Beautiful depictions of sex and violence, vibrant colours, astonishing soundtracks and uncomfortable steadicam shots are often associated with the films of French-Argentine director Gaspar Noé. Hailed as a unique voice in cinema by some, and perceived as a mere provocateur by others, Noé remains as controversial today as when he exploded onto the seventh art. …
Film titles which take on a different meaning in the course of their translation are an interesting and frequent phenomenon. Lost in translation, a classic such as The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly becomes “Two glorious scoundrels“ in German, Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now reads as “When the gondolas are in mourning“ and Melville’s …
Japanese director Takashi Miike‘s name should be familiar to most film enthusiasts, since he is one of the most creative minds in the Asian film realm. The extremely hard-working screenwriter, director, and producer has created over 100 cinema and TV productions, at times realizing up to four films a year. Through films like Ichi The …
Thomas Vinterberg is a Danish director and screenwriter, known for being one of the co-founders of Dogma 95 alongside filmmakers such as Lars von Trier, Kristian Levring, Jean-Marc Barr and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen. The cinematographic movement sought to rescue the purity of cinema through a list of rules that, among other guidelines, dictated filmmakers to focus …
There are three hitchhikers sitting in the back seat; Mexican immigrants in mariachi suits looking dimly into space. A girl with big glasses (Greta Gerwig) turns around euphorically to them and asks the men how life is in the USA. Without looking back, one of them replies sadly: “The USA is like a big, fat …
On the morning of Pentecost Sunday on May 26, 1828 a strange 16-year-old young man arrived at the city of Nuremberg, Kingdom of Bavaria. The boy could barely speak and stand upright. He carried with him a letter from an unknown author, addressed to the chief of the local garrison, which assured that the young …
Director: Paul Poet Death is a sad and solemn business? Not always. Especially when it works as natural and just selection, it is a reason for absolute celebration. On October 11th in 2008, I met with friends at Bar Tabac in Cologne to celebrate the death of Austrian Neo-Nazi Jörg Haider by drinking, singing and …
Guillermo del Toro was born on October 9, 1964 in Guadalajara, Jalisco in Mexico. He was raised in a Catholic household and described his first years in life as “morbid”, stating that they made him absolutely intolerant of authoritarian figures. Del Toro developed an interest in making short dark fantasy films with his father’s Super …
Like the films of John Cassavetes, the music that Bo Harwood recorded is very special for reasons hard to explain. Raw, unrefined, yet holding tremendous emotional power within such simple musical structures, it beautifully complimented the unique work Cassavetes and company were creating in front of the camera. “Over the years, it never really occurred …
Director: Wolfgang Petersen Germans had a historical collective TV experience when Wolfgang Petersen’s Das Boot (1981) was aired as an extended 6-episode (360min) TV-series in 1985 and turned German living rooms into claustrophobic WWII U-boats. Basically every German who was old enough at that time watched the series and was confronted with the true nature …
