Saw SUNSHINE STATE just a couple days ago so maybe it’s recency bias but I think this is one of the greatest things Steve McQueen has ever made.
I’m not accustomed to hearing McQueen’s recorded voice in his art (the exhibition pamphlet at Dia Chelsea confirms that this is the first time he has used his actual voice in his art) and I was thrown for a loop when I walked into the darkened room and began hearing his voice…
When the U.S. far right says that they want to “Make America Great Again” maybe they’re longing for a time and place like Philadelphia’s Northeast High School in the late 1960s, which is also the setting of Frederick Wiseman 1968 documentary HIGH SCHOOL. There’s a lot of outcry among the far right today about schools being cesspools of “liberal” indoctrination, but the school that Wiseman filmed generations ago is a setting of a different type of indoctrination: a place where…
Wow this movie was an absolute gut punch. I had a visceral reaction to it that I was not expecting. I guess I associate the coming-of-age genre with movies that have copious servings of sweetness, tenderness, and sentimentality, but the pain in this movie is raw and real. I admire Sean Wang’s willingness to plumb the depths of this pain to make something that ultimately isn’t completely overwhelming and also has instances of affirmation. Well done
Interesting that this film is a labor of love borne out of Robert Eggers’s fascination with the original silent version of NOSFERATU because this remake is most successful when there is no dialogue. The best parts are when we can savor the visuals, the play between light and darkness, and the atmosphere. There’s not a lot of dialogue to begin with but it makes me wonder what this movie would be like with barely any dialogue or even none! Eggers is clearly talented at building suspense through visual storytelling but I’d like to see his talent applied toward stories that are maybe more unusual?
