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Where Is the Friend's Home? |
Filth (Baird, 2014, C-) (review)The hodgepodge of genre elements, loose narrative threads and ungainly tonal shifts keep the audience at a distance, a point from which everything appears increasingly bizarre and meaningless.
Homework (Kiarostami, 1989, B)
A crushing
experience, made up almost entirely of interview with young school
children about their homework routine, that exposes the limitations of
the Iranian school system, the violent consequences of illiteracy and
the disturbing effects of bullying. Only a filmmaker of Kiarostami's
magnitude can make a conversation with a young child about his school
work unwatchable because of its sheer forcefulness.
Where Is the Friend's Home? (Kiarostami, 1987, A+)
It
isn't merely for thematic resonance that Kiarostami titles his film
after Sohrab Sepehri's eponymous poem; the film fills the screen with
all the deceptive simplicity and poetic elegance of Sepehri's sparse,
modernist ruminations. The story of one boy's journey to take a
classmate's notebook home is elevated to a near spiritual experience,
soulful and deeply rooted in the fabric of Northern Iran's rural
culture.
First Graders (Kiarostami, 1984, C+)
Kiarostami's
earlier works for Kanun (Centre for Intellectual Development of
Children and Young Adults) was a fund of graceful, subtle stories about
children.
First Graders, on the other hand, is delicate but also a
moralistic lesson delivered without disguise, in a structurally
repetitive work that doesn't fully pay off in the end.
First Case. Second Case. (Kiarostami, 1979, B)
An
exceptional time capsule of the nation in flux in the transition years
between the Pahlavi era and the Islamic Republic with all its turmoil
and identity crises . This is not one of the director's most innovative
films but the contrasting presences, ideologies and the film's history
with the censor's makes it one of the most vital in his filmography.
A Suit for the Wedding (Kiarostami, 1976, A-)
An incredible achievement in directing,
Suit
takes an impossibly simple premise to unimaginable heights as a
thriller, a treatise on social inequality and an exploration on bullying
among young kids.
The Report (Kiarostami, 1977, A)
Scenes
from a (shattering) marriage. Formally and thematically an anomaly in
Kiarostami's oeuvre, but one of his richest works; a morally
challenging, multi-faceted portrait of the break-up of a family that
acts as a microcosm of a society on the brink of crumbling unto itself.
The Traveller (Kiarostami, 1974, B+)
One
of Kiarostami's most openly political and critical films, and unusually
classicist in construction. An indictment of social inequality and the
failed school system in the final years of the Pahlavi era, packed with a
stronger emotional punch than most of the auteur's output.
The Chorus (Kiarostami, 1982, N/A)
A
simple conceit, told in a humorous and irony-tinged fashion. An
instrument of modernity allows man to retreat from the mayhem of
modernity to the serenity of the past, only to be thrown back into the
reality of today's world. A real gem.
The Experience (Kiarostami, 1973, A-)
The
extremely personal original story was written by Amir Naderi, whose
fascination with stories of destitute children shapes the bleak
atmosphere of the film, but Kiarostami's authorial stamp is on the
film's elegant structure and the richness of its wordless empty spaces.
Orderly or Disorderly? (Kiarostami, 1981, N/A)
Perfecting the dual structure of
Two Solutions For One Problem,
Kiarostami's educational film about the superiority of social order to
disorder effectively becomes a meta-textual commentary on the state of
Iranian filmmaking at the time.
Colours (Kiarostami, 1976, N/A)
Strictly
educational for children – the film basically teaches kids about
primary and secondary colours – it is nevertheless a distinctly Iranian
work that elicits nostalgia in viewers of a certain age, while
exhibiting the directors attention to the specificities that instill
meaning in the mundane
Breaktime (Kiarostami, 1972, N/A)
An expansion of the ideas that Kiarostami began to explore in his debut short - a child being thrust into an adult world -
Breaktime is a richer film, depicting the complexity of this mismatched interaction in visually subtle ways.
Godzilla (Edwards, 2014, B-)
Staggeringly beautiful and complicated in its atmospheric visual construction but ultimately meaningless and thus unmemorable.
Two Solutions For One Problem (Kiarostami, 1975, N/A)
Almost
an antithesis to the director's later storytelling methods, there is
nothing elusive about this educational short film but the lesson is
delivered with humour and wit.
We're The Millers (Thurber, 2013, D-)
Agonizingly stupid and exhaustingly crude.
Zoolander (Stiller, 2001, A)
Stiller's
fashion industry satire somehow manages to get funnier and smarter upon
every revisit. One of the most rewatchable films of all time and the
jewel in Stiller's acting and directing careers.
The Possibilities Are Endless (Lovelace/Hall, 2014, B/B+) (review)
Formally
innovative and absolutely heartbreaking. Possibilities recreates a
haunting environment around its subject in stylish fashion and gains our
sympathies without relying on cliched documentary tropes.
The Secret Trial 5 (Wala, 2014, B-) (review)
An
essential documentary, if formally insignificant, because of the
subject matter it tackles and potential political and personal
ramifications on the lives of Muslims in North America.
Beyond Clueless (Lyne, 2014, B/B+) (review)
Cleverly
constructed to mirror the narrative arc of a high school film, this
visual essay on teen characters in Hollywood movies at the turn of the
century is equal parts incisive and entertaining, with the added bonus
of Fairuza Balk's narration.
The Double (Ayoade, 2013, B/B+) (review)
Ayoade's adaptation of Dostoevsky's
The Double,
via Kafka, Orwell and Gilliam lacks the psychological depth of
character that enriches the original text, but it establishes the
directors as one of the most exciting voices of his generation.
Mad As Hell (Napier, 2014, C+) (review)
A
true depiction of the American dream in all its infuriating and
inspiring glory, slickly shot but formally dull and repetitive.
Living Stars (Cohn/Duprat, 2014, C+) (review)
The
premise of the film - a compilation of Argentine men, women and
children of all ages and social strata dancing to international hits -
is intriguing, but its point about the universality of dance is neither
rich nor fresh enough to sustain it.
Bread and Alley (Kiarostami, 1970, N/A)
An
inauspicious debut but one that foreshadows many of the director's
formal interests and thematic concerns. Simple, cyclical and beautiful
in a breezy way.