Time to Die
The clock ticks and the tension builds toward the inevitable showdown. Written by Gabriel García Marquez and Carlos Fuentes, Time to Die (1966) deserves to rank with High Noon and other great westerns for its study of the disputed boundary between vengeance and justice. The directorial debut by Mexico’s Arturo Ripstein features stark composition in black and white and dynamic camera movement—when the camera isn’t staring and waiting for destiny to show its face.
Shop on Amazon:
Harmonium
In Japanese director Kōji Fukada’s Harmonium, a husband invites an old friend to live with his family and his wife is dismayed. The mysterious guest wins her over soon enough after teaching their little girl to play harmonium. And then inescapable deeds from the past intrude upon the present. A Cannes festival prize-winner, Harmonium grows tense and dark, and heartbreakingly strange, as the guest plots payback against the husband in a story of secrecy and lies.
Rent on Amazon:
My Journey Through French Cinema
French filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier composed a memoir in cinematic terms with My Journey Through French Cinema. The director of Coup de Torchon and The Judge and the Assassin revisits his past in the form of the movies of his countrymen that shaped his imagination and sharpened his vision. In more than three hours, he tells a non-linear story of French cinema from the 1930s through ’50s, giving many thoughtful comments on form, content, pacing and acting.
Rent on Amazon:
Intermezzo
Intermezzo (1939), Ingrid Bergman’s Hollywood debut, introduced America to a new kind of movie star. Surprisingly fresh, innocent yet mature, Bergman’s unaffected presence was an unspoken rebuke to the artificial glamor of Hollywood’s female stars. Her face registered the pangs of dishonesty as well as the ecstasy of her illicit love affair with a married man. She played a concert pianist and the neurotic tension of Romantic classical music was seldom used so effectively on film.
Shop on Amazon:
