Favorite films

Recent reviews

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  Warm Water Under a Red Bridge 2001

  ★★★★ Watched 22 Sep 2023

  Zany and poignant at once, Imamura's final film artfully melds the grim undertones of societal realism with ribald fantasy of resurgence, liberation, and contentment. Exercising satire with magical realism in such an effective way, this film exhibits a salacious yet divine celebration of sexuality, identity, and female exuberance while mirroring the absurdity of loneliness in the face of capitalism, class politics, and hidebound social mores.

  Lyrical and figurative as much as its whimsicality, from blushing to gushing in a literal…

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  The Eel 1997

  ★★★★ Watched 21 Sep 2023

  Guilt and wound invisibly enhance each other- they create an emotional prison that inhibits the healing of the soul, yet a reminder of the sense that change can happen, and consideration and forgiveness may alleviate our burden. Alternately saddening and absurd, Imamura's reflection on the intricacies of the human psyche and the ambiguities of life transcends the filmic constraints- like bespeaking a convoluted interplay of love, jealousy, distress, and regret.

  Deceptively obvious, shifting moods with plain sailing ease, this film…

Popular reviews

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  Aftersun 2022

  ★★★★½ Watched 02 Sep 2022 4

  Conveyed with a cosmic touch of sensibility, implicit observations, and dignified naturalism, Wells' debut feature evenly heightens a ruminative exploration of human evocations, parenthood, relations and one's inner conflicts- where the emotions are understated, reflected through only its silence and existing hypnotic ambience- feels like the highest kind of sensory experience in its entirety.

  Executed with a mature sense of originality and nuanced performances from both Mescal and Corio, this film operates in a way where nothing much happens but…

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  Pigs and Battleships 1961

  ★★★★½ Rewatched 20 Sep 2023

  In between the disruptive picture of Post-war Japan and trenchant criticism of cultural imperialism, Imamura's film aptly exhibits the swindling relations concerning haughty American opportunists and pesky Japanese racketeers. Bespeaking the post-war incertitude and ills through its wacky, cynical depiction of unrestrained criminality, doomed romance, and unwinnable escape, this one depicts the suicidal senses of power conflicts escalating inanities and self-destructive traces.

  Both grim and scathing in the assessment, "Pigs and Battleships" reflects the existing structural domination and societal decadence…