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Black River (Masaki Kobayashi, 1956) Masaki Kobayashi’s flight of fury against the corrupting co-operations between Japan and the U.S. occupation forces foreshadows the darker waters of the Shochiku “Nouvelle Vague” soon to come. Though he shared Mizoguchi’s pre-Antonioni obsession with architectural detail, the staunchly Kobayashi—who’d suffered greatly as a soldier during the war—wasn’t afraid of tearing down any master’s house, and he readily admitted that his samurai classics like Hara-kiri shared with his lesser-known contemporary films a single foundation-testing theme: “resisting entrenched power....

All too many music documentaries send you away feeling unsatisfied, but with its heartfelt backstory and generous helpings of music, Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me is a shining exception: the filmmakers’ urge to be true to their subject is palpable. It doesn’t hurt that Drew DeNicola and Olivia Mori frequently crank up the volume and allow the shimmering chords and moody sweep of Big Star to enfold the influential rock band’s mythic story of years in the wilderness and late rediscovery....

Inspired by Mosab Hassan Youssef’s memoir Son of Hamas, Nadav Schirman’s grueling documentary burrows into the mindset of a Palestinian who was recruited to spy on his own family. Like a fusion of Omar and The Gatekeepers, its central interviews with Youssef and his Shin Bet contact Gonen Ben Yitzhak yield insights on intelligence methods and the Israeli-Palestinian quagmire, but also show how individually distinct and twisty all such relationships must be....

Rare is the film that appeals to 4-year-olds and medieval-art historians; and brave are the visionaries who pitched the thing to studio suits in the first place; but, lo and behold, here we have it. Regardless of its special-interest-group fan-base, Brendan and the Secret of Kells has enough universal charm and eye-popping dazzle to merit the animated-feature Oscar nod it’s already received. Brendan, a young novice ensconced behind the fortress-like walls of Kells, is excited by the unexpected arrival of master illuminator Brother Aidan, who comes bearing his unfinished masterwork, The Book of Iona....

At these speeds, everything is fluid dynamics: air parted by a bullet billows into sweeping shockwaves, a flicked lighter begets a fusillade of drifting sparks and cresting plumes of fire, a striking rattlesnake glides like a kite. Not surprisingly, liquid itself is always the showstopper—shattered wine glasses and ruptured soda bottles bespatter gravity with viscous undulating auroras. The skin of a popped water balloon peels away to reveal a shimmering aqueous egg, hovering interminably before dissolving from within....

In the 1940s, Hollywood became interested in psychology and mental illness, and with that interest came an odd little flurry of films where “he’s driving me crazy” was not a joke, but a plotline. It goes like this: someone is either trying to drive a young woman crazy (Rebecca, Gaslight, My Name Is Julia Ross), or implicate her in a crime that makes her feel crazy (Whirlpool, late entries Cause for Alarm!...

In 1896, as the Irish Literary Revival blossomed, William Butler Yeats told young playwright John Millington Synge: “Give up Paris . . . Go to the Arran Islands. Live there as if you were one of the people themselves; express a life that has never found expression.” The Revival was an attempt to re-claim Irish culture and the Irish language, suppressed by centuries of British rule. Synge took Yeats’ advice, and moved to the Arans....

Gone with the Wind Gone with the Wind’s Melanie Hamilton may have been “a paleface, mealy-mouth ninny” according to her sister-in-law Scarlett, but she, too, was a survivor. So is the actress who breathed life into the role, Olivia de Havilland, who has now survived all but one of her 42 credited co-stars. This month’s featured star on Turner Classic Movies, de Havilland celebrates her 100th birthday on the first of the month....

Purchase a digital or print copy…despite the cover 2. January/February 1996 Purchase a digital or print copy…despite the cover 3. November/December 1989 Purchase a digital or print copy…despite the cover 4. July/August 1992 Purchase a digital or print copy…despite the cover 5. May/June 1981 Purchase a digital or print copy…despite the cover 6. May/June 1975 Purchase a digital or print copy…despite the cover 7. March/April 1978 Purchase a digital or print copy…despite the cover 8....

Last week, Devika called up Garrel on Zoom—while he was in the middle of a shoot for a film about Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of The Little Prince—for a conversation about the autobiographical inspirations of all three films, the differences between his and his father’s directing styles, their collaboration with the legendary screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, and more.

Though Panahi tragically remains imprisoned in Tehran since his arrest last July, FC editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute were glad to be able to speak to the film’s lead actress, Mina Kavani, about her riveting performance as an Iranian exile in Turkey. They discussed Kavani’s own experiences of living in exile, what it was like to work with Panahi, and the women-led movement that continues to reverberate throughout Iran....