Uncommonly bold in its depictions of the sexual intercourse that Jay and Claire, its two lead characters, have each Wednesday afternoon in Jay’s London ghetto flat, Intimacy rivets much of our attention. I did not feel like a voyeur during these potent scenes, despite the fact that, clearly, the two lead actors, Mark Rylance and […]
Daily Archives: March 26, 2007
“Life is what happens to you when you’re busy doing other things.” — John Lennon Resplendent with symbolism, allegory, myth and magic realism, Fernando Pérez’s La vida es silbar begins with a woman named Cuba who takes in orphans only to abandon them. Robust, flamboyant imagery and delicate charm effortlessly combine as Bebé, one of […]
Despite the biblical implication, the title of Salt refers to our abiding origins in the sea. En route from a small fishing village to Reykjavik, Iceland’s capitol city, to join her older sister, Svava, Hildur and Svava’s boyfriend, Aggi, are stranded in the middle of nowhere when their car breaks down. Hildur and Svava find […]
The term la nuit américaine—what in Hollywood is called day for night—refers to the practice, originating in Hollywood, of shooting night scenes in daylight, wherein a gradient tint over the image generates the appearance of moonlit night. The title of François Truffaut’s tragicomic La nuit américaine (Day for Night)—a film about the shooting of a […]
Following publicity at the time of its release, many commentators took François Truffaut’s formally breathtaking The Bride Wore Black (La mariée était en noir) as an Hitchcockian exercise—a practical coda to Truffaut’s book of conversations with “the master of suspense.” Truffaut himself, though, described the film in terms incompatible with this, as his attempt, in […]
Dennis Grunes 