Politics | Cagey Films

Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985): Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on June 11, 2025June 14, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Office drone Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) has heroic fantasies in Terry Gilliam's Brazil (1985)

Criterion’s new edition of Terry Gilliam’s masterpiece Brazil (1985) presents an impressive new 4K restoration which highlights the dense, endlessly inventive production design of Gilliam’s blackly comic dystopian vision of a world run by an oppressive but utterly incompetent bureaucracy, even more pertinent now than it was in the middle of Reagan’s presidency. The three-disk, dual-format set includes a comprehensive history of the production and the controversy surrounding Gilliam’s fight to get the film released, as well as the truly awful alternate “Love Conquers All” cut put together by Universal in a misguided attempt to make the film “more commercial”.

New limited editions from Second Sight, part one

Posted on January 15, 2025January 14, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Patrick Stewart plays an atypically sinister role as the leader of neo-Nazis in Jeremy Saulnier's Green Room (2015)

Two recent limited editions from Second Sight approach horror from very different angles – classic Hammer Gothic in Terence Fisher’s Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974), and contemporary Right-wing violence in Jeremy Saulnier’s Green Room (2015).

The 5th Hong Kong International Film Festival, part ten

Posted on December 21, 2024December 16, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Greece's past and present clash in complex ways in Theodoros Angelopoulos' Alexander the Great (1980)

Part eight of my review of what I saw at the Fifth Hong Kong International Film Festival covers my introduction to the great Greek filmmaker Theodoros Angelopoulos, who addresses the fraught political history of 20th Century Greece in four thematically rich and visually stunning features made between 1972 and 1980.

The 5th Hong Kong International Film Festival, part nine

Posted on December 14, 2024December 14, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

An office drone (Donald Sumpter) suspects that his life isn't what it seems in Paul Bamborough's The Tom Machine (1980)

In this, the longest section of my notes from the Fifth Hong Kong International Film Festival, I cover the English-language films from Britain, Australia and the U.S., which include documentaries, mainstream movies, films about sexuality and toxic chauvinism, class conflict and ennui.

The 5th Hong Kong International Film Festival, part six

Posted on November 23, 2024November 24, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

A pair of resistance fighters hiding as a married couple fall in love in István Szabó's Confidence (1980)

Part six of my review of what I saw at the Fifth Hong Kong International Film Festival covers a handful of Eastern European films which range across history and politics and into fantasy.

The 5th Hong Kong International Film Festival, part two

Posted on October 26, 2024October 25, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Two friends engage in conflict over politics and religion in Permpol Cheyaroon's Red Bamboo (1979)

The second instalment of my review of what I saw at the Fifth Hong Kong International Film Festival in 1981 covers films from Thailand, Turkey, China, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Glauber Rocha’s Black God, White Devil (1964): Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on July 17, 2024July 15, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Manoel (Geraldo Del Rey) joins the outlaw band of cangaceiro Corisco (Othon Bastos) in Glauber Rocha's Black God, White Devil (1964)

Criterion’s two-disk Blu-ray release of Glauber Rocha’s Black God, White Devil (1964) not only presents and impressive restoration of a key film in Brazilian cinema; it anchor’s an impressive survey of the Cinema Novo movement which transformed that cinema in the early 1960s, with two feature-length documentaries – on Rocha himself and the larger movement – a commentary by the film’s restoration supervisor, and a 1964 documentary about the cangaceiro outlaws who formed a crucial element in the background of Rocha’s feature.

Mikhail Kalatozov’s I Am Cuba (1964): Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on April 24, 2024April 22, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

A crowd bears away a murdered student in the wake of a riot in Mikhail Kalatozov's I Am Cuba (1964)

Mikhail Kalatozov’s I Am Cuba (1964) uses the striking cinematography of Sergei Urusevsky to create a fever dream version of the Cuban Revolution, a series of archetypal moments of oppression and resistance leading to an ecstatic explosion of justified communal violence. Filled with heightened emotions rendered in breathtaking images and seemingly impossible camera movements, the film looks gorgeous in a 4K restoration on Criterion’s Blu-ray.

Action and politics in ’70s thrillers

Posted on May 31, 2023May 30, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Nice large-scale miniatures in Andrew V. McLaglen's North Sea Hijack (1980)

Thrillers may exploit real-world issues for story material, but often distort and trivialize reality in their quest to entertain. The terrorism which erupted and spread during the 1970s is used in quite different ways in Otto Preminger’s Rosebud (1975), John Frankenheimer’s Black Sunday (1976) and Andrew V. McLaglen’s North Sea Hijack (1980).

Political thrillers, horror and metaphor

Posted on February 1, 2023April 8, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Three recent releases blend reality and fiction to explore political themes, with varying success. Alain Jessua’s Les Chiens (1978) is an allegory of Fascism, while Jean-Claude Lord’s Mindfield (1989) and Jayro Bustamante’s La llorona (2019) are both rooted in real crimes, the former turning history into pulp entertainment, the latter into a haunting exploration of national trauma.

Tag: Politics