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The Rules of the Game (1939)
The self-centred bourgeoisie of The Rules of the Game are content living with a constant mistrust of their own peers if it means preserving their status and wealth, becoming the targets of Jean Renoir’s biting social satire as he comically undercuts the egos entangling themselves in an intricate web of affairs over one weekend at…
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Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)
The perfect synthesis of art and action in Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters is just as essential to Paul Schrader’s formal representation of Yukio Mishima as it is to the nationalistic writer himself, seeing the latter’s life and novels coalesce into a vibrant portrait of a traditionalist born out of time, as he rigorously…
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The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More (2023)
With their veneers of whimsical innocence that mask quiet tragedies, it is clear through Wes Anderson’s adaptations of four short Roald Dahl stories that he sees parts of himself in the children’s writer, keeping his spirit alive with a curated, theatrical style that creatively reimagines fables of eccentric psychics, bullies, exterminators, and patients.
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Ingmar Bergman: Faces of Faith and Doubt
Seeking the foundations of human identity, existence, and purpose in the absence of a responsive God, Ingmar Bergman composes severe modern parables of great spiritual weight, turning faces into landscapes that both express and withhold deep psychological truths.
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The Creator (2023)
The Creator’s stimulating combination of grand theological questions and sci-fi action spectacle offers the genre fresh spiritual depth, using a futuristic conflict between humans and artificial intelligence as a messianic allegory of insecure gods, their tortured children, and the dehumanisation of enemies in wartime.
