— by BEV QUESTAD — I’ve seen four of Patrick Wang’s exceptionally thoughtful films. In response to my request and explanation of my difficulties with his work, he magnanimously responded: “Thanks for taking the time to watch and think about all these movies. I also love your honest[...]
Author Archive
Review: The Grief of Others
— by BEV QUESTAD — Sometimes a film’s weakness turns out to be a strength. At first confusing and sometimes hard to figure out what is going on and who is who, “The Grief of Others” explores the loss of a baby, who really never had life, on all family members. Was it a death [&hell[...]
Review: A Bread Factory, Part Two
— by BEV QUESTAD — Hold on, ye professed intellectuals! Patrick Wang takes the time with left-over funding from “A Bread Factory, Part One” to do a second response to the real-life story of a New England community arts center in trouble. In case “Part One” wasn’t experimental e[...]
Review: A Bread Factory, Part One
— by BEV QUESTAD — The Bread Factory is a small-town experimental community art center in trouble. But it is only a microcosm of a greater danger that has invaded a town being hoodwinked by corruption on the city board and infiltrated by forces indifferent to the community good. The galv[...]
Review: On Her Shoulders
— by BEV QUESTAD — Since 2014, Nadia has had only two wishes. The first is to return to her small town. The second is to get justice. If her first wish is granted, she would be returning to a town with no men. The second has put a price on her head. “On Her […][...]
Review: Mabel, Mabel, Tiger Trainer
— by BEV QUESTAD — The lions hadn’t eaten for 24 hours and neither had their trainer. Finally in the ring, an animal moved to the wrong place and Mabel stumbled. Chaos erupted and two lions attacked her, clawing an eye from her socket and throwing a breast across the circus ring. “Ma[...]
Review: Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin
— by BEV QUESTAD — A glorious tribute to a captivatingly astute writer, “Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin” intermixes original images and motion graphics of the environments described in Le Guin books to tell the story of one of the greatest science fiction writers in the last 100 years. [...]
Review: Memoir of War
— by BEV QUESTAD — Based on Marguerite Duras’s memoir, this excellent film tells the story of those waiting for the return of their loved ones who had been taken to WWII death camps. Some arrested returned, yet others did not. What was life like for those who waited? How did they cope [...]
Review: Gavagai
— by BEV QUESTAD — A handsomely thin German businessman comes to the forested Telemark region of Norway anxious about his mission and in the first stages of grief. Surreal images of his deceased Chinese wife come to him when he is alone. She is dressed in colorful flowing Mandarin robes [...]
Review: The Testament
— by BEV QUESTAD — Yoel Halberstam has seven days to find a mass grave in Austria before construction starts. But where exactly is it, why won’t people talk and does it actually exist? Halberstam is an historian, an orthodox Jew, and a devout seeker of the truth. His crucial work is hi[...]
Review: Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf
— by BEV QUESTAD — Brimming with beauty, Thomas Piper’s sensitive presentation of “The Gardens of Piet Oudolf” is a soft poem of life. Already known as an art photographer, capturing the gardens of Dutch landscape designer Piet Oudolf in all of the seasons is truly a project suprem[...]
Review: Naila and the Uprising
— by BEV QUESTAD — Specifically, this is the story of Naila. In 1967, when she was a young girl at school, she learned her house had been blown up. She and her four sisters went home to see her father crying. She grew up with this experience of the Israeli occupation in Ramallah and [&he[...]
Review: In the Last Days of the City
— by BEV QUESTAD — “If you want to see the world in one day, ride the sun.” A cinematographic study, a film poem and a mosaic of life in Cairo during President Mubarak, Tamer El Said’s film witnesses daily life in Egypt. Though there is spartan dialogue and plot, there is a sense t[...]
Review: Return to Mount Kennedy
— by BEV QUESTAD — This film is just not what you expect it to be. Opening with gorgeous photography of quiet, pristine snow on a field of majestic peaks, it abruptly switches to the raucous grunge scene of Seattle in the ’80s, focusing in on the band Mudhoney (“Touch Me, I’m S[...]