This piece was originally published by Film Inquiry on November 24, 2023. A filmmaker deeply beloved by other filmmakers in addition to generations of fans, Michael Powell is best known for the unparalleled run of masterpieces he made with his collaborator Emeric Pressburger in the 1940s and 1950s: the charming romance I Know Where I’m Going!, the dance-fueled fantasia The Red Shoes…

This piece was originally published by Film Inquiry on November 15, 2023. The beautiful game, the world’s game, the game that brings people from every corner of the earth together to cheer and boo and celebrate and cry: the power possessed by the sport of soccer — or, as much of the rest of the world refers to it, football — is…

This piece was originally published by Film Inquiry on November 8, 2023. Just before giallo — the subgenre of Italian crime thriller named for the distinctive yellow covers of the pulp novels published by Mondatori — began to break through on the big screen courtesy of films like Dario Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Mario Bava’s Hatchet for the…

This piece was originally published by Film Inquiry on October 19, 2023. Craving an international vacation but too broke to travel? Allow me to suggest a trip to Japan with two of the world’s most acclaimed filmmakers, Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Wim Wenders, courtesy of their new films that screened as part of the Main Slate at this year’s New York Film Festival. EVIL DOES NOT EXIST (RYÛSUKE HAMAGUCHI)

This piece was originally published by Film Inquiry on October 10, 2023. When I was a little girl, I dreamed of living out my own Cinderella fantasy. However, it wasn’t an actual monarch that I wanted to swoop into my life and carry me off to his castle, but a pop prince — in particular, one of the Backstreet Boys. And while…

This piece was originally published by Film Inquiry on October 6, 2023. “There’s nothing more pathetic than telling the world you’ll retire because of your age, then making another comeback.” So said animation legend Hayao Miyazaki in his original project proposal for The Boy and the Heron back in 2016 — just three years after he had announced he was retiring from…

This piece was originally published by Film Inquiry on October 6, 2023. Acclaimed international auteurs Alice Rohrwacher (The Wonders, Happy as Lazzaro) and Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Winter Sleep, The Wild Pear Tree) both have films screening in the Main Slate at this year’s New York Film Festival; both films were also selected to compete for the Palme d’Or at Cannes (losing out…

This piece was originally published by Film Inquiry on October 2, 2023. In Our Day, the 30th feature from prolific South Korean director (not to mention writer, producer, cinematographer, editor, composer…) Hong Sang-soo, reflects on the small pleasures that make life worth living: a bowl of spicy noodles, a soft cat, a drink with friends, a long drag on a cigarette. Coincidentally…

This piece was originally published by Film Inquiry on September 22, 2023. Godard before Breathless. Varda before Cléo from 5 to 7. Resnais before Hiroshima mon amour. It’s hard to imagine these iconic filmmakers of the French New Wave as anything less than the legends they are remembered as today, yet once upon a time, they were just a group of young…