Kenji Fujishima

Kenji Fujishima Pro

Constant seeker of the sublime.

Favorite films

  • PlayTime
  • Vertigo
  • Fallen Angels
  • Ikiru

Recent activity

All
  • The Last Picture Show

    ★★★★

  • Time Piece

    ★★★★

  • Anatomy of a Fall

    ★★★★

  • Happer's Comet

    ★★★★

Recent reviews

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  • La Comédie-Française ou L'amour joué

    La Comédie-Française ou L'amour joué

    ★★★★½

    It was an honor to revisit this 1996 Frederick Wiseman documentary and discuss it with Shawn Glinis and Arlin Golden in this episode of their Wiseman Podcast.

  • Passion

    Passion

    ★★★★

    If you purchase the Film Movement Blu-ray edition of Ryusuke Hamaguchi's debut feature Passion, you can check out the video essay I created for it drawing some connections between it and Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy as a special feature. I know people mostly stream stuff these days, but I do genuinely believe this one's worth purchasing, and not just for my contribution to it.

Popular reviews

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  • Andrei Rublev

    Andrei Rublev

    ★★★★★

    This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

    Seven episodes in the life of the titular medieval Russian icon painter, all of which add up to one of the most vivid and detailed cinematic depictions I've ever seen of the life of an artist. From naive optimism about human nature to an abject despair that leads him to swear off art-making for about 15 years, then finally a renewal of his passion with the help of a former monk and a young bellmaker (whose obsessive quest to finish…

  • Trouble Every Day

    Trouble Every Day

    ★★★★½

    This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

    An alternately lyrical and brutal vision of desire as pure lust, with cannibalism envisioned as the end result of tossing off one's inner humanity in favor of animal instinct. But then, isn't that what sex essentially is, in some ways? Not that Claire Denis is puritanical about sex; Trouble Every Day is framed not merely as the typical slasher-movie "sex = death" equation, but more as a blood-and-thunder struggle between thought and feeling, scientific detachment and Romantic passion. Certainly, I…