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Sawdust and Tinsel (1953)
Life is a circus that creates entertainment out of humiliation, Ingmar Bergman posits in Sawdust and Tinsel, and in his rich staging and screenwriting he needles its existential drama with a finer, wittier point than ever before, finding both sympathy and pity for its hapless fools doomed to eternal ridicule.
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2016 in Cinema
Damien Chazelle’s ode to Hollywood musicals becomes one of the genre’s best, Jim Jarmusch’s impressively formal work celebrates the beauty of routine, and Denis Villeneuve finds a new linguistic spin on the alien science-fiction film.
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Close (2022)
Close is a work of incredible mourning and devoted realism for Lukas Dhont, telling the tale of two childhood friends driven apart by the social pressures of adolescent masculinity, and often leaving the most profound emotions unspoken as we silently sit in understated reaction shots connecting them to a confusing, corrupt world.
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Knock at the Cabin (2023)
The existential dilemma one small family must make to either sacrifice one of their own or unleash Armageddon drives a taut tension through Knock at the Cabin, and by wrapping this home invasion story up in a stifling visual style, the cosmic stakes of M. Night Shyamalan’s psychological horror feel both arrestingly claustrophobic and dauntingly…
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2015 in Cinema
Leonardo DiCaprio transforms into a spirit animal in Alejandro Iñárritu’s awe-inspiring revisionist western, George Miller makes a high-octane career comeback, and Adam McKay turns the Global Financial Crisis into an audacious piece of cinema.
