It’s pitch dark. We see nothing. Only hear hollow voices as routine questions are asked and forms are filled. No context whatsoever. Yet we slowly and silently find ourselves rooting for the individual answering the increasingly absurd questionnaire. That’s when we find ourselves rooted in the character that will be leading the whole film. That’s…
The cinema of Kosovo, or indeed Eastern Europe in general, does not receive much attention from Western viewers. This is due to the difficulties of production, distribution and exhibition, all of which are daunting for a filmmaker in any part of the world. It is therefore heartening when a film from this under-represented area does…
Nostalgia can be a dangerous thing. Often the fondness for our youth can blind objectivity and feel like a betrayal of those simpler times. I cannot speak for my fellow critics, but I myself am fairly young. I was only six years old when the original Digimon series aired in the U.S. and I have…
Let’s get niceties out of the way first. The costume design, set design, effects and makeup — that part of Asiel Norton’s post-apocalyptic Orion is fine. It’s all good; probably a small beacon of pleasure to feel impressed by while watching. Everything else? Without any sense of hyperbole, Orion can not only at times present…
The exotically disturbing character-driven Dutch drama Meat (a.k.a. “Vlees”) is most definitely not your old-fashioned grandmother’s tenderloin steak of a sexual psychological thriller. Filmmakers Victor Nieuwenhuijs and Maartje Seyferth (who also is credited as a co-screenwriter along with consultant scriber Stan Lapinski) literally and figuratively leads the wide-eyed lamb to the slaughter in this twisted,…
The nervous hell of a new job interview is satirized, then sentimentalized, then psychologized in writer/director Anthony Garland’s tonally scattered short Ophelia. The titular character (played with fair restraint by Ali Mueller, “Category 5”) arrives on time in fancy business attire and has only a moment to size up her competition before being called in…
Outsourcing. Giving out one’s resources so that others can invest in them, make them grow, better, more — investors with a proven record in being successful insofar as they have funds to invest in what one cannot. Outsource or stagnate. Outsource or disappear. Outsource or hold back as times continue to move forward. Outsource or…
