Author's Pick
Suspiria (1977): A Refreshing Delight, Invigorating
Dario Argento’s films are always lurid nightmares gleefully exploiting artificiality in a canvas of eye-catching colours. His stained-glass cinema is a visual feast and a sensory delight as well, his entire filmography a self-aware mixture of gratuitous gore, intricate storytelling and sly satire. With Suspiria, all the most appealing traits of Argento’s filmmaking are stitched together and put on display for all dedicated horror fans to devour. Were it designed by anyone other than the Italian auteur, it simply wouldn’t work.
Classics
Rashomon: Gorgeous Masterpiece, Filmic Poetry
Akira Kurosawa’s superlative Rashômon might just be one of the greatest motion pictures ever made. The miraculous work of a filmmaker whose standing as one of cinema’s great visionaries is unquestionable, this beautiful ode to silent film gorgeously translates the key elements of that era (the close-up facial shots especially) while covering new ground, recently revisited with lumbering effect by the mediocre Vantage Point. The film has inspired countless subsequent ones, its expertly-utilised multi-narrative tactics and wavering between characters’ points of view divisive when originally released to Japanese audiences and critics, yet exactly the sort of style that has made Kurosawa’s gorgeous masterpiece as adored as it is in the modern day. This is filmic poetry.
Indian Cinema
Do Bigha Zamin: Seeds of the Indian New Wave
Bimal Roy distributed the film abroad in the name “Calcutta - The Cruel City”. Indeed, the shattering image of Shambhu overtaking a horse cart as his customer offers more money for going faster shows how humans and beasts are considered no different in the cities. The film carries a recurring contrast between the warmth of bucolic life and the sheer frigidity of urban living throughout. Shambhu is consistently snubbed and ridiculed when he asks for a job in the city whereas he was offered a Hookah in the village without even asking.