India’s Satyajit Ray, who died in 1992, made three films that appear on my list of the 100 greatest films of all time: The World of Apu (1959), Devi (1960) and The Home and the World (1984). Six more of his films appear on my list of the 100 greatest Asian films: Pather Panchali (1955), […]
Daily Archives: March 8, 2007
With the mawkish creepshow Eraserhead (1977), the darkly beautiful The Elephant Man (1980) and the interminable sci-fi trash of Dune (1984) behind him, and his Palme d’Or-winning Wild at Heart (1990), his brilliant noir Lost Highway (1997), the haunting road movie The Straight Story (1999), and his glittering masterpiece, Mulholland Dr. (2001), still ahead, David […]
Wim Wenders is probably the crown prince of road pictures; on the evidence of Le grand voyage I would say that Ismaël Ferroukhi is instead the genre’s crownless dud. The worthlessness of this journey from southern France to Mecca is signaled by the sentimental music that swells at the opening of the film, as highschooler […]
The setting is a Parisian café at lunch time in the midst of the Cold War and towards the end of the Algerian War that would trounce French colonial power. A civil defense siren sounds, and through the café’s expansive glass we see a flock of people hurriedly responding to the warning or drill. In […]
Dennis Grunes 