My April Watches Ranked
As predicted, this month has been a little sparser than I’d have liked. Though I started out strong, as deadlines have swung around again my ability to carve out a couple of hours every day to watch something has faltered. In any case, I had a rather good time with what I did manage to see, with the lowest this month being Robert Eggers’ early short film adaptation of Hansel &Gretel still ranked at 3 out of 5 stars.
In fact, a large number of the films this month were 4 stars and up, beginning with Out of the Past, whose doomed sense of noirish fatalism I rather enjoyed. The best of the month is Carpenter’s now classic sci-fi-horror, but, since this is a rewatch (and because I’ve already had to write about it for an essay, this month), I feel the more interesting film to discuss here is Taiwanese filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang’s longing, devastating Goodbye, Dragon Inn. For one of my assignments, this month I’ve undertaken a deep dive into the Taiwanese New Cinema and the subsequent Second New Wave, to which Tsai belongs. Tsai’s filmmaking here and in his Rebels of the Neon God is just immaculate. He manages to create a cinema that overemphasises the lingering seen in the earlier works of such giants as Edward Yang, but yet never overstays its welcome. This, I feel, culminates in Goodbye, which depicts the final night of the Fu-Ho theater, a legendary pre-multiplex cinema where at one point in time, many would gather as a community. In its final moments, the Fu-Ho has become a stomping ground for a gay cruising community, a place for old stars to relive with a mixture of nostalgia and wary disillusionment their glory days, and a haunted space primed for missed connections. Though some may find its slowness and tendency to linger a little bit grating, I feel the rather short runtime of this particular film justifies at least one viewing by any of you even vaguely intrigued by my description. Seriously, it’s heartbreaking, haunting, and beautiful - all at once.
At the opposite end of the list, we have Mr. Eggers’ early silent short film adapting the Grimm fairytale through the medium of German expressionism. Despite a gloriously creepy witch (of whom we can find obvious traces in his later - and best - film, The VVitch), and a really very strong sequence that takes place within her grotto, the film really doesn’t do a whole lot - though it does provide an interesting insight into Eggers’ affinity for all things gothic, dark, and expressionistic. In any case, this brings me onto my only cinema-outing this month, which was to see Eggers’ latest work, The Northman, an at-times unwieldy balance between his significantly more esoteric prior work and the mindlessly violent epics he has cited as inspiration (looking to Conan the Barbarian, here). The Northman is most certainly worth the money and, whilst its lack of a desire to delve too deeply into the uncompromisingly hallucinatory and illusionistic territory of his other work is a distinct mark against it, this really - in my book - doesn’t diminish how fun it is, overall. Additionally, maybe for how sincere it is and how fresh it truly feels as a star-studded blockbuster, its emotional beats are genuinely affecting - particularly in the latter third of the film.
The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982).
Goodbye, Dragon Inn (Tsai Ming-liang, 2003).
Robocop (Paul Verhoeven, 1987).
Phoenix (Christian Petzold, 2014).
Affliction (Paul Schrader, 1997).
Drunken Angel (Akira Kurosawa, 1948).
The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier, 2022).
Matthias & Maxime (Xavier Dolan, 2019).
The Invisible Man (Leigh Whanell, 2020).
The Killers (Robert Siodmak, 1946).
Letter from an Unknown Woman (Max Ophuls, 1948).
A Matter of Life and Death (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1946).
Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947).
The Northman (Robert Eggers, 2022).
About Time (Richard Curtis, 2013).
Laurence, Anyways (Xavier Dolan, 2012).
The Devil Wears Prada (David Frankel, 2006).
Paranormal Activity (Oren Peli, 2007).
The Red Balloon (Albert Lamorisse, 1956).
steel reserve 40 oz (-, -).
The Current War (Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, 2017).
Hansel & Gretel (Robert Eggers, 2007).