Marco Polo called it the Land of Darkness; Chris Marker, the Land of Childhood, romance and electrification. Witty, mysterious, poetic, Marker’s first solo film, Lettre de Sibérie, draws upon his direct observation, boundless imagination, and the Dovzhenko films Ivan (1932) and Aerograd (Frontier, 1935). The mirror-like river; the taiga. Marker’s narration (read by someone else) […]
Daily Archives: November 26, 2007
From Chad, Burkina Faso and France, Daresalam is a fine work about political strife in Africa. It is about the conflict between rebels and post-colonialist forces. (Tyranny and oppression are all too constant.) Because the film refers to factionalism, civil wars, and tax revolts in a number of African nations beginning in the 1970s, its […]
“You tried to kill him with his own pickax. That’s not right. You can’t kill a man with his belongings.” Arturo Ripstein’s tart, absurdist comedy, appropriately filmed in black and white, begins with two men beating a third to death in the dirt. Who’s to blame? Listen to the lyrics of a popular song: “Damn […]
The following is one of the entries from my list of the 100 greatest films (through 2006) from Africa, Latin America & the Caribbean, which I invite you to visit on this site if you haven’t already done so. — Dennis Fifteen minutes long, the animated El octavo día de la creación belongs to a […]
Culling bits from Antonioni, Hitchcock and Spielberg, among others, María Novaro’s Without a Trace is nonetheless bewitchingly about Mexico. Gorgeously cinematographed by Serguei Saldívar Tanaka, it follows two women, one a hitchhiker, as the pair travel along Mexico’s back roads in a station wagon, a red car in ominous pursuit. Their destination is Cancún, but […]
Dennis Grunes 