Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  I'm Still Here 2024

  Watched 26 Feb 2025

  1. looking at the fabric of the film, it seems to me there are (at least) two patterns worth mentioning. But first:

  2. according to what I read here an army of twitter troopers over in Brazil have mounted a campaign of borderline bullying in support of Torres' awards race. I find that somewhat jarring: those are, after all, American awards, Brazil now has its own academy anyway, and the film partly acts as indictment of a US-backed dictatorship. Lines…

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  Bye Bye Turtle 2024

  Watched 10 Nov 2024

  A carefully constructed casual encounter between two unrelated characters, their worlds connecting in a moment of flux. Wanderers in a limbo (both geographical and existential), Zeynep and Inci develop a mutual, wordless understanding, as they respectively bid farewell to and attempt to reconcile with a parent. The cinematography is splendid: cold palette, shallow depth of focus, pasty colours, soft lighting, artful compositions: precious, Vermeer-squee undertones despite the rural setting. Performances are top-notch too, and the film lands emotionally despite sticking to a light-hearted, almost off-beat tone.

Popular reviews

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  Smoke Sauna Sisterhood 2023

  Watched 20 Oct 2023

  So there's this group of five, maybe six Estonian ladies who gather in a cabin somewhere in Estonia, presumably, or anyway somewhere in the middle of a frozen-over land which is clearly VERY, VERY COLD and these ladies, again there's maybe five or six of them, are of different ages but mostly in their thirties and forties, and they all hang out together in this cabin in their birthday suits, and they sweat. Sweat profusely. Because it's a sauna, you…

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  The Nose or Conspiracy of Mavericks 2020

  Watched 16 Jun 2020

  Or perhaps we can think about this in a different way.

  Imagine entering a museum: sediments of time and the efforts of human creativity ordered into a coherent, intelligible whole: a tradition. A heritage.

  Now imagine entering a ruin. Time growing like moss, spreading in patches across the debris of what was once a coherent whole. Centuries overlapping in odd amalgamations.

  Now think of a film: frames streaming unerringly towards the end (its implied promises: redemption, conclusion, fullness of meaning) like the beads of a rosary.

  (read my full review here)