Part seven of my review of what I saw at the Fifth Hong Kong International Film Festival covers Western European films charged with doses of Romanticism and existential despair.
The 5th Hong Kong International Film Festival, part seven
Tag: Romance
Fall 2024 viewing round-up, part two
A pair of Jonathan Demme features and several box sets are among my Fall movie watching, featuring various genre titles ranging from the Hollywood prestige of The Silence of the Lambs (1991) to the cheap regional horror of Doug Robertson’s HauntedWeen (1991), early ’70s Brit exploitation including Jack Palance sacrificing women to an African idol in Freddie Francis’ Craze (1974) and four Lucio Fulci and Umberto Lenzi made-for-television ghost stories in Cauldron’s Houses of Doom collection.
The 5th Hong Kong International Film Festival, part four
Part four of my account of the Fifth Hong Kong International Film Festival in 1981 covers a handful of Japanese films.
Death and madness from Indicator
A pair of recent Indicator releases resurrect a couple of all-but forgotten features with major stars. Richard Widmark plays a Western lawman whose time has passed in Death of a Gunfighter (1969), the first movie credited to phantom director Alan Smithee, while George C. Scott is a former New York judge dealing with grief by taking on the identity of Sherlock Holmes; his therapist just happens to be named Dr. Watson (Joanne Woodward).
Joan Micklin Silver’s Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979): Criterion Blu-ray review
The passage of time has complicated Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979), Joan Micklin Silver’s well-observed comedy-drama about a broken romance; the behaviour of obsessed romantic Charles (John Heard) now seems much darker and more troubling than it may have when the film was first released.
Lars Von Trier’s Europe Trilogy (1984-1991): Criterion Blu-ray review
Criterion start 2023 with an excellent three-disk set of Lars von Trier’s Europe Trilogy, the three aggressively confrontational movies with which he began his career by digging into the lingering traces of Fascism which plagued the continent in the second half of the 20th Century. Impressive new transfers are given context by commentaries and seven hours of documentaries and interviews with and about von Trier, his intentions and creative process.
Stanley Kwan’s Rouge (1987):
Criterion Blu-ray review
Rouge (1987), Stanley Kwan’s meditation on romance, the passage of time and the imminent return of Hong Kong to China after almost two centuries of British colonial rule, gets a luminous restoration for Criterion’s new Blu-ray edition, which also includes an interview with Kwan and two documentaries by the director which explore issues of gender in Chinese cinema and his own identity as one of the first openly gay Chinese directors.
Watching genre, in black-and-white
Three very different features – Alfred Hitchcock’s Notorious (1946), John Guillermin’s Town on Trial (1957) and Wolf Rilla’s Village of the Damned (1960) – illuminate the varied pleasures offered by genre in the hands of seriously committed filmmakers.
Dan Ireland and The Whole Wide World
Dan Ireland, director of The Whole Wide World (1996), died on April 14, aged 57.
Criterion Blu-ray review: Whit Stillman’s Barcelona (1994)
Criterion has released a stand-alone Blu-ray edition of Whit Stillman’s Barcelona (1994), the final part of his triptych about young Americans striving to define themselves as they navigate an uncertain world. A romantic comedy with troubling undertones, it deals with the mixture of naivety and arrogance which creates a problematic relationship between the U.S. and other parts of the world.
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