Even when New German Cinema maestro Wim Wenders isn’t making literal road movies, his most personal films feel like they’re always on the go, destination unknown. An intuitive filmmaker seemingly driven more by whims and tides and implacable emotions and songs he likes than by the rigid dictates of a script, Wenders’s shambolic approach has yielded its share of masterpieces … [Read more...]
‘The Party’: Where the drinks have nothing but bitters
The Party, renegade Briton Sally Potter’s first film in six years, is shot in a flat and unpretty black-and-white — no luminous chiaroscuro here. Rather, it’s a harsh and dressed-down cheapie, populated by actors whose drooping faces and worry lines betray minimal makeup. It reflects of a time in movie history when directors eschewed color for economy, not artistry. Shot … [Read more...]
‘Amnesia’: Healing, memory and the Holocaust
There’s something ineffably Hitchcockian about the setup of Barbet Schroeder’s Amnesia. It’s set in 1990 on the breathtaking coastline of Ibiza, where sixty-something Martha Sagell (Marthe Keller) occupies a sprawling property disconnected from much of society. The interiors contain more secrets than material goods. The walls throb with the unspoken and the repressed, starting … [Read more...]