It’s the most loving tribute to cinema and to Ingmar Bergman, set in world that feels so habitable that I felt like only re-watching this for eternity, because of how inviting it looks and feels.
What seems like such a simple story of survival is so much more than that—it’s a story of family, and of war, and of destruction. It’s painful to watch, but not in a bad way. It makes its audience reflect on their own actions, and in how they are complicit in the sufferings of others as the adults in this film are. Grave of the Fireflies does not hold back from being heartbreaking, and it shouldn’t. It tells a message that needs to be heard decades after the war, and a story that cannot be forgotten by history.
The sequel to the 2010 live-action movie focuses on sibling rivalry.
The Gates, John Burr’s new thriller film, is a disturbingly realistic portrayal of three Black twenty-somethings - Derek (Mason Gooding), Kevin (Algee Smith), and Tyon (Keith Powers), as they accidentally take a wrong turn into a gated community that’s more like a modern-day sundown town. The three friends witness a variety of crimes in their new surroundings, including an attempted homicide and an attempted rape. As they attempt to alert the authorities and do the right thing, they are thwarted at every turn by the worst horror stories of American conservatism - racist white suburbanites, reckless gun violence, corrupt police, religious mania, and a megalomaniacal pastor.
It’s passionately protective of the women mentioned in the story or appearing on screen. Just like the article and the #MeToo movement, the film could help a trapped person find the courage to fight back.
As a whole, Sightless pushed boundaries between illusion and reality. It made viewers question if there really is a difference. Ellen was strong, brave, and even compassionate given her situation. She was a force to be reckoned with.
