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Recent reviews

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  Laberint Sequences 2023

  Rewatched 13 Sep 2023

  Relevant portion excerpted from my TIFF 2023: Wavelengths report for Reverse Shot:

  If Let’s Talk is any indication, Liu, who continues to find fresh perspectives on recurring subjects, is in no danger of repeating himself. The same might be said of Texas-born, Toronto-based 3-D artist Blake Williams, here with Laberint Sequences, his latest experiment in the polarized format, following his 2017 feature PROTOTYPE and 2008 (2019). As its title suggests, the film builds repetition into its very structure, presenting an…

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  Slow Shift 2023

  Watched 09 Sep 2023

  Relevant portion excerpted from my TIFF 2023: Wavelengths report for Reverse Shot:

  In Slow Shift, Shambhavi Kaul also reconfigures our engagement with seemingly ordinary sights. Shot in Hampi, India, among the ruins of an ancient city, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is a landscape film of sorts. Static shots of massive boulders alternate with smaller rockslides. Hordes of langurs amble about the depopulated region. There is not a soul in sight. The interest of the film, however, lies…

Popular reviews

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  Primer 2004

  ★★★★½ Rewatched 11 Sep 2014 3

  Man, do you wanna watch Primer? I haven't seen it since later this afternoon.

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  Portrait of a Lady on Fire 2019

  ★★½ Added 15

  For a film that’s predicated on gradual seduction and about looking/painting as a conduit for or expression of love, this opts for some rather unproductive presentations of time. The sense of daily ritual is poorly evoked: scenes are given just enough narrative information so we get a sense of the plot, but there’s no feel for duration, or a sense of deepening interplay between the characters beyond what is required to signal such developments. The fireside scene should be a…