When Sight and Sound released their 2022 poll in December, the rush wore off within a couple days for me. I was impatient. I’m still impatient, because I want the vote counts for all of these movies to be released, and when that happens I’m sure I’ll write about that too. But a lot of… Read More Ten Thoughts on the Other 164 Movies in the 2022 Sight and Sound Poll
Dir. Max Ophuls. Starring Anton Walbrook, Simone Signoret, Odette Joyeux Dir. Michael Haneke. Starring Juliette Binoche, Luminita Gheorghiu, Thierry Nevec In the early days of this blog’s reboot, one of the problems I found myself grappling with was the trouble that comes from adapting a play into a movie. The trouble is with the similarities… Read More La ronde (1950) and Code Unknown (2000)
Dir. Michael Haneke. Starring Isabelle Huppert, Benoit Magimel, Annie Girardot No director on the planet has Michael Haneke’s stomach, an organ which can eat rotting meat and human shame in equal portions without so much as a gurgle. Similarly, the number of performers with Isabelle Huppert’s willingness to embrace difficult material is a small one… Read More The Piano Teacher (2001)
Dir. Michael Haneke. Starring Emmanuelle Riva, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Isabelle Huppert After Anne has had her first stroke – indeed, towards the tail end of her life as a more or less ambulatory, thinking human being – she and Georges are eating a meal together. He’s almost cleared his plate. She still has a fair bit… Read More Amour (2012)
Dir. Michael Haneke. Starring Burghart Klaußner, Christian Friedel, Susanne Lothar There’s a scene fairly early in The White Ribbon where the schoolteacher, fishing for trout, sees one of his students – Martin, the pastor’s eldest son, maybe twelve or thirteen years old – walking on the rail of a wooden bridge high above the stream. If he fell,… Read More The White Ribbon (2009)
Seeing Things Secondhand 