Category Archives: Film Reviews
Lars von Trier’s The House That Jack Built
Written by Hami J. My initial impression while watching the first few scenes of The House that Jack Built wasn’t particularly positive: 1) Uma Thurman’s awkward attempts to mess with Jack’s mind and entice him into violence—despite coming across as a seemingly helpless and lone woman 2) the repeated close-ups and excessive focus on the…
David Lynch’s Lost Highway and Lacan
Written by Hami J. One consistent thematic preoccupation across a range of David Lynch’s narratives is the blurring boundary between illusion and reality. This is particularly evident in dreams, where reality, or in Lacanian terms, the Symbolic Order, clashes with the inner urges and desires of the subject. A good part of Lost Highway, for…
David Lynch’s Lost Highway and Feminism
Written by Hami J. Structural ambiguity and moral ambivalence are two equally important attributes in most of David Lynch’s works. While many of his films resist clear interpretation, we can apply our own criteria to test the potentially implied standpoint of the film. Lynch’s cinema encompasses an infinite number of interpretations, with femininity and its…
Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice in Search of a Lost Time
Written by Hami J. “Thinks he’s hallucinating” is the first utterance used to address and describe the protagonist of Inherent Vice. Although he may not be hallucinating at the moment, a foggy vision of reality permeates and drifts through the air throughout the entire duration of the film adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice by…