Set It Off

Mar 1, 2024 — This week offers David Bordwell on Hou Hsiao-hsien’s evolution, Jean Eustache on Ernst Lubitsch, and two must-read reviews of About Dry Grasses.

Aug 14, 2023 — Defying pressure from Iran, Locarno didn’t just screen Ali Ahmadzadeh’s Critical Zone; the festival also gave it its top award.

Apr 5, 2023 — The composer, pop star, and occasional actor mastered a bafflingly wide range of styles and influences.

Sep 28, 2022 — A long-obscure landmark of the Iranian New Wave, Mohammad Reza Aslani’s daringly ambiguous portrait of feudalism’s demise mirrors the revolutionary times in which it was made.

Sep 20, 2022 — The Canadian auteur Atom Egoyan’s strip-club-set drama is an intricate tapestry of grief and trauma, held together by a longing for human connection.

Oct 3, 2019 — The director reunites with writer Jonathan Raymond and cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt for a quiet tale set in the Oregon Territory of the 1820s.

Aug 30, 2016 — Set in nineteenth-century Macao, Orson Welles’s adaptation of a classic tale by Isak Dinesen is a hypnotic meditation on the pitfalls of storytelling.

Feb 19, 2015 — The scholar and producer talks about his experiences on the set of a film that changed his life.

Dec 9, 2014 — Liliana Cavani’s tale of the sadomasochistic bond between an ex-SS officer and a former concentration camp prisoner is a transgressive take on history and fascism.

Jun 18, 2007 — Dušan Makavejev’s masterpiece explores sexual freedoms and their perils in both New York and Belgrade, using each city and set of practices and problems to help define the other.