Night Across the Street (Raúl Ruiz, 2013)

Raúl Ruiz's final completed feature (another is being finished by his widow) is as cryptic as the few other Ruiz films I've seen, with a host of modernist references to obscure literature and music at every turn. Yet the sense of playfulness and mourning that informs the whole feature needs no familiarity with the director. Taking Beethoven to the cinema, following ghosts as they peer in on each other, Ruiz finds sad but hilarious ways to handle his impending death. And he films it all with immaculate precision, his constantly shifting but always pristine mise-en-scène enriched to deliberately artificial degree by his use of DV. Admittedly a neophyte when it comes to the late Chilean director, I nevertheless have adored what little I've seen of his, and I suspect I might treasure Night Across the Street even more with subsequent viewings and a deeper immersion into such a tantalizing filmography. If nothing else, it's a hell of a swan song.

My full piece is up at Spectrum Culture.

Yossi (Eytan Fox, 2013)

Yossi starts so powerfully that the frustratingly stiff, unvarying approach of its camera makes the eventual slog all the more disappointing. In reconnecting with the older, flabbier and unhappier protagonist of his Yossi & Jagger, Fox instantly establishes a sense of quiet agony through his lead's soft expressions and hollowed eyes. But as Yossi inches toward self-liberation, the camera telegraphs his eventual retreats, robbing moments of suspense and, more importantly, the emotional connection of this man's dreams of acceptance and honesty of self.

My full review is up now at Spectrum Culture.

Luv (Sheldon Candis, 2013)

I got an early surprise this year with a festival holdover from Sheldon Candis, the remarkable, intimate drama Luv. Tracking a prepubescent boy's harrowing journey of maturation, Luv announces itself quickly by dissipating a magic realist opening for the hard realities of Baltimore, and from there he crafts an affecting look at how violence traps men (in this case, specifically African-American men) in a perpetual drive to prove one's masculinity. As I say in my full review, you could almost run it with Cronenberg's A History of Violence.

My full piece is up now at Spectrum Culture.

The Tower (Kim Ji-hoon, 2013)

The Tower starts off agreeably enough, with shots of geometrically aligned staffers in an ostentatious but cheaply made high-rise apartment complex demonstrating that even the lowly workers are not allowed to be a hair out of place for the elite who will occupy the buildings. Once it turns into a disaster movie, however, The Tower loses much of its endearing character and begins to feel like a standard, American effects reel. This is shaping up to be a year in which some West-friendly Korean talent takes Hollywood by storm, yet movies like The Tower show how Hollywood's influence back on one of the most vital areas of contemporary world cinema may be a draining influence.

My full review is up at Spectrum Culture.