90 minutes of sheer technical wizardry. What Mikhail Kalatozov and cinematographer Sergey Urusevskiy did with the camera equipment of the time in 1959 is nothing short of a miracle. The camera moves across perilous terrain and in ways I’ve never seen before (or yet to see since) and all I can think about is “how in the hell could this be done with the equipment the Soviet cinema apparatus was using in 1959?” I don’t have an answer to that question. I never will.
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Andrei Rublev 1966
To be an artist is to suffer in that the act of doing art means you open yourself up to the world. Tarkovsky understands this and he uses it, and his raw technical skill, to craft a work so moving that typing this review feels meaningless.
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Love Streams 1984
My favorite Cassavetes movie, and that is saying a lot. The man knew how to cut to the core of the human experience, especially regarding love and interiority, and lay it bare for all to see. This film is no exception. But it is a movie about love only in the sense that it shows the pain love can cause, the desperation that can be wrought, and how love can ruin us if we let it. Yet, it is beautiful in its own way.
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Kanal 1957
Kanal is the best war film that you’ve likely never seen. This isn’t world war 2 on a grand scale. It’s about resisting. It’s about fighting in tunnels and sewers. It’s about shooting your enemy in the back. It’s about dying, it’s about losing, it’s about being lost, it’s about finding strength, it’s about holding onto love, it’s about everything. The entirety of the human experience on this earth can be seen in this film, no matter how ugly it may seem. The final frame will never leave my mind. Don’t underestimate those who wage war from below.
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