The Road

Australian director John Hillcoat's stately Western "The Proposition" (2005) was a stark, mystical story about a civilization's confrontation with its own barely repressed savagery. In mounting an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's austere apocalyptic novel "The Road", Hillcoat is working with a similar theme, and has found an even more suitable narrative context for the earlier film's end-of-a-world tone, eschewing only the dust browns and evening blues of "The Proposition" for the harsh whites, grays, and blacks appropriate to the wintry devastation of McCarthy's vision. Although Hillcoat thus comes well prepared to an adaptation of The Road, his film version nevertheless has the disadvantage of greeting legions of viewers, less familiar with "The Proposition", perhaps, than with McCarthy's novel, who may be suspicious of an attempt to transpose the book's rigorously affecting prose to the cinema. His effort is also coming on the successful heels of 2007's film version of McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men", an Oscar winner and an intimidating benchmark by any measure.

[en] The Other Side of the Road by Steven Rybin

La teta asustada

La teta asustada is the second feature from Peruvian director Claudia Llosa. An international co-production, some of the funding for the film came from Spain where Llosa has been based for the past several years. Set in and around Lima, the drama grabbed headlines in February 2009 when an international jury headed by Tilda Swinton selected the film for the prestigious Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival. The film has also picked up awards at the Guadalajara Mexican Film Festival and at the Montréal Festival of New Cinema. However, the film failed to win the main prize at the Lima Latin American Film Festival which gave rise to subsequent speculation about divisions among the jury there over the merit of the film’s folkloric elements.

[en] Golden Bears, Amulets, and Old Wives’ Tales? by Ryan Prout

Das Weiße Band

Capitalism: A Love Story

Modern mediums of art and film have provided extraordinary opportunities to deliver messages of change, and at times, offering insight on how to do so. Without a doubt, as a connoisseur of cinematographic philosophy, Michael Moore has continually grappled with interpretations of a world around him; yet changing the collective perception of his viewers has never been a simple task.

[en] Love in the Time of Capitalism by Salvador Jimenez Murguia

I am legend

The end of the world is a topic that has gained extraordinary interest over the past decades. The thought of the nearing apocalypse is ever-present within popular culture, be it in the shape of traditional apocalyptic imagery related to Judaism, Christianity and Islam or special effects laden Hollywood scenarios composing the most picturesque versions of mankind’s end.

[en] I’m so lonesome I could cry? by Jana Toppe

28 days later

The end of the world is a topic that has gained extraordinary interest over the past decades. The thought of the nearing apocalypse is ever-present within popular culture, be it in the shape of traditional apocalyptic imagery related to Judaism, Christianity and Islam or special effects laden Hollywood scenarios composing the most picturesque versions of mankind’s end.

[en] I’m so lonesome I could cry? by Jana Toppe

Saw

Since 9/11 and the proclamation of the “War on Terror”, a new brand of explicitly violent horror movies has scored major box office hits: Captivity, Hostel, Saw, The Devil’s Reject, Turistas, or Wolf Creek – films that have since became synonymous with “torture porn”. But from the point of view of many directors, experts, and fans this “reel” horror reflects the “real” horror of our time: War, terrorism, economic decline, corporate greed, natural disasters, and social collapse.

[en] The connection between real and reel horror by Thomas Riegler

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Since 9/11 and the proclamation of the “War on Terror”, a new brand of explicitly violent horror movies has scored major box office hits: Captivity, Hostel, Saw, The Devil’s Reject, Turistas, or Wolf Creek – films that have since became synonymous with “torture porn”. But from the point of view of many directors, experts, and fans this “reel” horror reflects the “real” horror of our time: War, terrorism, economic decline, corporate greed, natural disasters, and social collapse.

[en] The connection between real and reel horror by Thomas Riegler

Last House on the Left

A Nightmare on Elm Street

This article examines how filmmakers utilized viewer manipulation in the Nightmare on Elm Street film series (1984—1994) as a playful mode of address, which simultaneously articulated certain socio-political anxieties prevalent in the surrounding culture. These anxieties concern notions of power and visibility as they relate to what John B. Thompson (1990, 1995) calls the “mediazation of modern culture” and the rise of “quasi-mediated interaction” with its monological or one-way flow of media messages into the private domiciles of citizens. This distinguishing characteristic of quasi-mediated interaction is mirrored through the supernatural abilities of the series’ popular villain character, Freddy Krueger, who is able to intrude into the private realms and personal lives of his victims. However, unlike other slasher villains that take the form of emotionless automatons, Freddy is a trickster; a cruel clown who takes pleasure in manipulating his victims’ perceptions of reality. Just as powerful political leaders must be concerned with their own visual presentations of self in the media age, Freddy must also appeal to his victims in the dream world as well as to the viewers on the other side of the screen. Lastly, to ensure the continuation of his cult of personality, Freddy must displace the Final Girl as the “hero” of each film and become the hero himself through strategically placed elements in the films’ mythic structure.

[en] “Welcome to Prime-Time, Bitch” by Jason Rapelje