Actions speak louder than words in Tsai Ming-liang’s third of his trilogy on urban isolation and loneliness, a confrontational drama involving a father-son entanglement. THE RIVER is known to be the “bleakest” work of the master auteur, and this masterpiece is quite a highlight at the Taiwan Film Festival 2019 in Sydney, Australia.
Author: Rolmar Baldonado
Films for the cineaste. Were you moved, transported? Did you laugh, cry? Was it cathartic? Were you disturbed, affected, riveted? Did it make you think?
Freelance film editor, cineaste and cinephile
Twitter: @film_critik
Twitter: @rolmar
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/filmcritik/
Filmed in grainy 16mm, Lim Lung Yin’s OHONG VILLAGE is a modern-day retelling of a disconnected and discontented filial relationship in a small ebbing fishing village. The decision to use film gives this drama a vintage quality to it that is Euro-style reflective and melancholic.
You know you are watching a film from a master perfectionist when everything is seamlessly interconnected and plausible no matter how improbable and far-fetched it could have been. In PARASITE, South Korean auteur filmmaker Bong Joon-ho has just done that.
Here are my favourites at the Sydney Film Festival so far. Watch out for them when they get a mainstream release.
The recent Spanish Film Festival had a hefty 32 films as their offering. From this, I am picking 16 of them as my personal best of the lot. These films got my five-star approval rating so catch them when you can when they get a cinema release.
The following are the films ranked in order of preference.
The recent French Film Festival featured a generous 54 films in their lineup. Out of this eclectic collection, I am recommending 23 of them as the best of the lot.
BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY is the film that won the most Oscars in the recent Academy Awards. It bagged Best Actor for Rami Malek, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing.
Oscar season is upon us once again and it’s time to enjoy the year’s best in films. The following are my Oscar choices for the main categories, with my ranking for each and an explanation of my choices.
It is the end of another year of wonderful cinema and here is my list of the best films of this year. All the films got my five stars. Catch them on Netflix or Blu-Ray or free-to-air when you can.
There is a lot of trepidation in Hollywood in handling unsure material as CRAZY RICH ASIANS can attest. The last time an all-Asian cast modern-day Hollywood film was made was 25 years ago in 1993 with THE JOY LUCK CLUB, earning modest critical and box office success.