REVIEW: Das Mädchen und die Spinne [The Girl and the Spider] [2021]

But you had tears in your eyes. Lisa (Liliane Amuat) is moving apartments and the building’s children who have come to know her as a friend and companion ask her remaining roommate Mara (Henriette Confurius) whether she’ll still visit. The latter says that she will, but we know the truth is more than likely that she won’t. It won’t be out of malice or even conscious for that matter. It’s just what happens as life carries on. We find ourselves embroiled in new situations with new people and we gradually…

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REVIEW: Gespenster [Ghosts] [2005]

“And I walked towards the music” Three women caught in disparate existential crises are converging in Christian Petzold‘s Gespenster [Ghosts] to seek answers despite reality only supplying opportunity to exacerbate their already volatile shortcomings. Nina (Julia Hummer) is a late-teen orphan hopeful to discover an avenue towards a brighter future that will assist her in escaping the present. Francoise (Marianne Basler) is a middle-aged woman searching to retrieve something she lost years ago, her past-fueled desperation causing present strife. And Toni (Sabine Timoteo) is a displaced young woman hopping from…

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REVIEW: Le meraviglie [The Wonders] [2014]

“When he’s not here we can breathe, right?” The running joke throughout Alice Rohrwacher’s Le meraviglie [The Wonders] is that eldest daughter Gelsomina (Maria Alexandra Lingu) is in charge of the family. It’s a cutely simple way in which parents Wolfgang (Sam Louwyck) and Angelica (Alba Rohrwacher) can disarm outsiders threatening their livelihood. The family is struggling so it’s easy to position a child as the honey business’ face because Dad’s anything but warm and inviting. But Gelsomina is of the age where quiet acquiesce has become impossible despite truly…

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