Unhealed Wound – Page 35 – Passion for Art, Movies, and Culture

“Earthquake Bird”—An Unpredictable Flight

Written by Diana Paul on March 15, 2020. Posted in movie reviews. 1 Comment on “Earthquake Bird”—An Unpredictable Flight

Based on the titular novel by Susanna Jones, Earthquake Bird was released in November 2019. A psychological thriller with film noir features reminding this viewer of Alfred Hitchcock, Earthquake Bird is all about guilt and the insidious nature and burden of carrying it. More slow-paced with a scene or two reminiscent of Memento, this film captures the day-to-day life of guilt and jealousy, pulling back the curtain on what damage and unpredictability can do. In 1989 an American woman is discovered dismembered in Tokyo. Lucy Fly (Alicia Vikander), a Swedish...

“Mr. Sunshine” (2018): Jane Austen meets Downton Abbey

Written by Diana Paul on March 10, 2020. Posted in movie reviews. 1 Comment on “Mr. Sunshine” (2018): Jane Austen meets Downton Abbey

Viewers are treated, in this 24-episode series, Mr. Sunshine, to a glimpse of Korean history that few outside of Korea will be familiar with . Screenwriting legend, Kim Eun Sook, has created an intricate historical romance set in 1871, when a US military ship docked in Korea, wishes to expand into Asia for the exploitation of natural resources and land. We first are introduced to Mr. Sunshine , Eugene Choi (Lee Byung-hun), as a nine-year old Korean boy born into a family of slaves. In a dramatic turn of events, the little boy runs away with an American missionary to New York...

The White Ribbon [Das Weisse Band]

Written by Diana Paul on March 2, 2020. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. 1 Comment on The White Ribbon [Das Weisse Band]

[Guest reviewer Barbara Artson, author of the novel Odessa, Odessa ] Director Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon (2009) opens in total darkness. We see nothing but hear only the elderly voice of a narrator: “I don’t know if the story that I want to tell you is entirely true. Some of it I only know by hearsay, and after so many years it remains obscure today, and I must leave it in darkness.” And so the schoolteacher narrator, now an old man, begins his rendering in a series of flashbacks, depicting the mystifying and horrific happenings that...

“For Sama”—A Letter to My Daughter

Written by Diana Paul on February 24, 2020. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. 1 Comment on “For Sama”—A Letter to My Daughter

For Sama is the most searing documentary about war that I have ever seen. Nominated this year for an Academy Award for Best International Film, For Sama presents some of the most unflinching war coverage and remarkable and courageous footage. A love letter to her infant daughter Sama, born in Aleppo, For Sama is a Syrian mother’s first-person account of the bombing of her beloved homeland over a period of five years. Aleppo, at the time, was one of the last strongholds resisting the Assad dictatorship. Waad Al-Khateab is the Syrian producer, cinematographer and hero of this...

“Clemency”–No Mercy or Absolution

Written by Diana Paul on February 17, 2020. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. No Comments on “Clemency”–No Mercy or Absolution

What’s the psychological and moral cost to a society that administers the death penalty? That’s the question raised in Clemency, the winner of the Sundance drama award last year. So much more than a “death-row drama” , Clemency shifts the lens to the impact of bureaucratized human cruelty: a scathing portrait of the toll the process of administering an execution has on prison staff. We see how they are not executioners but bureaucratic cogs in a horrible machine of death. Sixty-something Bernadine (the remarkable African American actor Alfre...

The Report—An Exposé for Us All

Written by Diana Paul on February 10, 2020. Posted in movie reviews, Unhealed Wound. No Comments on The Report—An Exposé for Us All

Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EIT)—is the focus of The Report, a provocative Amazon political thriller. A Senate staff researcher, Daniel Jones (Adam Driver) is assigned by Sen. Diane Feinstein (Annette Bening) to investigate detainees held by the CIA in “black sites”. A shameful chapter of American history unfolds , where torture was re-introduced as a legitimate tool in pursuit of national security. The Report employs flashbacks of “enhanced interrogation techniques” that are frightening and harrowing. Flashing back to 2001 immediately after 9/11, the anxiety...