Hands Over the City

Jan 19, 2023 — The frequent collaborators talk about their close friendship, the paths that led them to each other, and the artistic values they share.

Aug 30, 2022 — A lyrical study of a farming community in Ethiopia, Jessica Beshir’s debut feature reckons with the consequences of the region’s reliance on the cash crop khat.

Feb 19, 2019 — A master at adapting literary classics for the screen, Luchino Visconti made a bold choice in emphasizing the homoerotic undertones in Thomas Mann’s novella.

Oct 9, 2018 — In a world vulnerable to authoritarianism, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s television epic stands as an example of how an artist can speak to a broad audience about revolutionary politics.

Feb 28, 2018 — A few days ago, we ran an essay here by Pico Iyer on Satyajit Ray’s The Hero (1966), followed by Meheli Sen’s comments on Uttam Kumar’s performance within the context of his stardom. Iyer has more to say and, writing...

Nov 8, 2017 — Dave Kehr’s long reviews for the Chicago Reader, published between 1974 and 1986, comprise “a body of work that, together with Kehr’s columns for Chicago magazine in the 1980s, strikes me as being the most remarkable extended stretch of auteurist...

Sep 4, 2012 — Umberto D. is perhaps the most astringent film ever made about a poor old man and his dog. Critics today tend to like the astringent parts: the long, deliberately undramatic sequences full of mundane activity (such as a housemaid’s morning...

Nov 21, 2019 — Every love affair requires a border crossing. The person you see across a crowded bar, or meet at a dinner party, or find on a dating app is another country altogether—maybe a nice place to visit, but do you really...

Oct 21, 2014 — Federico Fellini’s frantic tragicomedy is such a classic it risks being underestimated.

Oct 12, 1998 — Are there cultural purists still remaining who would argue that the “Westernized” title of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 masterpiece—High and Low—throws polluted water on the cosmological fire of its given name: Tengoku to jigoku—literally, Heaven and Hell?Kurosawa’s once insisted-upon reputation as...