"Youth without youth" has everything I hate about modern film. "Show and tell (in the most explicit and direct way)" instead of "show don't tell" could be the motto of most contemporary filmmaking. Combine this with calm voices and atmospheric music and what you get is more like an audiobook than like a movie. An audiobook is all in your head, and therefore skilful acting is almost entirely replaced by pseudo-original directorial choices. Finally, there is a weak, sexualised female…
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The Idiot 1951
What a pleasure to see one of Dostoevsky's best novels transposed to another century and country. Further proof that Dostoevsky was probably the greatest melodramatic plot writer of all times. Slight dissonances like the translation of Christianity into Buddhism only enhance the aesthetic effect. Often, true art requires the courage to sacrifice perfection, to try something that couldn't possibly result in a neat and coherent work. Kurosawa had this courage, that most Western directors of the post-War period lacked, and…
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Süss, the Jew 1940
Unusually for a work of propaganda, this movie raises many more questions than it seeks to answer: Is assimilation or is tradition the safer path for Jews? Are authoritarianism and money printing (both clearly associated with Nazism in contemporary reality and with Jewry in the movie) a threat to civil society and the rule of law or can they help fuel social and economic progress? Can a revolution against a legitimate ruler turned tyrant be a just endeavour? Why do minorities and intellectuals suffer more than others in revolutionary times?
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