Silent film: It’s curious, it’s charming, but how to watch it?
As we say in Britain, there’s more than one way to skin a cat – and there’s more than one way to screen a silent film. The opening night of Tromsø’s Stumfilmdager showed us the way.
What makes a film festival truly great? Searching for clues at Karlovy Vary’s 50th Anniversary
Karlovy Vary 2015: The festival – of film or anything else – is a powerful modern symbol of freedom and, at its best, an astonishing outpouring of human creativity.
The magic of Mark Cousins – One man’s film guru and another man’s irritating dilettante
Karlovy Vary 2015: How to explain the magic and the peril of charismatic DIY filmmaker Mark Cousins? I met the ‘legend’ and watched some of his films at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. I’m ready to take a stab at it – the explanation, not the man. No, really!
No sex please, we’re filmmakers! Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel breaks the mould with Bird Hearts
Karlovy Vary 2015: If you see one sex-film this summer, make it this one.
Norwegians – what are they good for? Dirk Ohm at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
Karlovy Vary 2015: Norwegians – what are they good for? At the international premiere of Bobbie Peers’s debut feature The Disappearing Illusionist I found the answer and – trust me – it’s not what you think!
It Follows, part 1: Evil threatens Suburbia
David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows inspires awe far outside the ranks of horror film aficionados. This first entry in a series of three articles looks at 10 possible ways into the film, trying to put into words and pictures what makes the film so special.
It Follows, part 2: Nightmare in red
David Robert Mitchell offers an intelligent and deeply deliberate use of motifs. We reveal how sleep, water and the colour red create an “invisible”, parallel trajectory to the surface story of It Follows.
It Follows, part 3: The aesthetics of fright
David Robert Mitchell unites art film and genre movie in It Follows. Its staging and aesthetics is explored in the last of three analytical articles about the film.
M. Night Shyamalan analysis project overview
Montages is running an analysis project about M. Night Shyamalan entire production, originating from studies of his early works from 1999 to 2006: The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000), Signs (2002), The Village (2004) and Lady in the Water (2006).
Joachim Trier’s Louder Than Bombs is a sophisticated, genuinely taciturn beast
Cannes 2015: Louder Than Bombs refuses to dole out easy answers, but is pregnant with an inquisitiveness about existence and human psychology. It’s such a rich film that it’s difficult to amply parse in a single sitting.
Realism – Search for Truth or Road to Nowhere?
«What gives a work the kind of mark of authenticity that can prompt the sophisticated cinephile to nod with approval and self-satisfaction at being able to appreciate such a difficult but worthwhile film?»
Signs, Part IV: Visual style
In Signs scenes do not only exist to drive the plot forward. Their formally distinctive staging creates additional layers, encouraging meanings and symbols, often enigmatic.