Polar

Oct 29, 2014 — George Sluizer’s singularly unsettling work of psychological terror is a model of lucid craftsmanship.

May 13, 2014 — Few national cinemas have confronted the issue of preparedness for war with the creative vigor of England’s. Thorold Dickinson’s The Next of Kin (1942), Alberto Cavalcanti’s Went the Day Well? (1942, from a story by Graham Greene), and, of course,...

Dec 10, 2013 — Djibril Diop Mambety’s Senegalese masterwork is remarkable for both its technical audacity and its postcolonialist expressionism.

Nov 11, 2013 — A boldly silent film in the talkie era, Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece has a grace that has never been equaled.

Jun 25, 2013 — How Claude Lanzmann made a thoughtful film about the unthinkable and unfilmable.

Jan 22, 2013 — With his unique use of new 3D technology, Wim Wenders found an unprecedented way for the movie camera to capture bodies in space.

Dec 13, 2011 — Just what is it that makes Seijun Suzuki’s Tokyo Drifter (1966) so different, so appealing? The cherubic hero in the neat powder blue suit, who looks like he was torn out of a yakuza pop-up book? That hauntingly cornball theme...

Nov 8, 2011 — Upon its release in the U.S. in 1983, the theatrical version of Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander generated a wealth of controversy. Bergman has always seemed to breed conflict among cineastes (Phillip Lopate, for example, has written recently about the...

Jun 22, 2011 — Theresa Russell is attracted to the very things that repel most actors. In 1976’s The Last Tycoon, her first movie (and Elia Kazan’s last), she is unafraid of seeming to do very little. Young actresses like to show you they...

Jun 14, 2011 —   The dance along the artery The circulation of the lymph Are figured in the drift of stars —T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets   The year is 1954: a fabulous bit of film history is about to unfurl. Grips are...