Tag: french cinema

3 Comments

On-Screen Mystery in Claire Denis Films

  By

|Azra Thakur| Claire Denis sets the tone of her second feature film, No Fear, No Die (1990) from the start: in the middle of night a young Isaach de Bankolé and Alex Descas are at the forefront of establishing their lives in Paris. De Bankolé is reflecting on a passage from a book, whispering… Continue reading

No comments

Shake a Tailfeather: Abdullah Ibrahim and the Music of No Fear, No Die

  By

|Courtney Kowalke| Recently, I’ve been getting into jazz. This exploration is born of necessity: I work third shifts. I want to listen to music on the job, so I need workplace-appropriate tunes. I also get annoyed by incessant ad breaks, overly chatty DJs, and radio stations… Continue reading

2 Comments

Solar Citalopram: Beau Travail, Ken, and Burning Isolation

  By

|Finn Odum| Author’s note: This essay contains discussions of fictional suicide and real-life suicidal ideation. I. Citalopram On a relatively warm Monday evening last September, while on a short walk to see Kenji Misumi’s Ken at the Trylon, I found myself struggling to cross the street… Continue reading

A Certain Slant of Light: The Thin Line Between Fantasy and Reality in Soleil Ô

  By

|Courtney Kowalke| The first movie I saw at Trylon in the spring of 2019 was John Sayles’ The Brother From Another Planet (1984). The film follows a protagonist known only as “The Brother” (Joe Morton), an extraterrestrial who crash-lands in Harlem, New York City… Continue reading

Of Earrings and Eras: The Earrings of Madame de… and Cinematic History

  By ,

|Dan McCabe| The Earrings of Madame de…(1953) may be the last great work of the French “Poetic Realism” period. It certainly isn’t the only film that marks the end of a historical era in the development of motion pictures. What interests me about it is that usually evolve… Continue reading