Whether they were abandoned, lost, or orphaned, young children were among the most impacted civilians of wartime Japan, making seven-year-old Kōhei one of many stranded without parents in Record of a Tenement Gentleman. Every survivor is dealing with their own struggles though, so when O-tane’s neighbour picks him up off the street, the question arises – why must this middle-aged widow be the one to take him in? If you ask her, it is because her friends agreed to randomly select who should be his carer, and she unfortunately drew the lot with an X on it. If you ask Tashiro or Tamekichi, the game was rigged so that all the lots were marked with an X, and she simply revealed hers first. To Yasujirō Ozu though, there is a maternal warmth beneath her spiky exterior that she might refuse to acknowledge, yet which predisposes her to the enormous responsibility of raising Kōhei.
Record of a Tenement Gentleman may be the closest this director of domestic dramas ever got to shooting a war film, rejecting the spectacle of battle for the quiet struggles of those whose homes were torn apart by bloodshed. Death and violence takes place entirely offscreen, never clarifying what led to the demise of O-tane’s husband, and only relaying the backstory of Kōhei’s bombed-out home through a neighbour’s brief exposition. The child’s father left for Japan to find work, we learn, and at some point along the way they were separated.“Your dad’s cold-hearted,” O-tane cynically reasons as they share food together atop a dune, overlooking a breezy, grey ocean.
“You didn’t get lost. You got abandoned.”
Grey skies and oceans form the negative space upon which O’tane and Kōhei’s figures are imprinted, bleakly looking out at the horizon as this middle-aged woman breaks the tragic news to the boy.
Perhaps this is her lack of faith in humanity speaking, or maybe it is her own justification to keep him by her side – not that she is terribly well-equipped as a mother. He is little more than a nuisance to her, earning her ire for failing to win a lottery draw, and repeatedly wetting his bed. Ozu’s storytelling through pillow shots is strong here, not only using his characteristic laundry montages to transition between scenes, but also frequently returning to the wet patch on his hanging sheets to reveal the chronic nature of this issue.
Unusually for Ozu, the narrative progresses through his trademark laundry shots, returning to this hanging blanket to reveal the chronic nature of Kōhei’s bed-wetting.Ozu patiently builds out postwar Tokyo’s rundown districts, composing long shots littered with junk and debris as O-tane navigates its streets.
Through its elegant union of style and character, what is largely underrated as a minor Ozu film displays graceful, minimalist sophistication, building out Tokyo’s rundown districts and the people that inhabit them. His path may have never crossed with the Italian neorealists of the time, but his ability to find tenderness in mundane suffering certainly aligns with theirs, compassionately studying behaviours as simple as O-tane’s discontented grinding of flour. Hanging kitchen utensils clutter the ceiling in her home too, pressing down from above in isolating wide shots as she smokes alone, and serving a similar purpose as the obstructions so often framed in the foreground.
O-tane’s state of mind is expressed through everyday motions, comparing her slow grinding of flour to the rapid, frustrating grinding later on.Hanging tools and utensils from the kitchen ceiling, pressing down on O-tane from this isolating wide shot.
When Kōhei runs away one day out of fear of wetting the bed again, Ozu’s focus turns to the rundown streets of O-tane’s neighbourhood, joining her silent, uneasy search for this regretfully mistreated child. There, he lingers on street litter as it is lightly tousled by the breeze, as equally disregarded as those young children who pass their days fishing from the bridge. Their featured presence in cutaways all throughout Record of a Tenement Gentleman is impactful – they live on the periphery of society, yet they are crucial to Ozu’s portrait of innocence in mid-century Japan, particularly centring Kōhei as a generational symbol of resilience.
A very fine montage as O-tane searches for a missing Kōhei, as Ozu cycles through shots set up earlier in the film.The theme of society’s forgotten children echo poignantly through the scene, ending in this shot of litter blowing in the wind – sharp parallels drawn through imagery.
Upon this child’s safe return home, we see something shift in O-tane, lovingly spoiling him with a day trip to the zoo. “I’ve never felt like this before. Motherly love?” she wonders aloud to her friend, who humorously jabs back that she is more like a grandmother. For all the severity of these characters’ circumstances, Ozu maintains a gentle humour and levity in their interactions, making the unexpected arrival of Kōhei’s father to take him home all the more bittersweet.
Warmth and joy emerge in this surrogate mother-son dynamic, cracking O-tane’s stone heart and providing Kōhei a source of stability.Ozu knows how to design a frame at this point his career, imbuing the scenery with hypnotic, repetitive motions.
No longer does O-tane find the same satisfaction in her solitude as she did before, and in Kōhei’s absence, the world again becomes a cold and lonely place. Ozu would later refine the conclusion of his character arcs, delivering emotional gut punches in a single, devastating composition rather than a monologue as he does here with O-tane’s explicit moralising, speaking to the life-changing marvel of children. It is fortunate indeed then that Record of a Tenement Gentleman does not give her the final say, but rather returns to the children of Tokyo, this time playing in Ueno Park where she plans to adopt one. There, a statue of Takamori Saigō watches over them like a vigilant protector, connecting this dark period of Japanese history back to one of its greatest icons of honour. O-tane may not strike nearly impressive a figure as this noble samurai, yet as her broken nation emerges from the darkness of war, so too does she embrace a quiet, compassionate heroism of her own.
O-tane’s world is once again a dark and lonely place to be, sinking her into shadows when Kōhei is taken back home.Takamori Saigō – a symbolic, silent protector of Japan’s children, who smoke, talk, and play at his feet in the film’s closing pillow shots.
Record of a Tenement Gentleman is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.
When the rock at the centre of the Toda family is lost, there is little that remains to hold its fragments together – though the enthusiastic attendance of Shintarō’s 69th birthday celebrations might originally suggest otherwise. Surely his children would loyally support each other after his passing, and they would certainly never try to palm off their now-homeless mother and youngest sister Setsuko, effectively washing their hands of responsibility. For those who comfortably belong to Japan’s upper-class though, family ties are diminished by their lack of interdependence, and Yasujirō Ozu’s filmic foray into the stratosphere of the elite exposes the true weakness in their relationships.
With his focus shifting away from society’s disenfranchised, the personal conflicts in Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family stem more apathy than the insecurity of Ozu’s previous characters, marking a notable departure from the industrial wastelands of The Only Son or the provincial streets of A Story of Floating Weeds. Perhaps this break from rundown locations is partly why its visuals are a little more muted, but it’s tough to criticise his mise-en-scène too much when it still bears the markings of his carefully set interiors. Here, patterned wallpaper forms delicate frames around doorways, while abundant flowers densely crowd out compositions at Shintarō’s funeral, commemorating his life through immoderate displays of wealth.
It is at Shintarō’s birthday party though where we get our first taste of this family’s decay, revealed in pillow shots which follow his initial collapse and move into an empty doctor’s office. There, a grandfather clock rhythmically swings its pendulum with the repetitive, ringing telephone, marking the first of several instances that Ozu calls upon this symbol of time and mortality – not that the Toda children necessarily consider the weight that either bear on their lives. Apparently the cultural tradition of honouring one’s elders only applies to the underprivileged who continue to lean on them, and even after being wracked by Shintarō’s post-mortem debts, still these siblings dedicate the bare minimum to looking after their mother.
When Mrs. Toda and Setsuko move in with the eldest brother Shin’ichiro, disharmony finds fertile ground, eventually sprouting into a confrontation between his wife Kazuko and Setsuko. Quarrels in Ozu films are rarely impassioned, yet resentment simmers in glacial accusations, beginning with Setsuk’s simple request that Kazuko avoid playing piano while she and her mother are sleeping. Kazuko is seemingly happy to oblige, but not without questioning why they didn’t greet the guest they had earlier that day, openly laying out her disdain for all to see.
Perhaps then peace will be found living with the eldest sister Chizuko, but when Setsuko expresses her desire to get a job, she is chastised for even considering the disgraceful notion of joining the working class. Elsewhere in this household, Chizuko’s resistance to disciplining her rebellious son sparks a clash with her mother, and ends in Chizuko sharing perhaps the harshest words of the film.
“Just stay away from my son.”
With this arrangement failing as well, Ayako is next to reluctantly offer her home, so she is relieved indeed when a frustrated Mrs. Toda resolves instead to reside in the family’s only remaining property – a rundown house by the sea. If there is any redemption to be found among the Toda siblings, then it is through the final sibling Shōjirō, whose move to China shortly after his father’s death has largely insulated him from these affairs. Upon his return for the one-year anniversary of Shintarō’s passing, he effectively becomes Ozu’s mouthpiece, scolding each of his siblings for neglecting their gracious mother. His home in China is not ideal given its distance, but it is nevertheless a safe place for his mother to relax and Setsuko to find work, free from judgement.
Rarely does Ozu take so firm a stance on the tension between tradition and modernity as he does in Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family. Shin’ichiro, Chizuko, and Ayako may not be villains, but the shallowness with which they approach their personal responsibilities brands them hypocrites in his eyes, holding the foundations of their privilege in little esteem. Prosperity is evidently not the measure of family bonds in this cutting class critique. Through grief and adversity, the hollowness of their affluence is laid bare, and reverent devotion for one’s roots holds on by a single, resilient thread.
Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.
Secrets exist for good reason in Woman of Tokyo, maintaining the equilibrium which defines clear relationships between siblings, lovers, and colleagues. The first time Chikako encounters a threat to this balance though, it arrives in her office, where she has worked diligently for four years as a typist. The police presence is unexpected, as are their probing questions to her boss, asking for employment records and general opinions of her character. There is nothing to report there, the manager says. Her attendance has been impeccable, she is dedicated to her younger brother Ryoichi, and after hours she even helps a professor with his work.
At the mention of her extracurricular activity, the officer perks up, though it isn’t until later when rumours begin to spread that we find out why. Chikako works as a prostitute at a seedy bar, officer Kinoshita informs his sister Harue, who also happens to be dating Ryoichi. When this gossip eventually reaches his ears too, there is little that can hold back his destructive fury.
The fact that Woman of Tokyo lands among Yasujirō Ozu’s shorter films does not make it any less than a complete work, even if tends to skim the surface of its characters. Despite its brevity, this tragedy fully realises the melodrama of its premise, challenging the conservative cultural norms of the era represented in Ryoichi. Prostitution is so dishonourable that he initially refuses to believe the rumour, and impulsively breaks up with Harue for even entertaining its truth. “Anyone who disturbs our peaceful life is my enemy!” he imperatively declares, though the dialogue here comes off as forced to say the least.
Subtlety and suggestion are usually among Ozu’s most effective tools as a storyteller, so it is through his editing rather than his writing where these qualities flourish in Woman of Tokyo. His admiration of Ernst Lubitsch’s elegant ‘touch’ manifests directly in an early scene where Ryoichi and Harue watch If I Had a Million at the movie theatre, and it also takes cinematic form in the rhythms of his delicate montages, directing our focus to the domestic minutia of Chikako and Ryoichi’s house. The rotating cowl, chimney, and kettle become recurring visual motifs here, with the latter especially being used to illustrate steaming pressure and quiet tension between siblings. As Ryoichi’s thoughts darken with deeper consideration of Harue’s accusation, so too does the lighting dim, underscoring a brutal confrontation that ends with bitterness, heartbreak, and a regrettable slap.
Ryoichi’s sudden departure concerns both women, and for good reason. Still Ozu keeps track of that kettle, boiling with anticipation, and now the dripping water from hanging laundry joins in like a ticking second hand. When Harue takes the call to learn of her boyfriend’s fate, the clocks decorating the wall behind her build that steady rhythm to a chorus, counting down to irrevocable tragedy. He has taken his life, Kinoshita informs her over the phone, and Ozu’s cutaway to the shadow of a noose upon a wall tells us all we need to know.
Woman of Tokyo is not some ham-fisted moral lesson about honouring one’s family though, but rather dwells in Chikako’s mournful anger. “You had to die for this?” she laments over his body, tearfully calling out the futility of such an extreme response.
“You coward, Ryoichi.”
The epilogue which follows a pair of reporters into the street makes for a clumsy formal misstep, reframing Chikako’s grief within a capricious news cycle. For a young Ozu who was not yet at the top of his game though, such flaws are merely part of his awkward transition from genre films to humanistic dramas, where his graceful, restrained storytelling would soon blossom. Woman of Tokyo does not deliver the formal impact of his later masterpieces, yet there is nevertheless a precision in its dramatic tension and release, glimpsing the quiet devastation that lies beneath domestic stability.
Woman of Tokyo is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.
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.
When Death hitches a ride into town with a pair of lovers, they do not quite understand the mark that is placed on their heads. They live in a world of joy so sweet, they cannot fathom a force that would tear them apart, yet destiny holds no regard for such romantic affection. What lies behind the walls that Death has erected next to a cemetery is a mystery to the local villagers, so when the young woman’s fiancé mysteriously disappears one evening and is later witnessed walking through the barrier with a procession of ghosts, she is left in devastating grief.
Still, she does not give up so easy on her lover. “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death,” she reads from the Bible’s Song of Solomon, and thus newly inspired, she sets out to win him back from the clutches of Death.
Murnau uses the negative space of this wall to great effect, dominating compositions with its vast height and breadth.Double exposure effects add a touch of the ethereal to this procession of deceased souls.
For Fritz Lang, this is merely the framework of his Gothic anthology film. Like the three other fables told here, the young woman’s bargaining with Death is grounded in archetypes stretching back centuries, underscoring the universality of her struggles, desires, and fears. It is rather through Lang’s haunting visuals where this film paints out astonishing visions of that eternal, incorporeal spectre which exists at the root of all human behaviours and, here in Destiny, takes eerie form with a black cape and gaunt, pale features.
A dissolve transfigures a pint glass into an hourglass, hinting at Death’s ominous presence in this town.German expressionism distilled in a single shot – dominant darkness, geometric shapes, and a claustrophobic sense of foreboding.The hall of candles makes for a magnificent set piece, each flame representing a soul that flickers for its lifetime, yet is inevitably snuffed out.
Illusory special effects suggest Death’s presence to excellent effect here, manifesting translucent ghosts and the supernatural transfiguration of a pint glass into an hourglass, though Lang’s set designs are often even more impressive. Those who approach Death’s vast wall are dwarfed beneath its colossal façade which separates the living from the deceased, and when we finally cross to the other side with the young woman, we are met by a dark hall of long, towering candlesticks. Each one individually represents a life, Death explains, burnt up and eventually extinguished. The woman’s love for her fiancé is pure, yet no more so than all those other grand stories of star-crossed sweethearts which echo throughout history, and certainly not enough to overcome life’s natural limits. Nevertheless, Death strikes a deal.
“Look at these three lights flickering out. I place in your hands the chance to save them! If you succeed, even with only one of them, I will give your loved one’s life to you!”
Three fables, three candles – a tremendous formal motif giving weight to each individual tragedy.
From here, Destiny splits into three tales, presenting mirrored narratives of doomed lovers and poetically recasting our two main actors as reincarnated versions of themselves. There is a slight touch of D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance present in this splintered storytelling, distinguishing each thread by their diverse settings, and as such Lang’s accomplishment of mise-en-scène only continues to expand. Where the Islamic city of the first tale is a busy settlement of patterned textiles and sandstone buildings, Venice is defined by its lavish Renaissance architecture, while the Chinese Empire is a paradise of highly stylised gardens and ornate palaces. Even the fonts of his intertitles shift with each fable too, as if translated and handed down by scribes to modern audiences.
Clashing patterns, sandstone buildings, and busy crowds in the Islamic city.Majestic Renaissance architecture and art decorating the halls of power in Venice.Twisted trees and exotic gardens in the Chinese Empire.
In the ‘Story of the First Light’, the Caliph’s sister Zobeide conducts a secret affair with a European derogatively branded a giaour – a non-Muslim. After the Caliph almost catches him during the holy month of Ramadan, Zobeide sends her servant to find the European and tell him to meet her in the palace at night. When the servant is followed by the Caliph’s guard though, the European is ultimately sentenced to be buried alive, thus extinguishing the first of Death’s three flames.
A secret affair conducted in a Middle Eastern palace of lattice windows, fine drapery, and polished floors.
In the ‘Story of the Second Light’, a Venetian carnival sets the scene for a forbidden romance between noblewoman Monna and her middle-class lover Gianfrancesco. Her politically powerful and jealous fiancé Girolamo has no patience for such disloyalty, and so after hearing of her plans to kill him, he deliberately mixes up her letters and sends Gianfrancesco into her trap. With Monna tricked into accidentally killing the man she loves, the second flame burns out, and Girolamo’s earlier words ring painfully true.
“How near to death men often are without suspecting at all. They believe an eternity remains to them, yet they do not even outlive the rose with which they trifle.”
A sharp yet minimalist composition, using the architecture to frame a Venetian fountain in an archway.
In the ‘Story of the Third Light’, Lang’s special effects bend our perceptions of reality further than ever when the magician A Hi is summoned to entertain the cruel Emperor of China. Stop-motion animation unravels an extraordinarily long scroll, miniatures and double exposure effects whisk us away with a flying carpet, and forced perspectives make a horse appear to rapidly grow while an army of pocket-sized soldiers emerge from A Hi’s robes. Still, the Emperor remains unimpressed, demanding the magician hand over his assistant Liang and thus provoking her lover, Tiao Tsien. Still Lang continues to weave movie magic of his own when Liang steals A Hi’s wand to escape, ultimately turning herself into a statue and her lover into a tiger that is slain by their pursuers. As a tear runs down the statue’s cheek, the final flame dissipates, proving once and for all that love cannot conquer mortality.
The third fable is the most visually impressive of all three, set around the Chinese Emperor’s impressively ornate palace. Murnau’s double exposure blends images to give the impression of a magic carpet soaring over mountaintops.An abundant array of special effects and camera trickery in the third fable, using forced perspective to make these soldiers appear to be miniatures marching out from under A Hi’s robes.
Still, Death does not claim victory over the young woman with such finality. If she can take the life of another in the hour before midnight, then she can trade it for the life of her beloved, maintaining that balance which governs all creatures. Desperate, she beseeches an old man and a beggar whose lives she believes are inconsequential, though her misfortune soon takes a turn when a fire breaks out in the neighbourhood. Lang’s colour tinting thus far has reflected the warm yellows of interiors and cool blues of the evening, but now as this blaze lights up the town, its startled villagers are consumed in red hues. His editing is similarly effective here as they attempt to douse it, cutting between their noble efforts, a mother’s panicked realisation that her baby is still trapped inside, and the young woman’s anxious journey inside to sacrifice the infant for her lover.
Nevertheless, this pure heart cannot be so easily corrupted when the innocence of another is on the line. “I was not able to overcome you for that price,” she cries to Death.
“Now take my life as well! For without my beloved it is less than nothing to me!”
Red tinting sets in with the building fire, heavily contrasting against the town’s yellows and blues.Excellent editing in this sequence as the villagers take water from the fountain to douse the blaze, and the young woman is faced with a moral choice from inside the building.One life may be exchanged for another – Death is fair, abiding by a harsh set of rules existing outside the boundaries of human morality.
Just as like the candle motif marked the end of a life with a snuffed-out flame, the extinguished house fire signifies the loss of another, sending the young woman to meet her fiancé in the afterlife. Clearly no love, no matter how great, can loosen the grip of death – yet this does not mean that it too must perish, as we witness their ghostly apparitions ascend to the heavens. Within Fritz Lang’s Gothic compendium, love is immortalised across all ages through the very act of storytelling, bound to a destiny as timeless as the tales themselves.
Death cannot break love, but delicately embraces it as man and woman move into the afterlife together.
Destiny is currently in the public domain and is available to watch on free video sharing sites such as YouTube.
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.
Tormented by a lack of answers to his perpetual misfortune, Jewish physics professor Larry Gopnik meets with three rabbis in A Serious Man. The first is a young optimist fresh out of college, naively suggesting that Larry simply needs to shift his disposition. “The parking lot here. Not much to see,” he ponders, staring out his office window. “But if you imagine yourself a visitor, somebody who isn’t familiar with these autos and such. Somebody still with a capacity for wonder. Someone with a fresh… perspective.” Larry’s frustration with his frivolous metaphor is plain to see.
The second rabbi chooses to share an anecdote from a member of his synagogue – a dentist bewildered by the Hebrew scripture he finds engraved on the teeth of a non-Jewish patient. Driven to uncover what this could mean and how it got there, the dentist pursued the mystery to all ends, and eventually approached the rabbi to hear his insight. “So what did you tell him?” Larry eagerly asks, only to be met with curt indifference.
“Is it relevant?”
Still searching for a shred of guidance, Larry does not even make it all the way into the office of the final and most senior rabbi. He is busy, the secretary tells him, despite our view of the clearly unoccupied old man sitting at his desk.
The first rabbi – a young, naive optimist with nothing to offer but shallow metaphors.The second rabbi – a spinner of yarns who sees life’s mystery, yet lacks the curiosity to pursue answers.The third rabbi – a shrivelled old man whose potential wisdom remains just out of reach.
The fact that this seems like the run-up to a joke with no punchline is absolutely intentional on the Coen Brothers’ behalf, typifying their darkly ironic sense of humour. In these three rabbis, we find three answers that religion commonly gives to tough philosophical questions, including one total non-response. There is no grand revelation that inspires or consoles us. Instead, we find a mirror to the long, elaborate setup that is Larry’s life, prompting us to similarly ask – what is all this leading to? Is there a guiding hand behind the breakdown of his marriage to Judith, his brother’s legal woes, and his son’s troubles at Hebrew school? And if so, why must this suffering be inflicted on a man who by most accounts is a relatively good person?
Surrounded by books in the mise-en-scène, and yet none of these volumes can answer Larry’s burning spiritual questions.A magnificent frame – Larry is quite literally overwhelmed by figures and vharts in his attempt to understand the cosmos. He is a man of science, yet he remains deeply unsatisfied by his worldly knowledge.
That Larry makes a career out of searching for meaning through numbers certainly complements this existential character study too, and is perfectly distilled in his lecture on the Schrödinger’s cat thought experiment, suggesting that two conflicting states of being may simultaneously exist until they are observed. He is a man of both science and faith, and as far as he is aware, God both exists and does not. The mise-en-scène surrounds him with books in his attorney’s office and shrinks him beneath a colossal blackboard of equations, but all the information in the world cannot point to a simple yes or no answer.
The film as a whole is no great cinematographic triumph from Roger Deakins, yet in moments like these he draws a clean minimalism through Larry’s cookie-cutter neighbourhood and local synagogue, then every so often tips it off balance with canted angles, hazy drug trips, and surreal nightmares that bleed into reality. The discomfort is pervasive, eroding our trust in the security of Larry’s day-to-day existence, and prompting us to adopt his tentative doubt. Perhaps it would be comforting to believe in God, but then why is he being punished so cruelly? If there really is no sense to it all, how can he reckon with the random whims of pure chaos?
Oblique shots and high angles in the local synagogue, tipping the clean, orderly setting off-balance.Much like his son, Larry turns to drugs, and Deakins’ visuals hazily shift with his reality.
Although Larry’s journey from one tribulation to the next is not difficult to follow, the formal intricacies and allusions to the Book of Job place A Serious Man among the Coen Brothers’ most profoundly enigmatic works. We are condemned to the same ungratifying search for answers as our protagonist, so the decision to set the first scene of his story far outside his perspective is a bold one indeed. This prologue grounds the film in 19th century Jewish folklore, recounting the tale of a married couple faced with a terrifying uncertainty. Is the man they have invited into their house truly human, or rather a dybbuk – that is, an evil spirit in disguise? After the wife stabs the visitor, he wanders outside into the snow, leaving this question frighteningly ambiguous. If these are Larry’s ancestors and the old man was indeed a dybbuk, then perhaps this is the source of the curse which would ruin his life over a century later. If the visitor was a living being, maybe our protagonist is just a very unlucky man.
The Coen Brothers’ haunting prologue plays out an ambiguous fable foreshadowing Larry’s spiritual uncertainty, as well as his incredible misfortune.
From there, the Coen Brothers weave a tapestry of subplots through A Serious Man that mirror Larry’s identity in others. In his wife’s lover, Sy, he finds the well-respected “serious man” he wishes he could be – albeit one who coincidentally perishes in a road accident at the exact moment Larry crashes his own car. In his brother Arthur, he sees an even more broken version of himself, to whom he offers the same impractical guidance that others try to give him. As for his son Danny who struggles to fit in at school, there the Coen Brothers model a smaller scale version of his own ethical dilemmas. Is Larry justified in sleeping with his neighbour and experimenting with marijuana, now that he has split from his wife? What about accepting a monetary bribe from another student in exchange for a passing grade? If he is already being unjustly chastened by God, surely crossing these moral boundaries won’t make difference – and if God doesn’t exist, then who really cares?
Arthur’s brokenness reveals the true depths of Larry’s despair, as well as his inability to help either himself or his brother.Danny wanders through adolescence without moral certainty or guidance, and as we see in his father, answers don’t come easily with age.
It is along this line of thinking though that Larry lets his sense of accountability gradually wear away in A Serious Man, spurred on by a helpless passivity. Danny’s subscription to the Columbia Record Club under his father’s name isn’t exactly fair, yet Larry is still responsible for making the overdue payments anyway. He reasons that he shouldn’t be punished for not doing anything, but since new vinyls are automatically mailed without customer intervention, it is precisely his inaction that has landed him in this situation.
The more we begin to recognise this dysfunctional trait in Larry, the more we see how his inclination to dwell in self-pity is at least partly responsible for many of his other problems too. He did not need to move out of his family home without standing his ground, and neither did he need to give into the pressure of paying for Sy’s funeral. Michael Stuhlbarg’s sheepish demeanour embodies every bit of this unassertive meekness, barely pushing his soft, reedy voice past a moderate speaking volume even when he shouts. Instead, he focuses all his anger at a God whose old-fashioned retribution seems ill-fitting to his upstanding lifestyle, and who conveniently isn’t present to verbally retaliate.
A Serious Man put Michael Stuhlbarg on the map, playing to his strengths as an immensely introspective actor who can communicate entire thought processes through a simple facial expression.
If there is a divine message to be found anywhere in A Serious Man, then it is ironic that it should come from the reclusive senior rabbi who previously declined a meeting with Larry. Instead, it is Danny who is chosen to receive his cryptic wisdom, delivered in the form of song lyrics.
“When the truth is found to be lies,
And all the hope within you dies… then what?”
Even those who aren’t familiar with ‘Somebody to Love’ by Jefferson Airplane would recognise these words from the film’s recurring musical motif. Its urgent rhythms accompany Larry’s philosophical journey with a raw, driving intensity, yet still he overlooks his life’s missing purpose hidden plainly in the song’s very title. As if to answer the question he has posed Danny, the rabbi ends their brief meeting with a simple yet valuable instruction.
“Be a good boy.”
Finally, we hear the esoteric wisdom from the third rabbi – though Larry is not the one to receive it, and its meaning is far from apparent.
Living with such uncertainty, is this moral imperative not the best we can do? If every one of Larry’s trials has been a test of his integrity, then has he succeeded? The Coen Brothers rarely give us the endings we expect to their films, yet with the mighty coincidence that turns up at Larry’s doorstep the moment he takes his first truly sinful action, they once again prove why they are among their generation’s best screenwriters. Drowning in legal fees, the bribe his student left on his desk begins to look very attractive, and no more than a second after he decides to give into temptation does the phone ring with dire news on the other end.
A turning point for Larry as he transgresses his own moral boundaries – pain, desperation, and self-loathing in his expression.
The tornado which simultaneously approaches Danny’s school only compounds our suspicion that Larry is being punished for a relatively minor transgression, once again suggesting a visitation of the father’s sins upon his children, and referencing the Book of Job where God appeared to his tormented follower as a whirlwind. The Coen Brothers’ parallel editing evocatively binds both the fatal disease and natural disaster together as a chilling, fateful condemnation, yet still we must question – isn’t this totally disproportionate to the sin that was committed? Must Larry now endure the ultimate catastrophe for cutting a moral corner that anyone under similar duress would also disregard?
Biblical symbolism as a whirlwind threatens to end the life of Larry’s offspring – retribution sent from the heavens.
Or is this merely a convenient explanation we would like to apply to the chaotic winds of chance? After all, those with who listen closely may pick up on the phone’s muffled ring first sounding immediately before Larry changes his student’s grade, even though the sharp interruption of the second ring is the one we consciously notice. It seems a minor difference, but if we are considering cause and effect in broad ontological terms, then it bears incredible weight on how we view the universe. Maybe Larry was always going to meet this unremarkable end, and maybe living a moral life won’t save any of us from what’s coming. Without any firm assurances though, the Coen Brothers simply leave us to dwell in A Serious Man’s eerie, senseless ambiguity. When all is said and done, perhaps being a “good boy” is the best we can do with what little we’ve got.
A Serious Man currently available to rent or buy on Apple TV, YouTube, Amazon Video.
Early in Queer, we delve into writer William Lee’s nightmare of his friends in prison, an abandoned baby, and a naked woman bisected along her torso. The symbolism opaquely hints at the guilt harboured by William Burroughs, the real-life novelist who based this troubled character off himself, though it is his response to this woman questioning his sexuality which articulates the film’s most layered metaphor.
“I’m not queer. I’m disembodied.”
The separation between Lee’s self-loathing thoughts and pleasure-seeking instincts drives a wedge into the core of his identity as a gay man, and is further reflected in Luca Guadagnino’s dissociative direction, often letting the writer’s mind escape his physical being. Early in his relationship with the much younger Eugene, Lee’s yearning is often rendered as a transparent, ghostly version of himself reaching out to caress his face or lean on his shoulder, though it also manifests even more darkly in his indulgent vices. Drugs and alcohol offer easy escapes from the shame of his sexuality, and even sex too ironically satiates that desire for euphoric sensation as it simultaneously feeds that underlying guilt.
Guadagnino calls back to silent cinema techniques with his double exposure effects, ethereally manifesting Lee’s longing.
The 1950s was not a particularly hospitable time for the gay community, yet there was also a certain level of privilege that came with living as a white man in Mexico City which Lee and his similarly ostracised friends use as a social counterbalance. This circle of outsiders is relatively insular, so when Eugene arrives at their local bar flirting with both men and women, Lee is instantly drawn to his mysterious allure. This is a man who hides his emotions so well that others question whether he really is gay, striking an intense contrast against our verbose protagonist’s overbearing tendency to persistently chase interactions. When Lee leans in, Eugene often hesitantly pulls away, making the few moments of organic connection between all the more valuable.
Vibrant set designs lifted a layer from the real world, saturated with colour yet often underscoring Lee’s loneliness.
There was never any doubting Daniel Craig’s talents during his time as James Bond, though the performance he delivers here as the eloquently eccentric Lee is his most layered yet, leaning into the weariness of a middle-aged man whose existential insecurities are only amplified by his ageing. He inhabits a world that is one level removed from our reality, filling in the malaise with the bold, bright colours that often decorate Pedro Almodóvar’s melodramas. Within the lush purple and red lighting of a hotel bedroom and the yellow décor of his apartment, his inner life is given passionate outward expression, though Guadagnino’s stylistic achievement does not end there either. From a distance, the city is often whimsically rendered through miniatures, making cars look like toys and buildings like dollhouses. In an ending that thoughtfully borrows from the final act of 2001: A Space Odyssey, this visual motif pays off when Lee hallucinates another version of himself inside a diorama of the hotel where he is staying, further splitting his mind and his body between entirely different realms.
Guadagnino’s use of miniatures feeds into Lee’s feeling of disembodiment – the world doesn’t seem quite right, driving a wedge between his mind and reality.A dream sequence inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey with multiple versions of Lee occupying the same space.Inside the surreal dollhouse hotel, drenched in deep red.
The height of Queer’s surrealism though arrives when Lee and Eugene venture into the deep jungles of South America, seeking a plant which is said to grant telepathic abilities. It is no wonder why Lee should be so obsessed with such a prospect – if the rumours are true, then perhaps this higher form of communication is a treatment for his emotional isolation, allowing a union of souls which regular conversation and sex cannot attain.
A search for enlightenment through experimentation with hallucinogens, transcending the restraints of the physical world.
Although Guadagnino largely maintains the novella’s literary quality through his chapter breaks, he takes creative liberties in departing from its depiction of the drug trip here. Where the source material saw Lee disappointed by its underwhelming effects, the film submits to the psychedelia, having him and Eugene literally vomit out their hearts before exposing their truest feelings. “I’m not queer,” Eugene asserts, formally echoing Lee’s earlier words as his body fades from view during their hallucinogenic drug trip. “I’m just disembodied.” Indeed, these two men have never been more detached from their physical beings, and have never been more in synchrony as their bodies grotesquely merge into one. Limbs move beneath fused skin as they dance, and for one precious night, Lee truly escapes his shame and transcends his loneliness.
Body horror and surrealism as Lee and Eugene merge into a single being, making a euphoric yet fleeting connection between divided souls.
This drug is not some portal into some other place though, their dealer Dr. Cotter is sure to warn them. It is a mirror into one’s soul, offering a glimpse at whatever desires and fears lurk beneath their consciousness. Its euphoria is short-lived, particularly for Eugene who wakes up the next morning anxious and eager to leave. It is a terrifying thing losing a part of oneself to another person, and when faced with the truth of his relationship with Lee, he sees its toxicity for what it is.
The recurring centipede is one of Guadagnino’s more cryptic symbols in Queer, and its unsettling appearance in Lee’s dream of Eugene many years after their breakup continues to hold him in an unresolved state of suspension. Just as it first appeared around the neck of a one-night stand, the centipede now marks Eugene as another fleeting lover, manifesting the real-life Burroughs’ self-confessed fear and cherished literary motif. Lee’s story is unfinished in Guadagnino’s eyes, leaving him a half-complete man torn between dualities – shame and indulgence, connection and independence, mind and body. As long as he strives to separate rather than reconcile these parts of his identity, he will continue to live in a world of dissociative nightmares, spiritually and psychologically divorced from himself. Through the colourful, eerie patterns that Guadagnino consequently uncovers in Lee’s character, Queer delivers an unflinching fever dream that denies easy answers to his internal contradictions, constantly unravelling his capacity for love by his fear of being seen.
Guadagnino’s narrative is brimming with symbolic motifs, particularly borrowing the unsettling centipede from Burrough’s own works as a manifestation of Lee’s insecurity.
Queer is currently available to rent or buy on Apple TV and Amazon Video.
“Evening is my favourite time of day,” Anu’s secret boyfriend Shiaz remarks one night as they wander Mumbai’s bustling markets. “In my village, this was the time to stop playing football and go home. But here, it feels like the day has just begun.” Indeed, there is a soothing liberation which comes with the setting of the sun in All We Imagine as Light, particularly for Anu whose controversial relationship with a Muslim man may only be conducted under the cover of darkness. Payal Kapadia relishes the delicate beauty of these scenes, blending the cool blues in her production design with the soft illumination of city lights, indoor ambience, and cloudy evening skies, while piano riffs tinkle away in the background. In this nocturnal urban environment, love flourishes without judgement, connecting souls in moments of sweet, uninhibited honesty.
For Anu’s roommate and fellow nurse Prabha, these warm Mumbai nights are not so comfortable. Her husband lives far away in Germany, and it has been over a year since they have even had any contact. Their arranged marriage is considered socially acceptable, yet unlike Anu, she is left to deal with total emotional isolation. When a German rice cooker is unexpectedly delivered to their flat one day, she becomes fully convinced that it was sent from her husband, even curling up with it in a tight hug one evening as though it were a lover. As she reads from his diary with nothing but a phone light, soaking up whatever private thoughts she has been denied, it is apparent that her nights do not signify a break from the pressures of ordinary life. In the darkness, her loneliness is felt even deeper, feeding a melancholy which intensifies with the fading light.
Kapadia’s narrative flows between these two women’s stories with lyrical grace, not only seeking to understand their interior lives, but also the friction in their own relationship to each other. To Anu, the prospect of marrying a total stranger is an unappealing and foreign concept, while Prabha observes her flatmate’s secret relationship from afar with quiet judgement. This is not to say her own eye never wanders, as there are visible sparks of attraction between her and a male doctor, yet her husband’s total withdrawal keeps her clinging to a hopeless fantasy of marriage.
All We Imagine as Light does not merely confine us to these two perspectives though, as Anu and Prabha’s friend Parvati offers a counterpoint to both women in her own subplot. After being ousted from Mumbai due to ruthless property developers, both these flatmates help her move back to her seaside hometown where she grew up. Here, the city’s bustling nightlife gives way to the calmness and clarity of a village where residents relax by the beach, indulge in the local fishing scene, and revel in the daylight. It is still no paradise, as the women quickly discover that Parvati’s new home does not even have electricity yet, but the change in scenery is nevertheless refreshing for these overworked nurses seeking a momentary escape.
Here, Anu freely explores the local mangroves and caves with Shiaz, making love in the daytime for once even as she continues trying to shield their relationship from Prabhy. Her concerns about potentially being forced into an arranged marriage by her parents don’t quite subside, but at least in this moment, she is afforded the freedom to openly express her love.
As for Prabhy, closure arrives unexpectedly one evening after saving a drowning stranger at the beach. Before leaning in to deliver mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, she hesitates for a brief second, perhaps realising this is the first time in years that she has been so close to a man. Later as she washes his body, she also seems to absorb another woman’s mistaken belief that he is her husband, turning that into a meaningful conversation with an imagined proxy. Returning to the melancholy blues of Mumbai’s nights, Kapadia delves deeper than ever into Prabhy’s lonely mind, filtering this world through a magical realist lens where identities are as malleable as plastic and long-awaited discussions may finally unfold between disconnected partners.
Kapadia fully understands the visual potency of her final scene, softly illuminating the beach shack where all three women gather under neon pink and green fairy lights. It is here where one narrow definition of love is finally relinquished, and where a broader understanding of its many versatile forms is born, nurturing a surrogate family that fills emotional gaps left by stringent parents and distant spouses. Through such quiet epiphanies as these, All We Imagine as Light delicately confronts the harsh realities of modern companionship, finding solace not in certainty, but rather the enduring resilience of mutual, unspoken solidarity.
All We Imagine as Light is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and is available to rent or buy on Apple TV, YouTube, and Amazon Video.
Persona (1966). Nykvist’s portfolio is largely dominated by his collaborations with Ingmar Bergman, blocking and framing human faces like expressively detailed landscapes, and yet his pairings with Andrei Tarkovsky and Roman Polanski also prove his incredible versatility.
2. Emmanuel Lubezki
Top 5 Cinematographic Works
Film
Director
Year
1. The Tree of Life
Terrence Malick
2011
2. Children of Men
Alfonso Cuarón
2006
3. The Revenant
Alejandro Iñárritu
2015
4. The New World
Terrence Malick
2005
5. Birdman
Alejandro Iñárritu
2014
The Tree of Life (2011). A Lubezki film is immediately recognised by the floating camerawork and wide-angle lenses, but his talent for shooting in natural light shouldn’t go unnoted either, seeing him take lessons learned from Terrence Malick into his collaborations with Alejandro Iñárritu.
The Godfather Part II (1974). The Prince of Darkness is one of the few cinematographers who can fairly lay claim to the title of auteur, consistently shooting in low-key lighting setups whether he is capturing the malevolent heart of Michael Corleone, the paranoia of Alan J. Pakula’s political thrillers, or Woody Allen’s comedy-dramas.
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989). Vierny peaked twice – first in his mid-century collaborations with Alain Resnais’s black-and-white dreamscapes, and later in the 80s with Peter Greenaway’s vibrantly theatrical allegories. Across both eras though he held onto that unyielding, rolling camera, often tracking in straight lines through magnificently designed set pieces.
Apocalypse Now (1979). Storaro never flinched at the prospect of shooting historical epics, capturing sprawling scenes brimming with extras in long shots while bringing a more psychological, intimate expressionism to smaller-scale character drama.
Seven Samurai (1954). Nakai worked with the two greatest Japanese directors of all time, nailing both the kinetic grace of Akira Kurosawa and the perfectionistic stillness of Yasujirō Ozu, while offering his talent for shooting in deep focus to both.
In the Mood for Love (2000). Despite growing up in Australia, Doyle has primarily worked in Chinese and Hong Kong cinema, carrying his keen eye for colours, patterns, and lighting across highly stylised epics and romances.
The Leopard (1963). Between the painterly films of Luchino Visconti and the chaotic surrealism of Federico Fellini, Rotunno mastered the art of capturing vibrant historical periods, from an anachronistic Ancient Rome to mid-19th century Sicily.
9. Roger Deakins
Top 5 Cinematographic Works
Film
Director
Year
1. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007). Deakins brings the same dedication to atmospheric lighting setups whether he is filming the Old West, a futuristic dystopia, or a James Bond film, paying keen attention to the composition and contrast of shadows.
Barry Lyndon (1975). The strength of Alcott’s collaborations with Stanley Kubrick carries his legacy. These are some of the most jaw-droppingly beautiful films of all time, accomplishing an aesthetic precision and rigour unrivalled in cinema history.
Cinematographer
Top 3 Cinematographic Works
11. Gregg Toland
1. Citizen Kane (1941) 2. The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) 3. The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
