For the month of May, we have six releases in total with two re-editions and a third coming a trio of works from an African legend. The other three releases are new and from this century, including a newly-anointed Academy Award-winner, one that may stand the test of time. This is a big month with a total of nine films from these directors spanning ninety years apart. Here are those special releases, courtesy of Criterion.
A Story of Floating Weeds/Floating Weeds (1934/1959)
Japanese auteur Yasujiro Ozu made his original film in black-and-white and as his last silent film, then remade it twenty-five years later in color. It is a melodrama of an actor coming back home with his traveling company and reuniting with his lover and their son, only to see his new lover turn very jealous and seek to destroy them. Continuing his humanist tradition, Ozu does not stray very far from his original story, but is recreated at Ozu’s highest form. It is a remaking that is refreshing and with more depth.
Peeping Tom (1960)
Michael Powell’s first film since the splitting up of The Archers was a film that damaged his career permanently, but would later be re-evaluated as a masterpiece. A photographer who works on a soundstage is a serial killer who loves filming his crimes with a camera. He falls for a beautiful woman, but the dark secrets of his psychopathy are nearly impossible to contain. It is considered one of the first slasher films with its shocking violence for the time, depicting sadomasochism and indecency of women half-naked when the moral police were still around early 60s Britain. Very tame by today’s standards, but so censorable during the period that it was almost banned outright.
Three Revolutionary Films by Ousmane Sembène (1971-77)
Thanks to films like Black Girl and Mandabi, Senegal’s Ousmane Sembène made post-independence African cinema a reality and one the whole world could appreciate. In the 1970s, Sembene continued his sensational efforts on the damage from colonialism, corruption, and religious conflict with a trio of stories: Emitaï, Xala, and Ceddo. In Emitaï, he takes viewers to Senegal in World War II with French forces trying to bring in Black soldiers to fight for them, even though they are still going to be colonized. Xala is a daring satire on massive corruption and authoritarianism through a man with an unfortunate problem upon getting married. Ceddo is a story about the conflicts between Christian and Muslim factions as French colonialists settle in and mirrors conflicts that remain even today in numerous African countries. All three films are Sembene’s way of standing up to the continuing problems in the face of being censored himself.
Girlfight (2000)
Writer/director Karyn Kusama (Jennifer’s Body) made her debut at Sundance with this hard-hitting sports drama of a troubled girl (Michelle Rodriguez) who trains to become a boxer despite objections from her family and others who are skeptical of a woman in a male-led sport. The film was made for $1 million thanks to assistance from director John Sayles, who Kusama had worked for previously, and his longtime partner, producer Maggie Renzi. It is a more gritty look than Million Dollar Baby, which came out four years later, and made Rodriguez a major star as someone who had never acted before.
All That Breathes (2022)
Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary, two brothers in India work to help birds known as black kites, who are injured from pollution. Director Shaunak Sen follows them in their painstaking work to help these birds, while lamenting the downslide of their environment becoming dirtier by the year. It is a poetic story of human-animal interaction with the daily fears of anti-Muslim violence that threaten the brothers as much as much as the rapid urban development is endangering their black kites.
Anatomy Of A Fall (2023)
From the moment it won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Justine Triet’s Oscar-winning courtroom drama was destined to join Criterion. It is a mystery from beginning to end that always keeps its cards close to the chest and forces us to think more deeply about who this woman really is, even if she is innocent. Sandra Huller is an actress who doesn’t need anymore written about her performance. Nor does Messi (Good boy!), nor the performances of Swann Arlaud or the young Milo Machado-Grier, but for Triet and her real-life partner, Arthur Harari, they now have our attention for future films.
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