½ Read More »
Amazon Prime Video now feautures the most visually beautiful and finest art house film of 2019, “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” by Celine Sciamma from France. A historical drama about the relationship of a young aristocrat and a painter who is supposed to portray her. The framing, the light, the colours and the faces
Portrait of a Lady on Fire – ★★★★★ Read More »
The 2017 biographical film “A Prayer Before Dawn” by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire is now available on Prime Video and is one of the greatest smaller international films I discovered that year. It is based on the experiences of British Billy Moore, a drug-addicted Muay Thai boxer who lives in Thailand and is jailed for drug dealing.
A Prayer Before Dawn – ★★★★ Read More »
You can now watch Raoul Peck’s 2016 US documentary “I Am Not Your Negro” on Netflix. The film is inspired by the unfinished manuscript “Remember This House,” a collection of notes and letters written by writer and activist James Baldwin in the 1970s that recall the work and life of his close friends and civil
I Am Not Your Negro – ★★★★ Read More »
On Amazon Prime you can see the excellent movie “Dolor y Gloria” (Pain and Glory) from 2020 by the Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar. A very personal work about an ageing film director with physical suffering, reflecting on the relationships and experiences that have shaped him in his life. Very sensitive film with Antonio Banderas and
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Das Weisse Band (“The White Ribbon”) is the first film I saw by Michael Haneke and is still my favourite film by the Austrian Director. Using the inhabitants of a small village just before the beginning of the First World War as an example, Haneke depicts the German society of that time, in which strict
Das Weisse Band (The White Ribbon) – ★★★★★ Read More »
The Taiwanese film “Yi Yi” by Edward Yang from the year 2000 is a masterfully crafted, calm reflection on the aspects of human life. Using the example of a family of three generations, the drama shows how everyone, old or young, faces their own personal problems and challenges. While the film begins with a wedding,
Tokyo Olympiad (東京オリンピック, Tōkyō Orinpikku) is a 1965 Japanese documentary film directed by Kon Ichikawa, documenting the 1964 Olympic Summer Games in Japan. Tokyo Olympiad focuses more on the atmosphere of the Games than on journalistic coverage, making it an important cinematic work in contemporary history. Tokyo was supposed to host the Olympics as early
Tokyo Olympiad – ★★★★★ Read More »
This film was made between “The Godfather” (1972) and “The Godfather Part II” (1974) and was a return to a small art film for Coppola. Gene Hackman plays wiretapping spy Harry Caul, who is tasked with intercepting a young couple’s conversation in the bustling Union Square in San Francisco. The words are clear, but their
The Conversation – ★★★★★ Read More »
The horror silent film “Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari” by Robert Wiene from 1920 is an important milestone in film history and counts as an essential work of German expressionist film. Before the Second World War, he had a profound stylistic influence on much of German cinema, was the forerunner of the atmospheric light-dark look
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari – ★★★★★ Read More »