Must-See – Scene by Green

There Was a Father (1942)

Yasujirō Ozu | 1hr 43min

The emotional bond between Shuhei and his son Ryohei may be strong in There Was a Father, yet there is a wistful sorrow in the past tense of this title which suggests the memory of some earlier, tragic loss. That patriarchal title of honour is one Shuhei struggles to lay claim to after failing in his duty as a teacher, inadvertently letting one student drown during an excursion under his supervision. In his eyes, a father is a role model, an educator, and a protector, so a man who cannot fulfil his most basic duty for any child in their care has no business looking after them.

Shuhei’s grief reverberates far beyond his resignation though, sending Ryohei to a boarding school and thereby placing a physical distance between them. He may never truly stop being a father, and Yasujirō Ozu even recognises the undeniable harmony of this relationship through the recurring shot of their fishing lines being cast in perfect unison, yet Chishū Ryū’s performance nevertheless resonates a stoic self-pity for his negligence. Guilt requires atonement, and atonement is a duty to be undertaken in meditative isolation. Having lost his wife some years ago too, Shuhei’s one shot at redemption now seems to be through the professional success of his only living family member.

*Ozu illustrates harmony across generations through the simple motion of fishing lines cast in unison, mirrored between father and son.*

*A beautifully devastating detail – setting up the neat row of umbrellas, and then knocking one down as students rush out to learn of their drowned classmate.*

Prior to the instigating tragedy, Ozu is meticulous in setting up Shuhei’s ordered, untroubled world. Symmetrical rows of students impeccably frame their teacher in the classroom, and even when they leave for a lakeside retreat, static pillow shots linger on their perfectly aligned umbrellas resting against a wall. Nevertheless, the peace is soon disturbed by the news of one boy’s boat capsizing, and the toppling of a single umbrella in the subsequent rush makes for a devastatingly symbolic detail. Before reaching the overturned rowboat though, Ozu neatly inserts a single cutaway to a nearby stone pillar, as if to punctuate the disaster with a reflective, melancholy sigh.

*Ozu resists the sensational and grotesque, letting the death of this student sink in through pillow shots that show everything but his body.*

Even amid dire misfortune, chaos is simply not part of Ozu’s cinematic language, and There Was a Father especially asserts his proclivity for ritualistic repetition to smooth over emotional disruptions. When Shuhei breaks the news to Ryohei while fishing that he will be sent to a boarding school, the scene is bookended by two shots of another stone pillar near the river, and when this young boy eventually grows up, another pattern is established as he follows in his father’s occupational footsteps. “Your duty is to study hard,” this young teacher advises one homesick student, echoing the ethos he was raised with, though his dedicated diligence does not come at the expense of long-distance visits to his father in Tokyo.

*Ozu uses this stone pillar as a sort of bookmark to his scene, turning cutaways into visual punctuation bridging one moment in time to the next.*

*Further mirroring between Shuhei and his son – both taking the role of teachers, and appearing almost identical in their suits and ties.*

*Wayward students perched atop stone pillars like crows, letting time drift away.*

Shuhei and Ryohei’s reunion dominates the second half of There Was a Father, frequently leaning into wide shots of the two relaxing in carefully composed interiors. Within the grand view of Ozu’s career, this is where his thorough layering of shots through shoji doors begins, capturing frames within frames which draw our eyes to characters in their domestic habitats. Here he continues to quietly underscore the parallels between generations of men, beginning one scene with Ryohei smoking on his own, joining them together in a discussion of marriage prospects, before ending with an almost identical shot of a lone Shuhei taking his son’s position.

*Ozu relishes the reunion between Shuhei and Ryohei, returning to this fishing motif which carries across years in their lives.*

*Again, astounding parallels drawn in the framing, bookending a scene by isolating both in identical shots.*

Loneliness is inevitable in any relationship strained by distance though – in this instance, giving way to a tension which arises over Ryohei’s desire to quit his job and move closer to his father. “Do your duty for both of us,” Shuhei demands, longing for Ryohei to become the teacher he believes he never could be, and revealing how profoundly his past failure still weighs on his parental expectations.

It is also during Ryohei’s trip to Tokyo though that Shuhei finds companionship in an even more unlikely reunion, organised by his now-grown students. It has been a decade since their graduation, and while their teacher has spent the interim living in reclusive guilt, they have held onto nothing but positive memories of his mentorship. He continues to visit the deceased student’s grave out of a sense of remorse, he tells them, but is evident that his impact on their lives far outweighs this single tragedy. Through the low perspective of Ozu’s tatami shots, we become part of the seated celebration too, observing how its demonstration of enduring appreciation begins to heal the ex-teacher’s wounded soul.

*Healing through reminiscence, celebration, and Ozu’s tatami shots, giving Shuhei the closure he needs from old students whose fond memories far outweigh any consideration of his failures.*

If Shuhei’s guilt was keeping him clinging to a lonely life of penitence, perhaps this is just the closure he needed to finally escape it once and for all. Growing disorientated and weak, he collapses one morning as he gets ready to leave for work, struck by a heart attack. Ozu once again uses a cutaway to pause before we move to the hospital, this time meditatively lingering on an array of flowerpots, a clothing horse, and a watering can sitting in the garden, each item never to be touched by Shuhei again. Ozu creates a sort of temporal negative space in moments like these, not quite part of one scene or the next, but rather offering a soothing transition to prepare us for significant changes in the lives of his characters.

*The stray garden items of Shuhei’s home, left exactly where he last put them down – his absence is painfully felt in this pillow shot.*

Lining the corridor outside Shuhei’s hospital room, his past students gather, honouring the man who became a father to each of them. “It’s nothing to be sad about. I did the very best I could,” he mumbles with his dying breath, finally finding forgiveness within himself. As for Ryohei, this final week spent together was the happiest of his life, he admits, having always wanted to live with his father since being sent away to boarding school. This is a man who died with his dignity intact, and the teary crowd which gathers around his deathbed in the final minutes of There Was a Father pays thankful testament to that, recognising a remarkable, resilient legacy which transcended the grief etched deep in his soul.

*Students gather round the deathbed of their old teacher, mourning and commemorating a life which touched far more people than Shuhei ever realised.*

There Was a Father is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

The Only Son (1936)

Yasujirō Ozu | 1hr 27min

The Tokyo that Ryōsuke inhabits is not quite the bustling metropolis that his mother O-Tsune envisioned. His neighbourhood is a desolate wasteland of processing plants and garbage incinerators, raising chimneys high up above landscapes and imposing its industrial architecture upon locals. In fact, it isn’t terribly different from his rural hometown Shinshū, where O-Tsune worked hard for many years to send him to school and where she still toils away in her old age. Yasujirō Ozu regards the prospect of elevating one’s status through education with great cynicism in The Only Son, and given that the Great Depression was ravaging Japan’s working class at the time, it isn’t hard to see why.

This is not to say that the destitute poverty Ozu’s characters live in lacks his typical aestheticism. His trademark pillow shots introduce us to Shinshū by way of oil lamps hanging in front of street views, and when we arrive at O-Tsune’s silk production factory, rows of spinning wheels whirl in smooth, geometric harmony. Humility begets selflessness in this quiet town, constantly grinding away to build a future for the younger generation in the naive hope that they will be granted greater privileges. After displaying immense talent in crafting the meditative melodrama of A Story of Floating Weeds, this tale of parental expectations and disappointments confirms Ozu cinematic genius, underscoring the social realities of 1930s Japan through the muted, disillusioning tension between generations.

*A delicate obstruction of the frame using this hanging oil lamp, setting the scene for O-Tsune’s quiet village.*

*Rows of spinning wheels whirl in smooth, geometric harmony – O-Tsune’s livelihood is built on the ceaseless momentum of these machines.*

*A mother’s hopefulness and her son’s ambition feed into each other, unaware of the real world troubles which stand in the way of success.*

Adding to O-Tsune’s weight of responsibility as well is her single motherhood, having been widowed shortly after Ryōsuke’s birth. Sending him to school placed a huge financial burden on her, yet thanks to advice from his elementary school teacher Ōkubo, it also seemed to guarantee him a comfortable life. When she finally visits him in Tokyo as an adult then, not only is she shocked to find that he has taken up work as a lowly night school teacher to support a wife and child, but that the once-respected Ōkubo has similarly taken a step down the social ladder and become a restaurant owner.

*Ozu keeps his camera low in this shot, funnelling the classroom desks towards the front where Ryōsuke commands the students.*

*Continuity in Ozu’s pillow shots, following his characters through the outskirts of Tokyo and exposing its dilapidation.*

Ozu loves applying visual patterns to his compositions, here mirroring his upright characters in the smokestacks lining the background, and choosing this as the setting for their cynical confrontation with reality.

As O-Tsune and Ryōsuke sit and talk in view of Tokyo’s towering smokestacks, he is the first to admit that this was not the life he was expecting for himself. The city is simply too competitive, and he feels terrible for all his mother’s sacrifices, yet she initially remains hopeful. His life is only beginning after all, and she claims her only disappointment is in his readiness to give up – though later that evening, it becomes apparent that her regret is far more deep-seated. As Ryōsuke stands wistfully at the window of his classroom, gazing at the blinking city lights, Ozu’s mellow editing interlaces the scene with O-Tsune’s reflective, downcast expression back home. A narrow doorway confines both of them to a narrow frame as they finally meet and continue their discussion, though this time they are unable to reach as convenient a resolution.

*Mother and son in separate locations, yet Ozu’s editing binds them together in disappointment, alternating between these lonely shots.*

*An extremely narrow frame even by Ozu’s standards, trapping O-Tsune and Ryōsuke in their shared, unresolvable tension.*

“I worked hard because I wanted you to succeed,” O-Tsune laments, before finally coming clean that she has sold their house and mulberry fields for his education. “You’re all I have now in the world.” Ozu’s characteristic low placement of his camera proves particularly powerful here, levelling with them as their resilient facades drop for the first time to bare their bitterness and guilt. From the next room over, Ryōsuke’s wife Sugiko weeps, before O-Tsune and Ryōsuke join in. From there, Ozu sits in the lingering melancholy as it spreads through the house, cutting to their sleeping baby and an empty room. Within the stasis, Ozu imbues remnants of their sorrow, echoing pained, muffled cries while the unconscious child remains innocently unaware.

*Sorrow and melancholy echoes through the house in these pillow shots, with each subsequent shot moving further away from its source, until we find ourselves beginning the next day.*

*From folded to hanging laundry – Ozu finds a logical progression between shots, establishing the relaxed flow of time within and around his narrative.*

In moments such as these, the precision of Ozu’s pacing and composition become piercingly clear, as his montage seamlessly transitions to the next morning through shots of folded and hanging laundry. His characters may be wounded, yet life goes on, leaving them to pick up the pieces and keep showing the sort of love they themselves need in return. There is no long-lasting resentment on Sugiko’s behalf, as she sells her kimono to take them all out while the weather is nice, and Ryōsuke is proves his altruism as well when he instead uses this money to generously pay for his neighbour’s hospital bills. Plenty may change with the passing generations, yet the benevolence which is passed from elders to children paves the way for a redemptive union of the two. Perhaps it is good her son never became rich, O-Tsune resolves, lest he should have lost that graciousness she raised him with.

With Ryōsuke finally deciding to take one more shot at getting a licence to teach high school, it seems that O-Tsune is able to return home to Shinshū with some closure, though Ozu is not one to let his family drama subside so neatly. The enormous smile she wears back at the factory is bolstered by the pride she openly expresses in her son, and convincingly hides the sadness which emerges when she is alone. As she rests for a moment on a ledge, her forehead creases with weary dejection, revealing the impermeable regret which cannot be quelled in her old age. This factory has been her entire life, and as Ozu’s conclusive pillow shots move towards its giant, steel gate keeping her in, it is apparent that it always will be. And for what, we are left to wonder? Is one life lived in poverty worth another that is only slightly better off? Like an ellipsis at the end of a sentence, The Only Son’s final montage suspends its characters in an unshakeable discontent, striving for a prosperous, hopeful future they quietly recognise may never arrive.

A heartbreaking ending, wiping the smile from O-Tsune’s face as she pauses in solitude. Ozu’s pillow shots drift farther from this weary mother and closer to the looming factory gates that seem to imprison her, quietly casting doubt on the idealistic faith society places in a lifetime of tireless, unending work.

The Only Son is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

A Story of Floating Weeds (1934)

Yasujirō Ozu | 1hr 26min

Kihachi’s theatrical troupe would be the first to admit that there is no great honour in their profession, drifting aimlessly from town to town like the titular debris in A Story of Floating Weeds. They are the dregs of society, offering escapist entertainment to working class audiences yet never planting roots anywhere for the long term. So ashamed is Kihachi of this life that even his illegitimate son Shinkichi is unaware of their blood relation, believing that the man who visits every few years with his troupe is merely a friend of his mother, Otsune. When Kihachi’s mistress Otaka eventually discovers his secret family and seeks revenge, she even spitefully sends fellow performer Otoki to seduce his son, hoping to taint him by romantic association with an actor.

The contempt these entertainers hold for themselves may be extreme, yet the petty reprisals they vindictively stoke among themselves only further cripple their morale. “He’s cheap like you, playing around with actresses,” Otaka venomously spits at Kihachi after her ruinous plans come to fruition, and he responds in kind with a beating, letting her provocation get the better of him. Yasujirō Ozu may offer compassion to the lower classes of Japan, but this does not get in the way of recognising his ensemble’s character flaws, driving them towards a pitiful, entirely preventable self-destruction.

*The quiet stillness of the train station precedes the kabuki troupe’s noisy arrival, and continues to linger after they exit.*

*Ozu sets his tale in small town at the foot of a mountain range, disturbing the humdrum mundanity with the excitement of travelling performers.*

Most important of all, A Story of Floating Weeds marks Ozu’s first major leap forward as a visual artist, studying the subtle details of those smalltown locations which set the scene for this working-class melodrama. A montage of pillow shots introduces us to the train station where the kabuki troupe is set to arrive, flitting through the quiet interior before it is filled with chatty visitors, and sitting in silence again as the lights switch off. These moments of stasis are crucial to Ozu’s narrative pacing, developing steady rhythms in both his editing and mise-en-scène. When Kihachi goes fishing with Shinkichi, Ozu aligns their movements as they cast lines into the river, and later illustrates the undisturbed synchronicity between father and son while they eat corn and play checkers.

*Visual harmonies – father and son cast fishing lines in perfect unison, and Ozu would later recapture this shot with even greater formal purpose in There Was a Father.*

*Art rooted in Japanese tradition, aimed at the lower classes of Japanese society.*

When the time comes for the troupe’s opening night, a parallel tracking shot past the audience’s hand fans waving in rapid harmony continues to underscore the lively anticipation brought in the actors’ wake, only for a sudden downpour to cancel the performance and mark a dour turning point. With little else to occupy her time, Otaka goes poking around at Otsune’s watering-hole to investigate Kihachi’s secret, and Ozu begins to use his staggered blocking to reveal their fracturing divisions. As Otaka and Kihachi take their argument outside, he splits them between awnings on either side of the alley, separated by the torrential rain. Her jealousy and his protectiveness of Shinkichi are irreconcilable, and thus she sets in motion that aforementioned plan to corrupt the innocent young man, wielding Otoki’s wily seduction as a distraction.

*Torrential rain brings the troupe’s performance to a halt, yet heralds greater dramatic tension, marking a dour turning point in the narrative.*

*Rain separates these two resentful lovers, first conveyed through cutting back and forth between them, before Ozu eventually lands on this incredibly composed wide shot.*

Further pillow shots capture swaying lanterns and tiny flags flapping in the gale, mirroring that uneasy, brewing tension which the troupe’s imminent departure will not so easily put to rest. Love is not some uplifting, indomitable force that transcends class boundaries here, but rather an inconvenience to the status quo, complicating matters when Otoki confesses she has genuinely fallen in love with this man she was simply meant to fake feelings for. With seemingly no chance for redemption or reconciliation, Kihachi decides that disbanding the entire troupe seems to be the only option, and A Story of Floating Weeds captures their last moments together with grave solemnity as they sit and smoke in silence beneath a dim, hanging lamp.

*Simmering tension in Ozu’s atmospheric pillow shots as lanterns sway and flags flutter in the wind.*

*Ozu imposes darkness upon the actors in their final moments as a troupe, mourning the end of their ragtag, makeshift family.*

For a director who is so often praised by his humanism, Ozu doesn’t get quite enough recognition for just how cynical he can be, often letting characters sacrifice individual desires for what they believe is the greater good. For Kihachi, all his fears about how Shinkichi might react come true when the secret is finally put out in the open, though this evidently stems more from shock and betrayal than any specific prejudice against Kihachi as a person. After all, despite his father’s absence, this was the man who paid for all his schooling with no expectations attached – besides perhaps the hope of simply seeing his son succeed.

*Stillness and emptiness in Ozu’s mise-en-scène as characters part ways, the tension between them shamefully unresolved.*

Shinkichi’s change of heart comes far too late. By the time he is rushing to the train station to make amends with Kihachi, his father has already left town, giving him the chance to progress in society without being hindered by his shameful parentage. Fatherhood is a thankless job in A Story of Floating Weeds, and one that is only further complicated by the value this culture places on class and honour, seeking to segregate educated professionals from those who barely scrape by. Ozu’s ire is not aimed at any individual character here, as even Otaka and Kihachi wind up reconciling in the closing minutes, recognising the similarities in their suffering. It is rather those arbitrary social barriers that condemn his ensemble to lives of lingering regret that disillusion him most of all, undermining family for status, and trading self-fulfilment for cycles of deep, enduring sorrow.

*Forgiveness between the bitterest rivals, ultimately accepting their lowly place in Japanese society, and cynically realising they have no one else.*

A Story of Floating Weeds is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Zero for Conduct (1933)

Jean Vigo | 43min

The rule of law is little more than an arbitrary imposition of authority in Zero for Conduct, and it is up to no one but the roguish schoolboys of its French boarding school to restore the natural order. For Caussaut, Colin, and Bruel in particular, a revolt is sorely needed for the students to counter that titular disciplinary punishment, condemning them to detention on Sundays. As such, they spend lunchtimes plotting against their teachers, planning a mutiny for commemoration day when staff and alumni gather to celebrate the school, and hoping to reclaim their liberty in a scaled-down yet equally impassioned French Revolution.

These three students are certainly not the only disenfranchised members of their cohort though. It is only natural that boys this age should seek to satiate their curiosity through play and pushing boundaries, so Jean Vigo often gathers them into what Sergei Eisenstein once labelled a ‘monistic ensemble’ – a sense of group identity achieved through complete visual unity. High angles are often used here to frame them in systematic formations, lined up along their dormitory beds or sitting at classroom desks, but so too do these same shots often capture them running through amok with gleeful abandon.

*The high angle is Vigo’s trademark shot, often put to good use in wides that capture his ensemble.*

*Visual form in the high angle of the dormitory, mirroring order and chaos among the students.*

*This comparison is a running motif for Vigo, studying how the boys’ wild urges are restrained by authority.*

Together, these children pass time with pranks and games, only really pulling themselves into line when ordered. Even then though, little can truly quell that stubborn streak of independence which interprets commands as challenges. When the oddly affectionate science teacher questions Tabard on why he isn’t taking notes, the student viciously bites back, and the arrival of a spirited class supervisor who does Charlie Chaplin impressions certainly doesn’t help to keep them under control.

*Chaplin impressions from class supervisor Huguet, sympathising with the children’s playful spirit.*

It isn’t too difficult to imagine how Vigo might have flourished during the French New Wave some 30 years later, though given the impact that Zero for Conduct bears upon François Truffaut, perhaps this would also defeat the point of its influence. The young director is evidently far ahead of his time, crafting a coming-of-age featurette which revels in its carefree naturalism and youthful outlook. Its brevity matters little with a director who knows exactly how long his story needs, and Vigo is economical indeed with his nonchalant pacing, smoothly shifting between vignettes that progressively mount a rising disenchantment.

*Vigo does not focus on individual characters so much as he does the group identity, blocking them as a single unit in his high angles looking down from above.*

This is not even to mention the form-shattering irreverence that comes with Zero for Conduct’s brief dip into animation, bringing to life a caricature the childlike supervisor Huguet draws while performing a handstand to impress the students. Its resemblance to the their tall, moustachioed teacher is no mistake, entertaining the children for a short time before its subject arrives and discovers the drawing. Taken by surprise, the lanky cartoon leaps into the air, before transforming before our eyes into a stout, potbellied figure of Napoleon. Vigo is harsh in his comparison of the school staff to iconic tyrants, though given the role these students have taken as revolutionaries, his political metaphor falls cleanly into place.

*Mischief and irreverence as this caricature leaps to animated life, satirising the tyrants who rule this school.*

Especially once we reach the boys’ day of emancipation, it is impossible to deny that their rebellion is anything other than a repeat of history. “Liberty or death!” they cry in their dormitory, raising flags and declaring war on the staff. Those glorious high angles return as the young insurgents form a procession, before launching an assault on their teacher using bed frames, blankets, and pillows. In this moment of euphoric anarchy, Vigo also initiates one of cinema’s earliest and greatest displays of slow-motion, revelling in the joyous mutiny. Feathers float through the air as the children carry their leader out on a chair, their elation blissfully stretched out in time and spurring them on to the next phase of their revolution.

*Pure elation as the boys prepare for war and Vigo captures it all in slow-motion, spurring them on to the next phase of their revolution.*

From atop the roof, the boys pelt guests visiting the school for its commemoration day with junk, much to the staff’s humiliation and displeasure. With the pomp and circumstance dissipating and Huguet cheering them on below, it is apparent that Vigo cares little for whatever consequences should arrive after Zero for Conduct’s final shot of the boys victoriously reaching the top of the roof, finally earning a heroic low angle. Their voices sing a proud anthem as the screen fades to black, and in this single, fleeting moment of their stifled youth, the taste of freedom is the purest they will ever know.

*A heroic low angle as the boys joyously proclaim victory, standing atop the school building.*

Zero for Conduct is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

The Phoenician Scheme (2025)

Wes Anderson | 1hr 41min

Having survived six attempts on his life, wealthy industrialist Zsa-Zsa Korda is a man well-acquainted with death. His blasé attitude is somewhat reasonable given the circumstances, proclaiming “Myself, I feel quite safe” with nonchalant, deadpan regularity, and coming to expect peril around every corner. Nevertheless, he knows his days are numbered. After surviving a recent plane crash, monochrome visions of heaven have started raising far more existential questions than the comforts of his fortune ever managed, prompting reflections upon his soul, his legacy, and the immortality of both. Perhaps then Liesl, the daughter who he sent to a convent at age 5, is the most suited of his ten children to inherit his estate – if he can earn her trust while executing his most ambitious project to date.

Wes Anderson has frequently explored the redemption of estranged father figures through their reconnection with scorned children, and here Zsa-Zsa and Liesl fit nicely into this mould set by Royal and Margot Tenenbaum. Still, his work has never quite taken on such spiritual dimensions before, especially with the weariness of Benicio del Toro’s patriarch predisposing him to his daughter’s ecclesiastical influence. She does not approve of the slave labour required to overhaul the infrastructure of fictitious Middle Eastern country Phoenicia, but by accompanying him on his journey to win over investors, she sees the potential to do good along the way.

*Anderson gathers a talented cast in this tale of redemption through family, with Benicio del Toro, Mia Threapleton, and Michael Cera leading its eccentric dynamic.*

With Anderson’s last few films taking the form of ensemble pieces, The Phoenician Scheme returns to the focused character studies that defined his earlier work, recognising those contrived social pretences which exacerbate his protagonists’ loneliness. Del Toro thrives at centre of his second collaboration with Anderson, playing into the unexpected vulnerability of a businessman whose life has been built on the callous exploitation of others. Zsa-Zsa’s freedom to travel anywhere is virtually unlimited, though only at the expense of citizenship and personal rights – minor sacrifices for an affluent lifestyle, in his opinion. Belonging is an inherently submissive act, far out of reach for one so set on owning everything, and it is in this stateless void that the Korda family patriarch finds himself totally isolated from the world he wishes to possess.

*Anderson’s first proper character study since The Grand Budapest Hotel, examining the peril that threatens a life founded on exorbitant wealth, and he conducts it with his usual deadpan wit.*

Rather than Zsa-Zsa’s dominant character arc compromising the narrative scope though, his expanding actors’ troupe sprawls out across subplots and settings. The Phoenician Scheme briefly shines the spotlight upon veterans Bill Murray and Willem Dafoe, revels in the deadpan wit of recent additions Richard Ayoade and Benedict Cumberbatch, and invites two talented newcomers into the main cast. Kate Winslet’s daughter Mia Threapleton has clearly inherited her mother’s shrewd edge, carefully treading a narrow line between Liesl’s altruism and her cynical self-indulgence, while Michael Cera’s turn as Norwegian entomologist Bjørn simultaneously conforms to and subverts his awkwardly endearing screen persona.

*So many of our best living actors are lining up to work with Anderson, and he knows how to make the most of their unique talents, giving them each a moment in the spotlight.*

In painting out the imbalanced dynamic between our three leads, Anderson’s blocking proves to be particularly rigorous. The first meeting between Zsa-Zsa and Liesl establishes their disconnection through height, situating him upon the dais in the centre of his grey, austere dining hall, or otherwise seating him on a chair while she crouches on a footstool. Even more amusingly, Bjørn’s occupation as Zsa-Zsa’s administrative assistant often relegates him to the background and edges of the frame, comically underscoring his painfully polite presence.

*Magnificent framing and blocking to illustrate the power dynamic between father and daughter, giving the powerful low angle to Zsa-Zsa, while Liesl is belittling pushed further back in the shot.*

*Bjørn meanwhile is often framed as the third wheel in this dynamic, amusingly interjecting from the background or otherwise lingering on the edges of the shot.*

Of course, this meticulous staging is crucially an extension of his exquisitely curated sets, shot by renowned cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel in his first team-up with Anderson. Zsa-Zsa’s palazzo-inspired manor of is almost entirely stripped of colour, making for a particularly stunning slow-motion, overhead shot in the tiled bathroom where dedicated staff attend to his every need, yet also lavishly embellished by marble columns and priceless art. Against these muted tones, the crimson rug upon which he organises his business plans appears all the more vibrant, and the shoeboxes that they are divided into strike an especially whimsical note.

*Zsa-Zsa’s manor is an impressive and devastatingly bleak set piece, defining his character through harsh angles stony textures, and a monochrome palette.*

*An overhead shot so perfect that Anderson hangs on it for the opening credits and returns to it again later – the sheer, minimalist precision is astounding.*

A vibrant blaze of colour announcing Zsa-Zsa’s bold business plans upon the grey tiles of his dining hall, but even the rug’s vertical and horizontal lines run at odds with the floor’s diagonal pattern.

True to Anderson’s offbeat formalist sensibilities, this is the system he chooses to structure The Phoenician Scheme around, representing each shoebox as a different investor to whom Zsa-Zsa must appeal. A train tunnel, a nightclub, a ship, and a dam become dioramic set pieces on his journey through Phoenicia, each hosting potential stakeholders who fall prey to his unscrupulous negotiation methods. Whether he is threatening blackmail or suicide bombings, it isn’t uncommon for these discussions to erupt into unintelligible uproars, nor for Zsa-Zsa to offer one of his many hand grenades as a gesture of goodwill.

*Anderson’s narrative effortlessly sprawls across varied locations, giving him countless opportunities to flex his visual design.*

Needless to say, The Phoenician Scheme is quite easily Anderson’s most violent film yet, and consequently one of his most darkly comedic. His immaculate formal control never descends into chaos even when characters find themselves blown up, shot, and poisoned, rupturing the cool distance of wide shots with grotesque reminders of the stakes at play. Though shocking in its frequency, this heightened brutality is rendered with a deliberate absurdity that feels right at home in Anderson’s miniature, mythologised vision of history, vaguely anchoring Zsa-Zsa’s dealings to the messy geopolitics and espionage of the 1950s. While globalist governments conspire, spies gather intel, and rumours swirl around the mysterious Uncle Nubar, our morally compromised protagonist boldly advances his imperialist ambitions, slipping between the cracks of warring powers with the elusiveness of a tycoon who’s made scheming into an artform.

*Anderson’s most violent film to date, confronting life-or-death stakes with a dark sense of irony.*

*Anderson’s take on 1950s global politics is vaguely adjacent to our own history, yet firmly set within his own curated, fictionalised world.*

It’s little wonder then that this man who is so accustomed to dodging danger should find himself haunted by cryptic visions of the afterlife. Neither is it a surprise that Anderson draws so heavily from Michael Powell’s metaphysical fantasy A Matter of Life and Death here, similarly using the black-and-white photography of these ethereal scenes to set a stark contrast against the pastel palettes of Zsa-Zsa’s mortal endeavours, and equally weighing his soul in both worlds. In one, it is Liesl whose earthly judgement holds him accountable, illuminating the tangible impact of his selfishness. In the other, the jury consists of his grandmother, his deceased wives, the five-year-old Liesl he once abandoned – every loved one he has hurt now spurring a reckoning through obscure metaphors and exchanges.

*Formal black-and-white interludes take us into the afterlife where Zsa-Zsa faces loved ones and God himself – of course taking the form of Bill Murray.*

*Props play an important and whimsical role in all Anderson’s films, but are especially used in The Phoenician Scheme to illustrate Liesl’s journey as she adopts more worldly influences.*

Still, reconciliation is a two-way street, most evident in Liesl’s gradual adoption of her father’s vices – a curious expression of empathy in its own right. As she embraces his world, emerald eyeshadow and red lipstick begin to colour her face, and so too does she swap out her old pipe, dagger, and rosary beads for bejewelled versions of each. This is not an abandonment of her religious principles, but rather an unforced harmony where she is met by her father, setting aside those trivial luxuries and grudges that fractured their family many times over. Amid epic entanglements of industrialists, assassins, and terrorists, this is the divine humility concealed within The Phoenician Scheme’s dysfunctional family reunion, cutting entrepreneurial egos down to size through the stylish, self-effacing manner of Anderson’s inimitable charm.

The Phoenician Scheme is currently playing in cinemas.

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)

Chantal Akerman | 3hr 18min

When Jeanne Dielman stops by her son Sylvain’s room to wish him good night at the end of each monotonous day, she has what may be the deepest conversations of her life – not that her standard is terribly high. Her mind is a clockwork contraption that sees no value in abstract discussion or personal growth, but which rather dedicates itself to a single, methodical task at a time, maintaining a stable household for the benefit of her offspring. She is a Sisyphus for the modern age, each day pushing that boulder up the mountain as she polishes shoes, folds clothes, and cooks dinner, only to find herself starting all over again the following morning.

Despite remaining largely ignorant to his mother’s endless toil, Sylvain is the sole stimulus for introspection in Jeanne’s life, gently piercing her insular, middle-class bubble. “You’re always reading, just like your father,” the widow remarks the first night we join them, prompting him to ask about the early days of their relationship. “I didn’t know if I wanted to marry, but that’s what people did,” she ponders, dispassionately reflecting that “sleeping with him was just a detail” like any other in her meticulous daily routine. This comes as no surprise to us, of course. Every afternoon a different male client visits her apartment to pay for sex, and although Chantal Akerman usually cuts away from the act, it evidently unfolds with about as much excitement as making the bed or washing dishes.

*Jeanne’s life is in service of her son, who barely recognises her sacrifices. Through him, ideas from the world outside penetrate their bubble, considering notions of sex she would rather ignore.*

On the second night, Sylvain’s topic of choice turns to his friend Yan, whose experiences with dating have sparked a deliberation on the nature of sex.

“He says a man’s penis is like a sword. The deeper you thrust it in, the better. But I thought, ‘A sword hurts.’ He said, ‘True, but it’s like fire.’ But then where’s the pleasure?”

Jeanne is not nearly as eloquent as her son, but her dismissive response nevertheless articulates the sexual insecurity she has been stifling for years. Sylvain’s confession that he hated his father upon learning about these bodily functions as a ten-year-old verbalises that Freudian relationship between them too, giving her even greater reason to shy away from the topic despite conforming to its associated gender roles. Sex is a messy, complicated thing, and its distillation down to a simple business transaction allows her to rationalise its functionality beyond childbearing – so anything which endangers the pleasureless system she has built her life upon may very well reach the magnitude of an existential threat.

*Sex as a transaction is the easiest way for Jeanne to rationalise its functionality outside of childbearing, stripping it of pleasure and denying herself release.*

Perhaps the only thing longer than the title Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is the film itself, stretching out over three hours which force us to feel every passing minute. Its selection as the greatest film of all time according to the 2022 Sight and Sound list is no doubt an odd choice, but for those who deny its lack of artistic value, its lofty ranking has ironically proven to be the most common argument against it. Overrated it may be, but Akerman’s slow, laborious study of domestic anxiety is far from a failure, constructing this plotless narrative around rigorous formal patterns before incrementally eroding them with Jeanne’s psychological state.

Beginning on the afternoon of the first day and ending on the afternoon of the third, we watch every detail of her routine play out twice, with one major exception. The rendezvous she conducts with three men visiting her apartment mark the opening, midpoint, and conclusion of Jeanne Dielman, each one escalating in psychological impact and rippling out to the rest of her life. The delicate balance which Akerman cultivates in this character study attunes us to her habits, finding peace through meditative, dutiful repetition of familiar actions such as turning off the lights whenever she leaves a room.

*Extraordinary form in the repetition of shots, familiarising us with Jeanne’s dutiful routine throughout the day.*

Although Jeanne treats her home like a palace, Akerman’s drab mise-en-scène of beige tiled walls and chequered floors tells another story of soul-sucking mundanity. The film may not possess the compositional precision of Yasujirō Ozu’s domestic dramas, but Akerman is his equal in long, static shots, distantly sitting as a neutral observer while Jeanne’s movements fill the frame and often leave it altogether. The camera primarily sits at square angles relative to whichever room it occupies, rejecting the disorder of diagonal lines and maintaining Jeanne’s systematic harmony in whichever perspective we take. Outside as well, Akerman layers each shot using her full depth of field, tunnelling the sidewalk outside Jeanne’s home between buildings and parked cars, while the green park bench across the road from her apartment building sets a firm boundary between the foreground and background. Of course, there is barely a shot in Jeanne Dielman which Akerman resists calling back to either, ingraining this perfectionist’s strict regimen within the very language of the film.

*Lovely depth of field in Akerman’s tableaux, shot on location in Brussels and centring Jeanne as she walks the same sidewalks each day.*

*Defined layers of the foreground, midground, and background – each segregated in the mise-en-scène, maintaining orderly perfection.*

As a result, the first time Jeanne misses a crucial step in her routine and forgets to flick off the light switch after leaving a room, we are totally thrown. Akerman’s extratextual clarification that it was an orgasm with the second client which instigates this chaos seems a little lazy given that we never see any specific suggestion of it in the text, yet we can at least reach the conclusion that this encounter is somewhat responsible given how soon afterwards the breakdown begins. She has deeply internalised the idea that pleasure is a luxury that women are not allowed to experience, and the slightest breach of that doctrine may very well destabilise the life of tedious self-sacrifice that has been built upon it, setting off a catastrophic domino effect.

Because Jeanne must return to the bathroom and switch the light off, she accidentally lets the potatoes boil for too long, and is left wandering the house unsure where to place the pot. Eventually sitting down at the kitchen table to peel them, Delphine Seyrig’s performance shifts from mechanical indifference to silent frustration, slicing into the vegetables with harsh, aggressive motions. When Sylvain arrives home, dinner is served late, and his desire to go to bed early rather than head out for their evening walk is promptly rejected.

*Seyrig’s performance is one of subtle variations, shifting from mechanical indifference to harsh, aggressive motions as control slips from her grasp.*

*Jeanne arrives early at the store, and we must wait with her for the shutters to roll up, throwing off her perfectly timed routine.*

Unfortunately, the start of a new day doesn’t exactly bring relief for Jeanne either. When she polishes Sylvain’s shoes in the morning, her strokes are just a little too forceful, causing her to drop the brush. When she wakes him up, she accidentally turns the light on, before quickly switching it back off in a panic. At the kitchen sink, she rewashes the same dishes several times in a row, unsatisfied with her work. Even when she leaves home to buy groceries, she arrives early at one of her regular shops, and must awkwardly wait for the shutter to be rolled up. This day is even more of a disaster than the one before, leaving Jeanne scrambling to adapt to what may be considered minor inconveniences in anyone else’s life, but which to her are cataclysmic acts of violence escaping her impeccable control.

It is here where Akerman’s recurring shots begin to pay off as well, instilling remarkable form in the disintegration of Jeanne’s strict procedures. In the diner that she visits for lunch each day, she has previously been positioned in the middle of the frame – though now she enters to find a stranger sitting in her usual seat. As a result, she may no longer occupy the centre of this once-balanced composition, but rather the humiliating, undignified seat on its edge.

Theme and variation in repeated shots – we expect to see Jeanne take her preferred place centre frame in this diner, so the discovery that another customer has taken her seat literally pushes her to the edge.

When the culmination of Jeanne’s frustration intersects with the arrival of her third client, Akerman no longer even cuts away from the intercourse as she writhes and struggles beneath him, holding on one of the few standalone shots that isn’t doubled anywhere else. Is this an assault, we wonder, or another orgasm, provoking intense discomfort as she tries to rid herself of this forbidden pleasure? Either way, her reaction is the most visceral we have seen from her at any point – not that it holds this distinction for long. The following shot catches the reverse angle in the dresser mirror, dissociating Jeanne from herself as she rises from the bed, retrieves a pair of scissors, and stabs the man in his throat.

*The only time we watch a scene play out in a mirror is the climactic murder, as if to dissociate Jeanne from her own actions.*

The dam was bound to break eventually, but never do we expect it to happen so violently, shattering the illusions of mundanity which conceal Jeanne’s mounting aggravation. Is this her escape from a limbo of domestic servitude? Is she trying to conquer an inconsistent world which has undermined her need for absolute control, or does the object of her forceful suppression lie within, secretly longing for pleasure? As Akerman’s final shot hangs on her at the dinner table, blood staining her blouse and hands, an ambiguous, peaceful smile makes its way across her face. Perhaps not even she has the words to express the gratification she has discovered, but with the boulder wilfully released from the top of the mountain, it is clear that this lonely, fastidious homemaker will never have to trek that torturous Sisyphean journey again.

*Jeanne relinquishes control and accepts whatever comes next, escaping her eternal, Sisyphean punishment.*

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Day of Wrath (1943)

Carl Theodor Dreyer | 1hr 37min

For the residents of this 17th century Danish village, the end times are near. Suspicions of witchcraft have escalated into full-blown trials and executions, sentencing women like the elderly Herlof’s Marte to burn at the stake, while more fortunate suspects are spared only through deals made with local authorities. Meanwhile, the ominous ‘Dies Irae’ motif reverberates through choirs of young boys, echoing the sinister poem which opens this tale.

“Day of Wrath, dreadful night,

Heaven and earth in ashes burning,

And the sun beset by dead of night.

That Day of Wrath, that sulfurous day

When flaming heavens together roll,

And earth’s beautiful castle shall pass away.”

These portentous warnings bear strong resemblance to those in The Seventh Seal, and the gale which at one point fills the soundscape with howling chaos may very well be the same which haunts The Turin Horse, yet Day of Wrath precedes both films. This apocalypse is one of forsaken marriages, religious paranoia, and helpless scapegoats, crushing whatever glimmer of passion might emerge between forbidden lovers. Still, this portentous drama never truly rules out the question of whether some unknown, transcendent power holds sway over the fragile lives of humans, sending the damned to early graves while the living remain in its grip of mortal terror.

*Hymnal lyrics of doom and despair lay out the apocalypse at hand, damning the people of Earth to perish in their own cruelty.*

*Choirs of young boys sing of the condemnation which awaits humanity on the Day of Judgement, chilling echoing the iconic ‘Dies Irae’ motif.*

Young housewife Anne knows this feeling of dread too well. Her marriage to the local pastor Absalon was part of a bargain to save her late mother from accusations of witchcraft, and has since placed her under the thumb of Meret, her domineering, antagonistic mother-in-law. With Anne’s elderly neighbour Herlof’s Marte now knocking on her door, hoping to find refuge from similar charges, she can’t quite seem to remove herself entirely from the shadow of suspicion falling upon her either. Her eyes burn the same way as her mother’s did, Meret sombrely remarks, forewarning Absalon that one day he will find himself confronted with a choice between God and his wife.

Trapped within the confines of her husband’s home and subjected to her mother-in-law’s cruelty, Anne is set up as a victim of society – yet there resides an ambiguous power in her which underlies the spiritual mystery of Dreyer’s film.

Though it is apparent that the pastor has somewhat of a conscience, we can see in his rejection of Marte’s pleas for mercy that it is his passivity rather than any innate malice which lands him on the wrong side of these witch trials. Still, the same cannot be said of others in this town, who are spurred on by their need for a scapegoat to blame for their misfortune. The camera passes by spectators at Marte’s public torture as they lean forward in their seats, eager to see a confession drawn from her lips, and drawing strong parallels to another totalitarian regime occupying Dreyer’s homeland at the time of production. Just as he once aimed a critical lens at Joan of Arc’s political persecutors, here he angles his allegory towards the spread of Nazism, bitterly lamenting the grip of paranoid terror it held over Europe at large.

*A slow, panning camera drifts past the faces of Marte’s interrogators, eager for her to break under physical and psychological pressure.*

*Scenes of brutal torture underscore the sadistic malevolence of man, stripping it of spectacle.*

As such, Dreyer’s slow, severe storytelling is an impeccable formal match for his chilling indictment of authoritarianism. Set and costumes designs are as starkly minimalist as ever, using bare stone walls as backdrops and imposing geometric arches and columns upon interior spaces. His roving camerawork is equally rigorous, often combining panning and tracking shots to explore thoroughly blocked tableaux, and particularly inviting our curiosity as we follow Anne through a hall of pillars where she eavesdrops on Marte’s futile plea for mercy. It is no wonder then that Anne wishes to escape these oppressive, greyscale chambers, making the arrival of Absalon’s son Martin all the sweeter for his romantic companionship.

*Among Dreyer’s strongest shots, tracking through the columns of this hall before framing Anne within the funnelled archways.*

*Stark, Gothic minimalism in Dreyer’s architecture, baring a stern facade.*

Dreyer’s shift away from the harsh, Gothic architecture of the village and towards the natural scenery of Anne and Martin’s passionate affair is sharp, and further underscored by his deliberate intercutting between both locations. While Absalon visits the darkened home of a sick parishioner to deliver his last rites, we simultaneously join the lovers drifting down rivers and laying together in long grass, free from the rigid lines of their oppressive, austere home. Dreyer’s editing is not defined by quick rhythms here, but rather a slow, deliberate alternation between scenes, breaking through the dour monotony of emotionally restrained performances with warm smiles and tender affection. Still, even as Anne romantically poeticises about a tree on the riverbank, Martin’s guilt quietly impedes on their happiness.

“It is bowed in sorrow.”

“No, in longing.”

“In sorrow for us.”

“In longing for its reflection in the water. We can no more be parted than the tree and its reflection.”

*Soft scenes of romance set among trees and rivers, contrasted against the harsh stone interiors of the village.*

These lovers may be bound together emotionally, yet as Day of Wrath’s parallel editing so suggestively illustrates, they are also subject to a far more powerful bond metaphysically linking them back to Absalon. “Whosoever believeth shall live, though he die,” Absalon prays over his parishioner’s body, right before Dreyer cuts to Martin’s own pensive meditation on death.

“If we could die… together, here.”

“Why?”

“To atone for our sin.”

*Absalon tends to a dying parishioner in this bleak frame, his meditations on death fatefully intercut with Anne and Martin’s.*

It is not the disloyal son nor the unfaithful wife whom death shall ultimately visit though. Back at home Anne ponders aloud what their lives may look like if her husband were dead, and at that moment, we visit Absalon making his way through a vicious gale. He falters, proclaiming to have felt Death brush by him, before anxiously continuing his journey home. Dreyer is certainly no believer in witchcraft, and yet just as the climax of his later film Ordet is marked by the unexplained miracle of resurrection, there is a frightening ambiguity surrounding Anne’s apparently supernatural power. After derisively unleashing years of repressed anger over her stolen youth, she need only speak her desire aloud to strike him down.

“Therefore, I now wish you dead.”

*A gale whips up on Absalon’s journey home, and death brushes by him.*

*A vicious turn in Anne’s character unleashes a bitter wish for death, revealing what may or may not be a hidden power as her wish immediately manifests in reality.*

Frightened by her words made real, Anne escapes the thick shadows of Absalon’s office and runs outside, hoping to find Martin in those gorgeous landscapes which once hosted their passionate affairs. Now shrouded in mist though, both are rendered as silhouettes, drained of light and warmth. There is no more room for love in this relationship, and therefore no hope for Anne’s salvation. She is not some defiant individualist, seeing through the narrow beliefs of an unjust society, but simply a woman who has internalised its prejudice so deeply that she confoundedly professes to aiding the “Evil One.” After all, how else could such a terrible catastrophe be arbitrarily visited upon one of God’s holy servants?

*Dark silhouettes in misty landscapes as Anne seeks salvation with Martin, only to find their romance dissipated.*

Above all else, it is the haunting ambiguity of Dreyer’s Gothic fable which lingers long after he has faded from Anne’s teary, smiling face. Very gradually, our doubt in the existence of witchcraft is twisted into vague hesitancy, even as we remain sympathetic to her tribulations. Perhaps it was a supernatural manifestation of an emotional outburst, or maybe it truly was incredibly unfortunate timing. Regardless, Day of Wrath reserves its ire not for the women of this village, but those who shape reality around their own fear and cruelty. Where Anne is a sinner, a victim, or both, Dreyer’s greatest anxiety lies in a prejudiced culture beyond moral redemption, masquerading its darkest impulses as divine, heavenly will.

*Dreyer holds on Anne’s teary, smiling face as she confesses her sin, submitting to the persecution and accusations levelled at her.*

Day of Wrath is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Stray Dog (1949)

Akira Kurosawa | 2hr 2min

The covert, labyrinthine path through Tokyo’s seedy underbelly that police officer Murakami follows in Stray Dog is a strenuous enough journey on its own, even without considering the sweltering heatwave bearing down on the city. That this quest to recover his stolen pistol lands right in the middle of summer only makes it that much more exacting, dialling up the pressure to find the man who has bought it off the black market, and is now using it to commit a string of crimes. While the rest of the city is watching baseball games and relaxing, both sides of the law remain restless in their isolated pursuits, drawing ever closer under Akira Kurosawa’s sharp, observant gaze.

Handheld and electric fans are constant motifs here, cooling down those desperately trying to escape the heat, though the crowded blocking doesn’t help to ease the discomfort. When Murakami descends into the decadent nightclubs of Tokyo, Josef von Sternberg’s influence emerges in Kurosawa’s cluttering of the frame, filled with lights, smoke, décor, and bodies dripping with sweat. This is a world inhabited by illicit arms dealers and violent gangsters, and if Murakami is to find this disturbed gunman, he must fully immerse himself in its sleazy, lawless decadence.

*Electric fans obstructing frames, becoming a visual motif in the sweltering summer heat.*

*Hand fans too are used by the characters, but do little to ease the pressure off of the smothering mise-en-scène.*

*Josef von Sternberg style designs in the cluttered clubs of Tokyo – a world of lawless excess.*

Kurosawa’s methodical approach to unravelling this investigation is a stepping stone towards the sprawling procedural he would later conduct in High and Low, yet Stray Dog nevertheless remains an immense accomplishment in his early career. Tokyo takes on vibrant textures as Murakami navigates its streets and buildings, giving way to marvellously edited montages of a city scrutinised beneath his watchful eyes in a double exposure effect, and traversed in patient tracking shots. The visual storytelling is tremendous as he tails the pickpocket for several days, wearing her down until she points him towards Honda, the notorious gunrunner she sold his weapon to.

*There is real texture to Kurosawa’s world, exploring every hidden corner of Tokyo in preparation for High and Low.*

*Crowded blocking and silent visual storytelling as Murakami pursues a suspect through trams and streets.*

*An intense double exposure effect imposing Murakami’s eyes over montages of the city – little escapes his piercing gaze.*

When Honda’s girlfriend is taken in for questioning, she proves much tougher to break, and so the arrival of veteran detective Satō is timely indeed. In his playbook, charm is a far greater tool than intimidation, casually winning her over with ice blocks and cigarettes. In one superbly blocked composition, Kurosawa mirrors this new hierarchy too by pushing Murakami behind his older colleague, and foregrounding the girlfriend’s guilty profile as Satō interrogates her.

*Satō’s gentler interrogation tactics become the focus of the scene through Kurosawa’s staggered blocking, pushing Murakami to the background as an observer.*

The buddy cop dynamic which emerges here would later set the stage for David Fincher’s Se7en, similarly playing on the contrast between a fresh-faced detective and his older, wiser companion. Kurosawa’s casting of the highly-strung Toshiro Mifune and unflappable Takashi Shimura is incredibly inspired here, drawing an ideological divide which separates those younger generations directly affected by the traumas of World War II from those whose views are rooted in Japan’s traditional, stoic values. The more that both learn about their target Yusa, the more the cops’ differences come to light as well, making for a compelling discussion one night when Satō invites Murakami over for drinks.

*Two men of different generations mirrored, their worldviews colliding.*

“They say there’s no such thing as a bad man. Only bad situations,” Murakami deliberates, reflecting on the disturbed diary entries they found in Yusa’s shabby, filthy home earlier that day. Men become monsters in war, he believes, warped by inhuman orders from a government that neglects them as soon as they return home. He is not surprised that such a man has now fallen in with the yakuza, though seeing how this sort of nuance wracks Murakami with self-doubt, Satō is not so forgiving. “You can’t be this tense all the time if you want to be a cop,” he responds. War may have turned Yusa into a wild, untamed beast, but now that this monster is loose in society with a gun, it is up to them to capture him. “A mad dog sees only straight paths. Yusa sees only straight paths now,” Satō expounds, clinically reasoning that the only way to get to him is through his girlfriend.

“He’s in love with Harumi Namiki. She’s the only thing he sees.”

*The titular stray dog is an apt metaphor for both Murakami and the man he is pursuing, set up in the film’s very first shot.*

*Kurosawa’s compositions are outstanding, using his depth of field to draw our eye to characters further back in the frame.*

When applied to Murakami as well, this metaphor continues to ring true. He is blinded by his focus on Yusa, which itself is fed by his guilt over losing that gun in the first place. This rookie cop acts on impulse, often heading straight into danger without backup and hoping that he might stop Yusa from wreaking further devastation across Tokyo.

It is only inevitable that the heatwave that has accompanied this investigation should eventually break, and being a master of using weather as symbolism, Kurosawa carries it out with incredible formal purpose and style. While Satō is following a lead to Yusa’s hotel, Murakami is pressing Harumi to give up her boyfriend, wearing away at the worldly bitterness which he has imparted on her. It’s the world’s fault he has resorted to theft, she asserts, while slipping into a dress he has stolen for her – yet the guilt she suppresses is too strong. As she begins to cry, the skies finally open up, and Kurosawa traps her and Murakami within a confining, melancholy frame behind the falling rain.

*Melancholy hangs in the air of this shot, isolating Murakami from those around him.*

*A master of using weather patterns for cinematic power, Kurosawa breaks the heatwave with a violent downpour at a key narrative turning point, and weaves its texture into this poignant frame.*

Meanwhile, as the distance Satō and Yusa narrows, so too does the furious deluge mark their meeting with dramatic tension. While trying to call Murakami from the hotel phone booth, Satō remains unaware of an armed Yusa standing just outside, who fearfully realises that he is a police officer. The outlaw’s attempt on his life is fortunately non-lethal, though his shoulder wound is enough to tip an inconsolable Murakami over the edge, and ultimately convince Harumi that her boyfriend must be stopped.

*Satō and Murakami pushed to their lowest points yet, their faces shielded from the camera as they slump on the floor and stairs.*

As our bold, young protagonist sets out on his own one last time to confront the dangerous gunman, Kurosawa displays supreme confidence in his visual storytelling. The weather has stabilised – no longer is Murakami caught in the stifling grip of a heatwave, and neither does rain douse his spirits. “Don’t panic. Calm down,” his inner voice instructs him, taking on Satō’s cool composure as he searches the train station for a 28-year-old man in a white linen suit and muddy pants. Kurosawa’s camera possesses the patience of Hitchcock as it slowly passes across a line of legs, before eventually settling on a pair of filthy shoes and tilting up to the rest of the body. His taut editing soon comes into play as well, cutting between both their faces until Yusa confirms Murakami’s suspicions by using his left hand to strike a match – and from there, the final stand begins.

*A suspenseful, continuous tracking shot along a row of feet, searching for muddy white trousers – and eventually landing on them.*

*Cop and criminal in a frame – the stalker and his subject locked in his sights.*

Through the train yard and into a forest, Murakami daringly chases his target, though for now he holds off from shooting. He remembers exactly how many bullets were in his gun when it was stolen, and by deducing clues from each crime scene, he knows how many have been used. It is immensely satisfying seeing his sharp wits play into this set piece, and even more so knowing that it is Satō’s influence that has taught him self-control, further demonstrated in a close-up of his unshaken, bloody hand after his arm is shot. Two more wasted bullets from Yusa’s pistol, and Murakami is ready to bet his life that the barrel is now empty, rushing forward to apprehend the panicked, defenceless outlaw.

*The forest makes for a superb set piece, standing both sides of the law off against each other.*

*Leone-style editing long before Leone even made his first film, seeing Murakami patiently wait for the right moment to shoot.*

It isn’t that Murakami no longer understands Yusa’s trauma, nor that Satō completely disregards empathy, but he is right that these feelings must be put aside in their line of work. “The more you arrest them, the less sentimental you’ll feel,” he remarks – not that this pragmatism necessarily fixes the problem at the heart of a troubled society. Even with Yusa and the illicit arms dealer Honda brought to justice, Kurosawa’s cynicism lingers in his ending, acknowledging the countless disturbing cases that Murakami will continue to face throughout his career. For better or worse, this line of work allows little room for moral ambiguity, yet Murakami remains fully conscious of the bitter, underlying irony – the stray dog that finds purpose in saving lives is not so dissimilar from the one which takes them away.

*Two men reduced to exhausted heaps on the ground – mirrors of each other, alike yet morally opposed.*

Stray Dog is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

21 Grams (2003)

Alejandro Iñárritu | 2hr 4min

“Jesus wanted me to have that truck,” ex-convict Jack insists early on in 21 Grams, blissfully unaware that he will soon be behind the wheel when it kills two young girls and their father, Michael. His prosperity has come as a direct result of his conversion, he believes, preordained by a loving, omniscient God. From our perspective too, there was no other way this sequence of events could have unfolded. Jack’s fate is woven into the very structure of Alejandro Iñárritu’s splintered narrative, as are the destinies of former drug addict Cristina and maths professor Paul, pulling these strangers to the centre of a whirlpool that drowns them in guilt, grief, and a pressing sense of their own mortality.

The result is purposefully disorientating, throwing us not only between three colliding stories, but also across their respective timelines. Right as Cristina receives the devastating news that her family has been hit by a truck, we also see a shaken Jack arriving late to his birthday party, confessing to his wife Marianne what he has done. Suddenly, we jump several months forward to Jack driving Cristina and a mortally wounded Paul to the hospital – only to then leap back to Paul being given Michael’s heart, wondering whose death saved him from a life-threatening illness. On a broad level, this narrative indeed progresses from start to finish, yet its asynchronous flow is as jarringly fractured as the lives of its tormented characters.

*The religious faith which once uplifted Jack becomes a burden as he wrestles with a guilty conscience.*

*Splintering characters through the visuals as well as the narrative, reducing them to broken pieces of themselves.*

Even more than the examination of humanity’s interconnectedness from Iñárritu’s previous film Amores Perros, 21 Grams binds these strangers together in close physical proximity. No one here truly lives in isolation, so each time we cut to a disconnected scene without the context of what immediately preceded it, we find ourselves trying to fill in the gaps. Showing Cristina smelling her children’s clothes, ambiguously proclaim “We have to kill him” in her next scene, and then bake a cake with her daughters a few minutes later not only whips us between her the emotional extremes of character arc. In moments of happiness, this formal fragmentation instils sorrow, and we equally recall memories of innocent joy as we behold unconscionable devastation.

*Scenes of a jaded, vengeful Cristina contrast heavily against scenes of domestic bliss – her evolution is raw and jarring as both ends of this arc are placed next to each other.*

From the disordered information provided to us, we gradually infer what has happened and what is yet to unfold. Like these characters though, still we long for the catharsis of deeper understanding. Jack may be burdened by a guilty conscience after all, but there is no doubt in his mind that this tragedy was anything but an accident. If God gave him that truck, then doesn’t it stand to reason that he was chosen to carry out this manslaughter? If so, then how can he possibly love a God who doesn’t simply allow suffering, but decides who should live with the responsibility of inflicting it?

Where Jack’s belief in a fatalistic cosmos is furiously directed towards an all-powerful deity, Iñárritu lays out a formal contrast through Paul’s scientific determinism, heavily informed by his background as a maths teacher. “There’s a number hidden in every act of life, in every aspect of the universe,” he passionately expounds to Cristina, trying to express his own growing fondness for her. Everything that will ever happen is already written into the code of the universe, he maintains, invisible to the eye of its unassuming inhabitants.

“Numbers are a door to understanding a mystery that’s bigger than us. How two people, strangers, come to meet.”

*Strangers connected and broken apart by tragedy, written into the very code of the universe.*

Indeed, what looks at first glance to be sheer randomness in these lives is rather governed by many intersecting causal relationships. Whether one finds joy or tragedy in this complex web of probabilities is purely a matter of subjective experience, yet from the macro perspective Iñárritu grants us in 21 Grams, we also find a spiritual communion of their souls. Although they find themselves on divergent sides of this accident as a perpetrator, a survivor, and a benefactor, all three understand each other better than they realise.

It is largely through the three leading performances that we see these parallels emerge as well, balancing out the film’s expansive scope with raw, interior insight. Benicio del Toro’s tired resignation to suicidal depression, Sean Penn’s melancholy reckoning with the inevitability of death, and Naomi Watts’ grief-stricken regression into unhealthy behaviours are delivered with mesmerising naturalism, exposing all three at their most psychologically vulnerable.

*A weary resignation to suicidal depression in Benicio del Toro’s performance, seeing guilt cannibalise a man from the inside out.*

*Mortality weighs heavy on Sean Penn’s soul, accepting the inevitability of death.*

*A prime achievement of acting from Naomi Watts, shattered by an unfathomable grief which violently twists her soul.*

For Watts in particular, the fateful disaster which destroyed her entire family haunts her like a recurring nightmare. The first time it unfolds, we are with her at home, unaware that the voicemail she receives will be the last words she hears them speak. The second time, we are with them on the street, hanging on the excruciating seconds immediately preceding the accident. Finally, we visit the site with Cristina herself, replaying the brief audio message as the camera circles her in shaky, handheld motions. Even according to her own experience, this tragedy cannot be confined to a single point-of-view. As we witness in such pointed formal repetition, it instead warps and echoes into distortions of itself, existing somewhere between an objective historical event and intense, undistilled emotion.

*Echoes of tragedy, the first time playing as a voicemail when Cristina arrives home…*

*And the third time as a memory, following her as she walks down the street where her family died.*

By physically tampering with the film stock as well, Iñárritu alters the crude, gritty texture of his visuals according to each characters’ psychological state, heightening the varying impact of their trauma. This largely comes through the bleach bypass effect, deliberately skipping steps of film processing to increase contrast and decrease saturation, while using a colour cast to wash a faded green tint over its harshest scenes in the prison and hospital. Along with Rodrigo Prieto’s jittery camerawork and Gustavo Santaolalla’s sombre, reverberating score, these stylistic treatments consume us wholly in Jack, Paul, and Cristina’s collective vulnerability, lulling us into a hypnotic submission to fate’s unpredictable hand.

*Iñárritu underscores the grittiness of his mise-en-scène by tampering with his film stock, accentuating the coarseness of the film grain.*

*Green colour grading and lighting woven through 21 Grams, tinting the imagery with sickly hues.*

There is a thin line between resignation and acceptance though, and much of it lies in the context one places their own life, regardless of the path that has been travelled. Every so often, Iñárritu grants us reprieve from his arduous narrative by way of cutaways, deeply infused with metaphysical wonder as birds take flight at sunset and leaves blow in the breeze. This complex world evidently sprawls further out than these three interconnected characters, and as their stories finally converge upon a montage of memories and pensive deliberations, there is even a touch of Terrence Malick in its meditative flow.

*Visual poetry in the flying birds and leaves, revealed in cutaways as we pensively reflect on the fleeting places these characters occupy in an enormous world.*

“How many lives do we live? How many times do we die?” Paul reflects as he faces the end of his life for the third time in the film.

“They say we all lose 21 grams at the exact moment of our death. Everyone. And how much fits into 21 grams? How much is lost? When do we lose 21 grams? How much goes with them? How much is gained?”

True to the maths professor’s instincts, an exact number is placed upon the weight of a human life, yet still his thirst for knowledge remains unsatiated. As far as Jack, Paul, and Cristina are concerned, its impact is immeasurable, echoing across a vast network of seemingly trivial yet unfathomably intricate relationships. At least through the fractured storytelling of 21 Grams, Iñárritu gifts us a miraculous glimpse into this infinite expanse, and the terrible, intimate burden it imposes on our souls.

21 Grams is currently streaming on Binge, and is available to rent or buy on Apple TV, YouTube, and Amazon Video.

Carrie (1976)

Brian de Palma | 1hr 38min

Adolescence is a painfully awkward time for the best of us, magnifying every embarrassing blunder under the scrutiny of unforgiving teenagers looking to distract from their own insecurities. We can barely understand the physiological changes taking place in our bodies, let alone our minds, rapidly transforming us into stronger, more complex versions of ourselves. As such, it is a lethal combination of hormones, repression, and psychological torment which bubbles up inside high school student Carrie White, who can barely catch a break between her bullies and fanatically religious mother. Coming of age is quite literally a horror show, so when those caught in the thick of it are belittled and terrorised, not everyone is going to make it out alive.

Our protagonist’s burgeoning supernatural powers are but a mere footnote in Carrie’s opening scene, though Brian de Palma does not treat the traumatic fallout around her first period with any less terror for it. Pino Donaggio’s piano, strings, and flute wring out a mournful melody as the camera floats in slow-motion through the fogged-up locker room where she showers, and close-ups linger on her bare skin as blood begins to cascade down her legs. “Plug it up!” the other girls viciously taunt as they throw tampons and towels at her, amused by her panic. Suddenly, a light bursts overhead, and Donaggio’s score recalls the stabbing strings from Psycho for the first of many times. De Palma may famously be characterised as the Hitchcock imitator, but clearly this influence extends to his pick of creative collaborators as well.

*De Palma’s camera floats in slow-motion through the fogged-up locker room where Carrie’s first period strikes – coming of age is a literal horror show for this teenage girl.*

*Religious oppressions hangs over Carrie in this shot, shoving down her rage and shame.*

Carrie evidently finds no solace at home either. It was sin that brought on Carrie’s period, her mother chastises, refusing to educate her any further. To atone, she must be locked in the “prayer closet”, a claustrophobic space lit by a single candle and adorned with a grotesque, white-eyed icon of Saint Sebastian. Of course though, abuse does little to quell the dissent growing inside. Rather the opposite in fact, as her repressed anger continues to feed uncontrollable, telekinetic outbursts, vibrating an ash tray in the principal’s office and throwing a kid off his bike for calling her names.

*Forced to pray to a grotesque icon of Saint Sebastian in the claustrophobic prayer room – magnificent imagery literally bottling up Carrie’s emotions.*

Even in these heated moments though, Sissy Spacek maintains a wounded vulnerability in her performance, revealing the shame and distress from which this teenager’s dark impulses emerge. She is isolated in de Palma’s blocking, yet through the deep focus of his split diopter lenses, intricate relationships are developed with the few characters who have some sympathy for her. Perhaps most prominent among these is fellow classmate Tommy, whose poem in English class draws mockery from everyone but her. “It’s beautiful,” she mutters under her breath, her face turned down in the background while his is pressed close to the lens in humiliation. With some encouragement from his girlfriend Sue as well, Tommy resolves to ask Carrie to the prom – and for a fleeting moment in her tragic life, her future starts to look bright.

*Isolation and connection in de Palma’s trademark split diopter shots, making for some tremendously blocked compositions.*

Not that her mother would ever understand the emotional and social needs of a lonely teenage girl. A thunderstorm rages outside as the two sit down to eat dinner on prom night, gloomily mirroring The Last Supper mural which looms behind them and foreshadows their own impending fates. Finally recognising her own power, she disregards her mother’s orders for the first time, pinning her to the bed and departing for what she is certain will be the happiest night of her life.

*The Last Supper mural makes for an ominous backdrop to another last supper between mother and daughter, foreshadowing the imminent tragedy.*

Right from the moment we enter the gymnasium of red and blue lights, de Palma wields spectacular control over every cinematic element at his disposal, mounting suspense in long, delicately choreographed takes. Drifting above the crowd in a crane shot, the camera finds its way to a naïvely optimistic Carrie, and dreamily circles her and Tommy from a low angle as they begin to dance. While she is contained in her own blissful bubble though, believing they have both been nominated for Prom King and Queen, we also trace her bullies putting their plan to humiliate her into action. A tracking shot follows Norma swapping out real ballots for fake ones, before catching a glimpse of Chris and Billy hiding beneath the stage. With the dramatic irony laid on thick, we finally follow streamers to an overhead shot from the rafters, where a bucket of pig’s blood fatefully awaits its victim.

*Red and blue lighting in the school gymnasium, setting up the all-American innocence soon to be corrupted.*

*De Palma is a Hitchcock acolyte through and through, tracking the camera along the streamers leading to the pig’s blood atop the stage – horrifying suspense leading into disaster.*

Hearing her name read out as Prom Queen seems almost too good to be true for Carrie, though who is she to question this unbelievable stroke of fortune? Heavenly strings and a dazzling white light accompany her as she approaches the stage, beaming a wide smile that feels almost foreign on her face, yet de Palma’s editing only ramps up the tension with its incredible slow-motion. The tone of Donaggio’s score continues to shift as we alternate between her ecstatic ignorance and the dread-stricken people around her realising that something is very wrong – not that any are quick enough to prevent the inevitable toppling of the bucket and her short-lived euphoria.

*Angelic naivety, fleeting yet ecstatic as these final seconds of innocence are drawn out in slow-motion.*

Just as blood ushered in the beginning of Carrie’s metamorphosis, it now completely douses her as she reaches her final, terrifying form. Whether menstrual or pig’s, it is a symbol of both evolution and suffering, inextricably bound together here as something inside her snaps. While many in the school gymnasium can only stare in silent pity, through her point-of-view we see them laughing as distorted hallucinations, and Spacek’s eyes widen in cold, merciless fury. The timid young girl is gone, and in her place stands a monster, refusing to distinguish between ally and foe. Everyone has their inner darkness, but while Carrie’s abusers have freely shown theirs to the world, an unimaginably crueller abomination within her has been raised, repressed, and finally released.

*An outstanding performance from Sissy Spacek as something inside snaps, her eyes widening in cold, merciless fury.*

*Split diopter shots give way to split screens as chaos reigns in Carrie’s massacre.*

Split screens sharply divide the frame in two as she telekinetically slams the doors shut, piercing the audience’s defences with her unforgiving gaze on one side, and the other revealing her frightened victims. With a flick of her head, the stage lights bathe her in a hellish red wash, and the massacre begins. No longer do her powers lash out on impulse – now she wields them with perfect command, purposefully seeking to inflict as much harm as possible by turning the firehose on students, electrocuting the school principal, and crushing the only teacher who ever tried to help her beneath the basketball backboard. Silhouetted against a blazing fire, she strikes the image of a demonic queen in her blood-stained gown, and begins to walk in slow, stiff motions off the stage.

*The gymnasium drenched in bloody red lighting, trapping staff and students alike in Carrie’s personal torture chamber.*

*A demonic monster is born, silhouetted against the blazing fire which consumes every living soul in its path.*

Although Carrie returns home, the nightmare is not yet over. As if preparing a ritual exorcism, her mother has lit the house with candles, though her entire demeanour seems drastically different. No longer the priggish disciplinarian, she confesses to the abuse she suffered at the hands of her late husband, the guilt she felt for her perverse pleasure, and the drunken rape which led to Carrie’s conception. Her daughter is the product of sin, she reasons, and though her logic is harsh, it is somewhat adjacent to the truth. More accurately, Carrie is the product of abuse, raised in a loveless home and carelessly twisted into violent killer.

*Carrie’s mother poetically perishes in the same pose as the icon of Saint Sebastian, pierced with knives.*

That Carrie’s mother should perish in a pose that mimics the unsettling Saint Sebastian figurine is a perfectly ironic end for this supposed martyr. Pierced with knives, she hangs in an open doorway, suffering the consequences of her neglectful parenting. Still burdened by a self-loathing conscience, Carrie is close to follow her into the darkness as well, collapsing the entire house and ending her rampage with herself as the final victim. The jump scare that de Palma sneaks into the final scene not only haunts the prom night’s sole survivor, but also points to the skewed legacy left in her wake. Carrie is not to be remembered in this town as a victim of immense tragedy, or a teenager struggling to comprehend strange physiological changes. She is a ghost who lives on in nightmares, whispered between neighbours as a local legend, and exacting the trauma she once suffered back on the world a thousandfold and more.

*Carrie’s legacy in this town is that of a monster, haunting nightmares as an undead creature never truly put to rest.*

Carrie is currently streaming on Stan and Amazon Prime Video, and is available to rent or buy on Apple TV, YouTube, and Amazon Video.