High Life

Jul 19, 2004 — In Yasujiro Ozu’s hands, the extended-family drama widened its focus to encompass friends, neighbors, and employers.

Jul 19, 2004 — Marcel Carné's third feature is as epochal as any film made in France in the 1930s, exemplifying the style known as “poetic realism.”

Mar 13, 2004 — With uncharacteristic warmth and affection for human frailty, Ingmar Bergman raises the question of how love can possibly last forever.

Dec 30, 2003 — Akira Kurosawa was a man of his time, who participated fully in the artistic and intellectual world of Japan from the 1930s until his death in 1998. Although filmgoers may think of him in terms of the screen images he...

Sep 29, 2003 — In May 1981, in the midst of shooting Lola, Rainer Werner Fassbinder sketched out his next film project: Sybille Schmitz. On the cover, he had written, “Story for a Feature Film*.” The asterisk pointed to this footnote: “It is possible...

Aug 18, 2003 — One of the Swedish director’s most representative works, this drama’s portentousness, banked intensity, and recondite symbolism come near to embodying the popular stereotype of the Bergmanesque.

Aug 4, 2003 — Shohei Imamura’s lurid black comedy showcases the director’s passion for everything that’s kinky, lowlife, or irrational in Japanese culture.

Sep 23, 2002 — The theatricality of Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller makes the point that psychoanalysis is a sister to cinema rather than a rival.

May 13, 2002 — In Barbet Schroeder’s portrait of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, we watch a seemingly amiable, thoroughly pompous despot attempt to transform himself into a figure of heroic proportions.

Oct 29, 2001 — Peter Medak’s stinging satire is unashamedly theatrical, emerging from a fascinating period in English culture when theatre and cinema together were mining a rich vein of flamboyant self-analysis.