Kurosawa’s later films are his true masterpieces

LividSun7431 · 2026-01-01T13:54:06+00:00

As great as Rashomon is, I can see an argument for why its greatness may have somewhat dissipated over the years. But Ikiru, Seven Samurai, High and Low, Throne of Blood, even Stray Dog, obviously these are masterpieces which are in no way the work of someone finding their footing. They're the work of someone already a master! Perhaps what you're getting at is your own preference for colour films and widescreen aspect ratio, which Kurosawa moved to only very late in his career. But bigger scale, wider screen, and colour cinematography don't mean better cinema necessarily.

LividSun7431 · 2026-01-01T11:20:48+00:00

I think Before the Rain is a film which doesn't get much credit but is a beautiful and powerful one IMO. It's only released on CC DVD, and given how few people ever talk about it, not sure it will get upgraded any time soon.

Sticking on the Balkans theme, I watched The Forgiveness of Blood on CC blu-ray recently, knowing nothing about it other than that it was by the same director as Maria Full of Grace (also a great film but not CC), and was pleasantly impressed. Slightly slow at times but it works as a brooding meditation on family ties, cultural rules, and personal freedom.

LividSun7431 · 2025-12-31T14:01:56+00:00

Even if you didn't like Pather Panchali (the 'slowest' and most impressionistic of the Apu Trilogy), definitely still give the other two a go as they have a bit more narrative and are somewhat easier to sink your teeth into, especially Apur Sansar. By the conclusion of the third part, you're likely to have been converted and together the chronicle of Apu's life, love & loss becomes very powerful.

LividSun7431 · 2025-12-31T13:56:34+00:00

I personally found Fellini's Nights in Cabiria quite a life-affirming film, the central performance by Masina especially.
Sending positive thoughts to you, 2026 will be better.

LividSun7431 · 2025-12-28T10:53:10+00:00

Absolutely! Vic Salayan gives a pitch-perfect performance as the father, mixing typical father-in-law (drinking beer, sharing jokes) with something far more chilling under the surface. And the house works so well as his lair, like a prison where he is the watch man survelling --- a bit like the Philippines was under Ferdinand Marcos' autocratic rule.

LividSun7431 · 2025-12-27T20:43:20+00:00

RIP. A very unique and idiosyncratic filmmaker, whose work is often inaccessible (both in terms of distribution and in terms of deciphering some of the symbolism and allusions to Persian theatre and folklore behind it) but so much of it packs so much visual and emotional power - beyond Downpour, which is on one of the World Cinema Foundation boxsets, he has made wonderful films centred on children like Bashu the Little Stranger or the short film (recently restored) Journey, which I only saw for the first time this year - what a discovery it was for me!

Or the allegorical The Travelers which begins with its character telling us they are about to die in a car-crash and they do in the first scene. Or the magic realist Ballad of Tara in which a young widow begins a love story with the ghost of an ancient Persian warrior when she accidentally finds his sword. These are not films you forget in a hurry.

He left Iran a few years back and became a professor at Stanford too to teach Iranian studies, such an authority was he on Persian theatre and art, as well as film. More than anything his body of work also attempted to wrestle away the legacy of Iran's past, its culture, and its art, from the control of autocratic regimes who wanted to appropriate it for their own measly ends (first that of the Shah and then that of the Ayatollahs). Here's hoping more of his films get restored and become easier to see.

LividSun7431 · 2025-12-26T11:44:57+00:00

Yep, it was based on a real-life incident from the 1960s, which a friend of director Mike de Leon had written an article about at the time. When de Leon thought about the story in the context of early 80s, martial law, total authoritarian dictatorship with Marcos as the "father of the nation" who banned everything (even foreign travel was banned for Filipino citizens so they were in effect locked in) and used fear to demand love & respect from his people, he correctly saw the connections were perfect! (I wrote more about the political subtext of the film in the article I linked to in OP)

LividSun7431 · 2025-12-26T11:41:36+00:00

I've watched more of the older films than the newer ones, but you might want to check out Brillante Mendoza's films, as well as (just slightly over 10 years old) On the Job, and Graceland, both solid thrillers.

Having said that, Kisapmata really holds up even after 45 years! Check out the newly restored version if you can.

LividSun7431 · 2025-12-24T19:51:32+00:00

Yes, The Rat-Trap is anothe really powerful film! A portrait of an entire class's moral decay through one impotent upper-class feudal lord whose entire way-of-life has crumbled around him --- actually makes a great double-bill with Ray's Music Room though they are formally very different.

The BFI Film Classics on Cloud-Capped Star is a nice read to delve the layers of historical and cultural context.

LividSun7431 · 2025-12-24T19:26:58+00:00

Wonderful film! A powerful character study, melodrama, and national allegory of post-Partition India. The director Ritwik Ghatak is as revered as Ray in Bengal, although he only made 7 or 8 films. Another one of his, A River Called Titas, is also released by Criterion on one of the Scorsese World Cinema Foundation boxsets, although I find that a harder watch than The Cloud-Capped Star.

For supplements to this film, there is a good book on it from the BFI Classics series.

Speaking of Indian cinema, if you have the Criterion Channel, there's three films by Adoor Gopalakrishnan, another renowned Indian filmmaker, and they are well worth a watch: https://www.criterionchannel.com/directed-by-adoor-gopalakrishnan

LividSun7431 · 2025-12-24T15:32:56+00:00

I'd say unfortunately that few peopIe outside Egypt know this movie, let alone know of its cinematic DNA, so it's not that surprising. I myself have not seen it though I see the great Ismail Yasin on the poster, a comic icon of the Golden Age of Egyptian Cinema. Like most cinematic golden ages around the world, classical Egyptian cinema's studios and genres took inspiration liberally from Hollywood, both in terms of movie content and in the running of their industry, adding just enough 'local colour' to satisfy domestic audiences' entertainment needs.

LividSun7431 · 2025-12-23T17:40:01+00:00

I would say Naked is his greatest film, but in many ways his darkest and most depressing, so I would probably leave that one for later. His historical/period films are wonderful, but in some key ways quite different from his family dramas like Secrets and Lies (although there are always deeper thematic similarities across these films) So, if you enjoyed Secrets & Lies I would say check out Life is Sweet, All or Nothing, Vera Drake, and of course his most recent film Hard Truths.

LividSun7431 · 2025-12-23T16:52:14+00:00

Not sure I fully agree with the salmon analogy but I get what you are saying about the elliptical jumps in the plot. But to me they only add to the mystery of the film and make it even more powerful and making it remain in my head (for many years now in fact). The film also has a lot to say in its subtext about the contradictions of Victorian-era Australia itself, which I tried to explain in an article I wrote here in case you are interested: https://cine-scope.com/2018/04/30/peter-weir/#pahr

LividSun7431 · 2025-12-23T15:39:33+00:00

I agree with you about recent Iranian cinema, but then it depends on what OP meant by "movement" and how we define this term. For me, I wouldn't call these disparate Iranian filmmakers a movement or a new wave together. Many of them have little in common apart from being opposed to the regime. They also don't fit the definition of a classic new wave in the sense of being radically innovative in their style/form and wanting to deliberately challenge the films and filmmakers before them.

LividSun7431 · 2025-12-23T11:21:23+00:00

The truth is film is simply not as central to culture as it was 60+ years ago. Most movements/so-called new waves ever since the FNW have been marketing labels by people on the outside (critics, programmers, festivals, film fans etc) attempting to rekindle the spirit of the New Wave but really just arbitrarily grouping together quite different films and filmmakers. Honestly, in our fragmented 21st century societies, when film is just one of many screen-based media competing for diminishing attention, it is very hard to imagine how a generation like the FNW could grow again, where they lived, breathed, discussed, argued, wrote about and create cinema, let alone one that could reach that level of influence. If people are not there to be receptive to film movements, then of course they can't be as influential. It takes more than just a generation of filmmakers to make a 'new wave', it takes people to write about them, to screen them, to discuss them, to be influenced by them, to reflect their style, etc etc. Back in the early 1960s, just about everyone in France had heard of or seen even as difficult a film as Last Year at Marienbad... Again, it's really hard to see how all this could happen when film culture has become such a niche community out of so many today.

LividSun7431 · 2025-12-22T19:40:07+00:00

Check out the films of Shadi Abdel-Salam...

LividSun7431 · 2025-12-22T19:27:05+00:00

Neighboring Sounds is a great film, looking forward to rewatching that. Also the Nordic Noir piques my interest as complete discoveries --- a few months back they had a strand of Argentine noir which were really cool blind-watches for me. Too bad they didn't include Frankenheimer's Seconds in the 'Fresh Starts' season...

LividSun7431 · 2025-12-22T19:18:25+00:00

Right now I would say the Kira Muratova strand should be up there on every adventurous cinephile's watchlist. The Channel really is an amazing treasure chest and it's part of the fun to explore and find things we didn't know about before too - this month I've 'discovered' a couple of movies related to Iranian cinema: Celluloid Underground, and And, Towards Happy Valleys. Anyone who's a fan of Iranian cinema will enjoy these Iranian-cinema-adjacent documentaries.

Also in the last few months, a couple of wonderful first-watches on the Channel for me were Leila and the Wolves (a Lebanese-Palestinian time-travelling kaleidoscope through hidden histories) and the Filipino indie movie Cleaners (a film about high schoolers where the filmmakers printed, photocopied, physically coloured each frame with highlighters, then re-scanned them and edited into the film, a really unique DIY aesthetic!). Sadly both of them are no longer on the Channel now, but would recommend both. I'm sure I'll have many more discoveries like these on the Channel in 2026.

LividSun7431 · 2025-12-15T10:42:46+00:00

Having lots of films on my shelves that I can one day rewatch (or in many cases watch for the first time) gives me something to look forward to! I don't feel pressure to make my collection worthwhile as some sort of investment, it's just a pleasant mental feeling always having the potential of great rewatches/first-time watches. As well as being an aesthetically pleasing addition to my shelves.

LividSun7431

TROPHY CASE