Unhealed Wound – Page 2 – Passion for Art, Movies, and Culture

Anna–A Woman Warrior a la “La Femme Nikita”?

Written by Diana Paul on March 4, 2024. Posted in movie reviews.

This unexpectedly stylish action movie from French filmmaker Luc Besson opens in 1990 at a local Moscow market. Anna, a beautiful young Russian (Sasha Luss), is selling Matryoshka nesting dolls. A talent scout offers her work in a Paris modeling agency, a chance for her to leave a future of poverty in a relationship with an abusive, violent thief. As Anna progresses, Anna’s life improves: as a popular model in Paris–particularly with Russian oligarchs. A KGB agent (Luke Evans from The Alienist) recognizes her utility as a covert spy and she...

Past Lives (2023)–You Only Remember One

Written by Diana Paul on February 26, 2024. Posted in movie reviews. 1 Comment on Past Lives (2023)–You Only Remember One

In Celine Song’s directorial debut, the Academy-Award nominated Past Lives, we see an exploration of a long-distance friendship between two childhood playmates from South Korea. Nora (Greta Lee) moves with her family to Canada when she is twelve years old. Her friend Hae-sung (Teo Yoo), still yearning for her years afterwards, remains in South Korea pursuing his professional career as a lawyer. While both have a shared past as the closest of friends, as adults that is insufficient for a long-sought reunion by Hae-sung. Anything but bittersweet and frustrating, nonetheless the...

Society of the Snow–The Taste of Friendship

Written by Diana Paul on February 19, 2024. Posted in movie reviews. 1 Comment on Society of the Snow–The Taste of Friendship

Society of the Snow is a riveting Spanish film nominated this year for an Academy Award as best foreign film. The opening scenes feature a team of young rugby players ready to board an Uruguayan flight to compete in an international competition in Chile. All hyped up, testosterone driven to realize their team’s rise to international stardom, the team’s plane crashes into one of the remotest parts of the Andes and into the most hostile terrain imaginable. Society of the Snow is based upon the 1972 Andes plane crash that is the Donner Pass equivalent of a brutally...

American Fiction–Truth or Dare

Written by Diana Paul on February 11, 2024. Posted in movie reviews. No Comments on American Fiction–Truth or Dare

The 2024 Academy-Award nominated indie film, American Fiction, directed by Cord Jefferson, is based upon the 2001 novel, “Erasure”, by Percival Everett. Black novelist and literature professor Thelonious Ellison (Jeffrey Wright), nicknamed “Monk” (perhaps after the famous jazz musician) is incensed that his novels are not well-received by readers, both Black and White. An academic specializing in Greek mythology and drama, his books are nonetheless shelved under African American literature in bookstores. Monk is an upper-class intellectual with a gay brother (Sterling...

Year of the Dragon 2024–February 10, 2024, through Jan. 28, 2025

Written by Diana Paul on February 5, 2024. Posted in Unhealed Wound. No Comments on Year of the Dragon 2024–February 10, 2024, through Jan. 28, 2025

Happy Lunar New Year, everyone! Good luck from dragon fire breathed into your lives with excitement and creativity! 2024 is the Year of the Wood Dragon. It is particularly a favorable time for change, growth, and progress. The combination of the dragon’s dynamic energy and the grounding and stabilizing influence of the wood element will inspire imagination, leadership, and the creation of new ideas. In general, the dragon is a harbinger of great fortune, yet unpredictable, regardless of what type of Dragon year we are in. Its mystery is never...

A Small Light–In a Very Dark World

Written by Diana Paul on January 29, 2024. Posted in movie reviews. No Comments on A Small Light–In a Very Dark World

A Small Light, a National Geographic eight-episode miniseries, chronicles the life of a young German woman in her twenties, Miep Gies (Bel Powley). Sent as a little girl by her mother to a more safe environment in Amsterdam, unaware that Amsterdam is on the verge of being overtaken by Fascism. Miep, emotionally abandoned by her family, begins work for Otto Frank (Liev Schreiber) in his pectin factory, manufacturing the essential ingredient for making jam and jelly. Soon, however, her boss will be forced to take his family into hiding from the Nazis. Bravely, Miep and her husband...