Children in a time of war: Turtles Can Fly—Lakposhtha hâm parvaz mikonand—takes on a great theme, with mixed results. The film is by writer-director Bahman Ghobadi, an Iranian Kurd, who made A Time for Drunken Horses (Zamani barayé masti asbha, 2000) and Marooned in Iraq (Gomgashtei dar Aragh, 2002), the first film to be shown […]
Daily Archives: May 2, 2007
Dada, an international movement begun in response to the horrors of the First World War, deemed itself anti-art, that is, opposed to those traditional, rigid, bourgeois forms of expression that reflected societal rigidity and, politically, had given impetus to the war. Dada persisted after the war, now opposing the social and cultural demoralization that the […]
Yves Montand, in perhaps his finest performance, brings weary humanity to the role of Carlos Diego, a “full-time revolutionary,” part of Spain’s dedicated underground anti-Franco network. The Spanish Civil War, which replaced Spain’s democracy with fascism, ended a quarter-century ago. It is a life of constant danger in a “landscape of self-exile.” Crossing the border […]