Mizoguchi's international award-winner is an essential companion piece for admirers of Ugetsu and Sansho The Bailiff.
David Blakeslee
David Blakeslee
A Journey Through the Eclipse Series: Hiroshi Shimizu’s Japanese Girls at the Harbor
This modest and overlooked silent film from 1933 exposed significant cultural rifts that would reverberate through Japan for the next several decades.
David Reviews Pip Chodorov’s Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film
A swift-moving introduction to avant-garde film from the perspective of someone raised from childhood in that scene.
A Journey Through the Eclipse Series: Kenji Mizoguchi’s Women of the Night
Mizoguchi's penultimate film of the 1940s captures postwar Japan at a fragile tipping point, setting the stage for his triumphs of the 1950s such as The Life of Oharu - coming soon to the Criterion Collection.
A Journey Through the Eclipse Series: Alexander Korda’s The Private Life of Don Juan
Lessons in love from the greatest balcony climber of them all.
David Reviews Chris Smith’s The Pool [DVD Review]
This award-winning independent American film shot in India in 2006 finally has a well-deserved home video release.
A Journey Through the Eclipse Series: Masaki Kobayashi Against the System
This newest addition to the Eclipse line is a perfect demonstration of the unique purpose it serves in giving well-deserved attention to important but lesser known films by one of Japan's greatest directors.
David Reviews Pierre Étaix’s LE GRAND AMOUR [Theatrical Review]
Though it's already too late to catch this film on the big screen in Portland, we're less than a week away from its availability on home video.
David Reviews Pierre Étaix’s YOYO [THEATRICAL REVIEW]
With a new Criterion box set on the way, this comedic masterpiece from 1965 is slated for big screen showings in Portland later this week.
A Journey Through the Eclipse Series: Nagisa Oshima’s PLEASURES OF THE FLESH
Oshima's declaration of artistic independence follows a young man's descent into erotic obsession and madness. Some "pleasure"!
A Journey Through the Eclipse Series: Raffaello Matarazzo’s NOBODY’S CHILDREN and THE WHITE ANGEL
As hard as these runaway melodramas may be to take at face value, their heart is in the right place as they seek to lift our weary spirits to a higher plane.
A Journey Through The Eclipse Series: Akira Kurosawa’s The Most Beautiful
Though uncomfortable and even chilling at times, Kurosawa's second film, a wartime propaganda piece, shows evidence of a young master director in the making.
David Reviews Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin’s Chronicle of a Summer [Criterion New Release]
Another masterful example of Criterion's "film school in a box," this is essential viewing for fans and students of the documentary genre.
David Reviews Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Neighboring Sounds [PIFF 2013 Review]
A cloud of tension and paranoia drifts in from the northeast coast of Brazil.