Festival Season Waves (Patreon)

My piece on Wavelengths is forthcoming at MUBI. I couldn't address every film, but here are some of the ones I did.

Slow Shift (Shambhavi Kaul, 2023) [TIFF / NYFF]

These stately boulders resemble Magritte paintings in the real world, and the entire array is occupied by dozens of frisky langurs, scrabbling up the rocks and waving their tails like they just don’t care.

Let's Talk (Simon Liu, 2023) [TIFF]

Let’s Talk alternates between unadulterated PRC propaganda and the real Hong Kong, with its fields of fugitive light and gesture. Liu’s connection to these places is palpable, and it’s often as though the celluloid can barely contain their energy.

Shrooms (Jorge Jácome, 2023) [TIFF / NYFF]

But wait. How does the pigeon know which balcony is the one for the apartment of a particular customer? I mean, these birds are smart, but they aren’t UPS.

It follows It passes on (Erica Sheu, 2023) [TIFF]

Sheu’s attention to the smallest cadences of light can perhaps best be described as calligraphic.

Light, Noise, Smoke, and Light, Noise, Smoke (Tomonari Nishikawa, 2023) [TIFF]

The sudden mandalas on a black screen represent the most essential cinematic mark-making, and Nishikawa’s halting rhythms recall the work of the late Luther Price.