Despair

Feb 7, 2019 — It’s an inauspicious beginning for festival director Dieter Kosslick’s farewell edition, but there’s much to look forward to.

Feb 6, 2019 — On the Criterion edition of Secret Sunshine, Lee Chang-dong describes his creative process as one of utter despair. That should come as no surprise to anyone who knows his work. Since making his feature debut, Green Fish, in 1997 at...

Feb 5, 2019 — Shame (1968) is one of the great neglected films from Ingmar Bergman’s midcareer creative explosion. It builds on and surpasses the two Bergman films that immediately preceded it: the avant-garde milestone Persona (1966) and the surreal shocker Hour of the...

Dec 3, 2018 — Yorgos Lanthimos’s period romp wins a record ten British Independent Film Awards, and John Waters picks his ten favorite films of 2018.

Nov 19, 2018 — Taipei hosts an evening of surprises and controversy.

Nov 15, 2018 — In two made-for-television productions, a middle-aged Ingmar Bergman blurred the boundaries between screen and stage.

Oct 30, 2018 — A showcase for some of Boris Karloff’s most nuanced acting, this beguiling horror gem is perfect Halloween viewing.

Oct 12, 2018 — Two early works by Ingmar Bergman show the Swedish master grappling with the conventions of melodrama, which would go on to influence his later explorations of spiritual torment.

Oct 9, 2018 — This adaptation of James Baldwin’s 1974 novel is a testament to the director’s professed influences.

Sep 11, 2018 — There is a brief, nearly throwaway scene early in Olivier Assayas’s Cold Water (1994) that testifies to the transcultural power of rock and roll. In an apartment outside Paris in 1972, we see two teenage brothers wrestling over a portable...