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    “ A sound like a rumble from the core of the earth ”  —Jessica (Tilda Swinton), a Scotswoman and a scientist, describing the sound that woke her up one day from slumber   in Colombia, a sound that she wishes to identify and understand (words spoken in the early part of the film)   “ Why are you crying, when they are not of your memories?”   —Jessica’s new-found acquaintance Hernan (the metaphoric “hard disk," as he describes himself”) says to her, after Jessica (the metaphoric “antenna”, in Hernan’s words) physically connects with Hernan by Jessica placing his palm on her arm (words spoken towards the end of the film) M emoria is a film that recalls Carlos Reygadas’ opening and closing sequences of his Silent Light (2007), approaching metaphysical mysteries using sounds and visuals. It was not surprising for this critic that Reygadas was one of the many thanked by the filmmakers in the film’s credits. Memoria equally recalls sequences from Andrei Ta...

  Ryusuke Hamaguchi ’s Drive My Car will appeal to different folks for totally different reasons. Those familiar with Haruki Murakami’s written work flock to watch cinematic adaptations of his written works such as the Korean director Chang-dong Lee’s Burning (2018), Japanese director Anh Hung Tran’s Norwegian Wood (2010) or the Japanese director Jun Ichikawa’s Toni Takitani (2004), among the nine such feature films already released.   Drive My Car is the latest cinematic adaptation of the nine films and is based on a short story with the same title as the film.   The film Drive My Car is equally interesting for readers who love Anton Chekov’s famous play Uncle Vanya . They will be pleasantly surprised that it still can be staged in myriad ways, though purists will find Andrei Konchalovsky’s 1970 film version of Uncle Vanya with Innokentiy Smoktunovskiy, Sergei Bondarchuk and Irina Kupchenko, as the definitive cinematic adaptation. However, director Hamaguchi leaps...

      “If they hurt others, it’s because they hurt, too.”--  Benedicta, mother of Amador, responding to Amador’s comment on the root formation of the Eucalyptus tree, a tree that can cause explosive burning during forest fires, a metaphor of trees used in the film to describe human behavior                                         **** “They told you about me?” Amador to Elena “Yes, but..well, you know how people are.” Elena’s response   I n a 2021 interview for American Cinematheque, Russian film director Andrei Konchalovsky stated “ Sometimes silence is better than action .” That is a comment applicable to Oliver Laxe’s film Fire Will Come . The lead character Amador rarely speaks but his body language and the soundtrack do the talking, not words. Laxe’s film urges the viewer to explore the soundtrack that is expressive and offers much food for thought for an...

    “I don’t make a lot of films...I can only shoot what is essential to me”   --Director  Philippe Lacôte   in an interview to CNN titled "Machetes and Microbes: Why  Philippe Lacôte's Prison Drama Cuts Close to the Bone" (September 8, 2020)      F rench-Ivorian filmmaker Philippe Lacôte has made two feature films Run (2014) and Night of the Kings (2020), both officially submitted to the Oscar’s foreign language category by Côte d’Ivoire (former name: Ivory Coast), in respective years. Both films provide a marriage of documentary and narrative fiction styles, and both have international actors of repute playing major roles. Run has Côte d’Ivoire-born Isaach de Bankole (Jim Jarmusch’s actor in The Limits of Control/Coffee and Cigarettes/Ghost Dog-The Way of the Samurai ; Claire Denis’ actor in White Material/ Chocolat ) and Night of the Kings has Denis Lavant (Leos Carax’s actor in Holy Motors/The Lovers on the Bridge ); Claire Denis’ act...

T wo films made in 2019 mark the resurgence of Brazilian cinema: Dornelles’ and Filho’s joint effort Bacurau (a Cannes film festival winner) and debutant Maya   Da-Rin’s The Fever (a Chicago international film festival winner).   The following citation for the Chicago win is a good encapsulation of the merits of the second film,  The Fever: " "The Silver Hugo for Best Director goes to Maya Da-Rin for her debut fiction feature The Fever. The film drifts between dream and reality, portraying with both tenderness and precision the world of an indigenous father and daughter in the north of Brazil. It takes us into the family and their hearts, but never forgets the importance of the political context ."   Citation for the award from the Chicago International film Festival Justino (Regis Myrupu), a denizen of the Amazon rainforest, chooses to work as a security guard in Manaus, where instead of trees, he is surrounded by steel containers shipping goods  D irector...

F ilm director Jean Luc Godard   had said “ In the temple of cinema, there are images, light and reality. Sergei Parajanov was the master of that temple .”   Parajanov, the late master filmmaker from Russia, underscored the importance of bright colours and realistic sound, while Pedro Costa’s   Vitalina Varela goes a step further, accentuating darkness, dark skin, and shadows with muted indirect lighting in a “colour” film, aided with natural sound. When you do see bright images in Vitalina Varela, as at the end of the film, it is not just real bright light and colours, it presents a metaphoric change in the film’s narrative structure. The award-winning actress plays herself in the film about herself V italina Varela is distinctly different from the Oscar nominees of 2019 or well known commercial films with renowned actors. Vitalina Varela is an unusual film with a title that has the name of its lead actress. The film narrates the real story of its lead actress, a C...