Released on Blu-ray this week by the exemplary Second Run label, The Party and the Guests is a 1966 Czechoslovakian film from Jan Němec that holds the distinction of being one of a handful of films to be ‘banned forever’ in its native land by communist authorities who, in the […]
Second Run
Agnus Dei (1971) Godard & Larping Via a Hungarian Master Director (Review)
Rounding out our coverage of Second Run’s acclaimed Hungarian Masters boxset, following Current and Merry-go-round is Miklós Jancsó’s Agnus Dei. The prior have something of a social realist streak to them, whether they were steadfast in their subscription to the stylistic tics or used it as a cinematic tradition to subvert. We’ve featured Jancso’s […]
Merry-Go-Round (1956) Romeo and Juliet in Communist Hungary (Review)
Released this week as part of Second Run’s Hungarian Masters limited edition three disc Blu-ray (see m’colleagues reviews on this site for the other two films in the set), Merry-Go-Round, or to give it its original Hungarian title Körhinta, is rightly held up as one of the finest achievements in […]
Celia (1989) Dense, Political and Brilliantly Evasive (Review)
The Lighthouse (Mayak)(2006) Destruction, and the paralysing state of grief (Review)
Generational gaps are the essence of this depressing run-through of Armenian warfare. The Lighthouse adapts the distance of family and the wasteful nature of death around characters who are doing what they feel is best. That difficulty to connect a younger age group to the seniors is as frustrating as it is […]
…And the Fifth Horseman is Fear (1964) A brutal portrait of fear under an occupying regime (Review)
Fear pries at the beautifully illustrated characters within this Zbyněk Brynych feature. …And the Fifth Horseman is Fear contemplates the agony and unilateral terror present in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. There is no respite for the glum halls, the dark and brooding cinematography makes sure of that. This 1960s Brynych piece contemplates the impact […]
Beauty and the Beast (1978) A Grim Fairytale (Review)
The film opens in a mist-shrouded, decaying forest. A band of grimy-looking travellers on horseback, pulling covered wagons are traversing this ominous terrain, accompanied only by the forbidding sounds of the wild. One in their number, a female, anxiously announces that danger will befall them if they continue – but […]
Adoption (1975) A Personal Film from an Unsung Female Director (Review)
Released to Blu-ray by Second Run this week is Adoption, or Örökbefogadás to give it its native Hungarian title. A 1975 film from director Márta Mészáros, it tells the story of Kata (Katelin Berek), a forty-three-year-old factory worker embroiled in a longing-standing love affair with a married man, Jóska (László […]
Before Tonight is Over (1965) “Someone Will Die” (Review)
The Silence Before Bach (2007) and Mudanza (2008) (Review)
There’s a running bit in Steve Jobs, Danny Boyle’s most irritating film, where the title character repeatedly explains the importance of making phones that are slightly smaller and more functional than other phones by comparing them to major flashpoints in art history – Dylan going electric, say, or the premiere […]