In English

VIDEO-ESSAY. Hou Hsiao-Hsien is a great, but somewhat underappreciated Taiwanese auteur, known for his long takes and slow pacing. In this video-essay, Adrian Martin and Cristina Álvarez López explore his unique style as seen in a scene from the 1995-film Good Men, Good Women. Mirroring the tempo and attention to detail in Good Men, Good Women, this video-essay tries to capture the very essence of Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s aesthetic.

IN ENGLISH. How do contemporary television distribution methods and consumption practices influence TV comedies? How are texts, production routines and ways of engaging the audience reshaped? Critically acclaimed TV series Master of None (2016-) and Atlanta (2016-) are good examples of such deep tranformations, leading to a reinvention of the comedy genre.

IN ENGLISH. The animated version of Snow White, produced by Fleischer Studios in 1933, possesses a richly multifaceted oddness. It is a bizarre film full of digressions and inconsistencies, humorously riffing on the original fairytale. Ethan de Seife analyses this wonderfully bizarre film, which combines musical digressions with elements of both surrealism and realism.

FEATURE. Paths of Glory (1957) is one of the best anti-war films ever made as well as Stanley Kubrick’s first masterpiece. It also contains one of the most highly praised film endings. Drawing on a particular form of complementarity, non-doing/doing, Richard Raskin sheds new light on this classic ending.

IN ENGLISH. This article is for anyone who would like to have a better grasp of the five types of voice-over found in such classics as Wings of Desire, Rashomon, and The Third Man. Richard Raskin presents an original model in plain, jargon-free language with plenty of stills, full transcription of thoughts and spoken lines, and no filler or mystification.

FEATURE. Desire takes many forms on the silver screen - but how does the erotic manifest itself in a system of strict censorship? Amanda Curdt-Christiansen proposes an alternative appraisal of cinematic depictions of sex in mainland China and Hong Kong, with an appreciation for ongoing tensions beneath the gaze of the ever dominant Party.

IN ENGLISH. Apichatpong Weerasethakul is a Thai filmmaker, but his work seems to exist exclusively in the consciousness of those outside his native land. In this feature, Rasmus Helms explores the director’s unique cinematic voice.

IN ENGLISH. Even before its release Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Aquarius (2016) became the centre of heated and public debate in Brazil, not least due to a protest at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival condemning the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff. In this feature, Steffen Hven explores how the film’s own conveyance of (political) resistance is far more subtle, mature, and nuanced than the turmoil surrounding its release would suggest.

169 SECONDS. In Sebastian Lelios The Wonder from 2022 the initial camera movement quite literally takes us from the film studio where the film is shot and into the world of the English nurse Elizabeth Wright in 18th century Ireland. Do you wonder how?

IN ENGLISH. Alfred Hitchcock’s classic Notorious (1946), starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains, demands that we explore free-floating responses to its tormented triangle of characters. In terms of genre, is it suspense thriller or romantic melodrama? Go inside, around and about the film with Adrian Martin and explore its style, meaning and form.