“The real voyage of discovery lies in not seeing new landscapes but in having new eyes” — Marcel Proust The innocence of children has been one of the main themes of Iranian cinema in recent years. Films such as Majid Majidi’s “Children of Heaven,” Abbas Kiarostami’s “Where is the Friend’s Home?” and Jafar Panahi’s “The…
With one co-directing credit under his belt (“Smoke Filled Lungs”), writer/director Jason Cabell begins his sophomore film with a surprising amount of confidence. Leading with intriguing, juxtaposing images of torture and partying aided by a smooth soundtrack-driven flow, the opening scene of his first solo-directed feature Running with the Devil teases a style generally uncommon…
After a night of nookie and a passive-aggressive argument, Adam (Alex Breaux, “Bushwick”) leaves his girlfriend’s apartment and heads into the night. He is promptly stabbed to death. The end. Just kidding. Adam awakens on an operating table, in a theater belonging to a young, rogue surgeon. Dr. Henry (David Call, “Dark Was the Night”)…
A high school student’s essay discussing radical philosopher Frantz Fanon’s belief in the necessity of violence by oppressed people raises certain eyebrows in Nigerian director Julius Onah’s (“The Cloverfield Paradox”) thought-provoking but over-determined Luce, a drama about race that challenges us to impose our own expectations on the main character. Onah says that, “Every other…
“Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing… Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore” — Naomi Shihab Nye Though it is a genre that often flounders on an excess of sentimentality, first-time writer-directors Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz’ The Peanut Butter Falcon…
Life is difficult and complicated in Dekel Berenson’s intimate short Anna, about a titular single mother (Svetlana Barandich) who longs to provide a better life for herself and her teenage daughter Alina (Anastasia Vyazovskaya). In their little Ukrainian village, Anna works at a meat-processing plant, wiling away the hours and returning home to find her…
In his play, “The Glass Menagerie,” Tennessee Williams alludes to one of the characters as the “Gentleman Caller.” He is the character in the play that is supposed to be realistically rendered to complement the rest of the cast who comprise a group of dreamers. Williams describes him as “a symbol . . . the…
