Joe Wright’s elegantly fluid camerawork flourishes in the tragic love story of Cyrano, as even while it struggles against the odd piece of contrived sentiment in its musical numbers, its narrative of classical literary archetypes serves as a perfect canvas for his stunning visual displays of French Baroque beauty.
The painter’s perspective that Céline Sciamma offers us in Portrait of a Lady on Fire uses its delicate renderings of seaside cliffs and eighteenth-century French manors as the setting for a gorgeous romance between an artist and her reluctant subject, powerfully intertwining their passions with classical archetypes vividly rooted in ancient Greek mythology.
Though Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay for Being the Ricardos may at times indecisively tug its narrative in multiple directions at once, it is tough faulting the electric dialogue that keeps us glued to Lucille Ball’s behind-the-scenes television troubles, holding firm to its empathetic understanding of the comedic television star.
Pickup on South Street is a triumph of writing, character, and stylistic camerawork for Samuel Fuller, and it is in the marriage of all three that he crafts a compelling Cold War thriller crackling with the fizzing tension of stealth, espionage, and a sensual seduction between a pickpocket and his target.
There is an inherent clash between animation and documentary filmmaking in their relationship to reality, but in piecing together the memories of an Afghan refugee who fled his country in the 90s through live interviews and hand-drawn reconstructions, Jonas Poher Rasmussen turns Flee into a compellingly fluid examination of historical truth.
The gritty realism of Abel Ferrara’s location shooting in New York City streets, nightclubs, and hotels is a perfect fit for King of New York’s character study of urban grit and power plays, whereby one drug kingpin struggles to find the redemption he seeks, only succeeding in pulling both sides of the law into a dark, muddy underworld of corruption and bloodshed.
Paul Verhoeven’s irreverent provocations are well-suited to this compelling piece of Italian history, with each of Sister Benedetta’s cunning power plays, false miracles, and sexual advances driving this riveting narrative towards an outburst of wrathful vengeance, violently bringing a hypocritical Catholic Church to its knees.
Wong Kar-wai has rarely indulged so much in the fierceness of action cinema as he does here in the story of legendary martial artist Ip Man, and yet the delicate attention to detail in his slow-motion cinematography and elegant choreography also ties The Grandmaster to the lyrical style that he has spent decades honing with such precision.
There is an invitation built into both the title and story of C’mon C’mon, beckoning us to join a radio journalist and his nine-year-old nephew on a road trip across the United States, through which Mike Mills’ beautiful greyscale cinematography and stream-of-consciousness montages paint a portrait of a relationship as sweet and unhurried as his narrative’s easy-going pace.
Though Jour de Fête feels slightly limited without Jacques Tati’s bizarre displays of architecture to bounce his physical comedy off, he is still as resourceful as ever in both his acting and direction, whimsically sending up modern ideals of efficiency and progress when they begin to invade a tiny French village amid Bastille Day celebrations.
