A Pilgrimage to Cinema

(Note: The recently-concluded QCinema International Film Festival (Oct. 19-28) had a new section called Digitally-Remastered, which featured, among others, " Blow-Up " (1967, UK/Italy), Antonioni's cult classic and first English-language film. That was a rare chance that I didn't let pass. It's in this regard that I have re-posted this piece, which I wrote back in 2003.) With Michelangelo Antonioni's emergence as a filmmaker, a new face was given to Italian cinema. It was not the oppressed and hard-luck face one sees in Vittorio de Sica's films (" The Bicycle Thieves " and " Umberto D. "). Nor was it the superficially flamboyant and jolly face one notices in Federico Fellini's works (" La Strada " and " La Dolce Vita "). Rather, the kind of face one encounters in Antonioni's films bears the stamp of contemporary urban life - blank, weary, estranged, lost. In essence, Antonioni can be considered as the ci...

There are spectacular sci-fis and there are philosophical sci-fis. From the former, we can count, for example, the " Star Wars " films of American filmmaker George Lucas;from the latter, we can cite some of the works of Russian auteur Andrei Tarkovsky, particularly " Stalker " and " Solaris ". Denis Villeneuve's new film, " Blade Runner 2049 " (2017, USA), properly belongs to the second group. After the recent release of Christopher Nolan's viscerally-thrilling " Dunkirk ", Edgar Wright's coolly-original " Baby Driver " and Darren Aronofsky's bonkers-as-hell " mother !", here's another film funded by a major Hollywood studio that's not exactly "mainstream". These films are just pure cinematic experience of the highest kind. Of course, given the nature of the material and with Roger Deakins on board as the director of photography, "Blade Runner 2049" is not short in ...