Director Pablo Larraín is known for his extremely fascinating social commentaries about his native Chile. Most famously, he tackled the Pinochet regime and its legacy with his trilogy comprising Tony Manero, Post-Mortem and No. With The Club, Larraín looks at Catholicism, another major Chilean institution, and the abuses of power that can occur within the priesthood.
Aleksey German’s Hard to Be a God is in the running for the most disgusting films I’ve ever seen. The film produces an enormously affecting, intricately detailed, and thoroughly realized visceral nightmare, one that never wanes or becomes numbing over its three-hour runtime but instead accumulates into an at-times overwhelming journey into a world run by a phantom regime of hedonist ignorance and reactionary cruelty. Built upon a twist on science fiction that probes fascinating questions about politics, morality, and the myth of the arc of human progress, Hard to Be a God uses this genre framework as a platform to manifest a carnival of depravity and filth.
Cinema, like most arts, exists beyond time and space. They are a medium of transportation, and for most of us, our only opportunity to fulfil our deepest desires and confront our darkest fears. That’s why it seems unfair to look back on a year in film and focus only on new releases. Our year end obsession with …