The following is a revision of an old essay of mine. Changes include minor improvements in English and the elimination of some notes and the documentation; these (where feasible) are partially incorporated in the text. (Especially as my arms wearied from typing, I dropped long notes entirely.) The essay as it originally appeared, complete with […]
Monthly Archives: April 2009
An elusive suggestion of Candide hangs about Qué tan lejos, a coincidence-driven film from Ecuador that dramatizes the evolving bond between two bus passengers who for different reasons want to get to Cuenca quickly. The name of one of these women is Esperanza, Hope, and the other, a cynic, identifies herself in response to this […]
Those foolish enough to plead British director Tony Richardson’s case in film—apparently Richardson did better in theater—always consider as their heaviest piece of artillery The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, written by Alan Sillitoe from his own short story, and starring the always dreadful, thuddingly selfconscious Tom Courtenay (best actor, Mar del Plata), here […]
It is 1975. In Tirebolu, on the Black Sea, while Turkish census takers interview elderly Ayshe (Rüçhan Caliskur, superb—best actress, Istanbul), Ayshe’s older sister, long ill, collapses and needs to be rushed to hospital—and still the census people want to go on recording their facts and figures, which in Ayshe’s case conceal rather than disclose […]
A brilliant, painfully funny tragicomedy about family in a Belgian suburb within sight of a grimy industrial landscape, former documentarian Benoît Mariage’s Les convoyeurs attendent beautifully mixes naturalism and surrealism. The Clossets live on Impasse Jaunet. (Note both names: family; street.) A newspaper photojournalist, Roger runs to each newsworthy event that’s reported on his police […]
Dennis Grunes 