Reviews

With the entire film intact so many of the ambiguities that made the original release seem uneven are smoothed out. Every scene is a work of art. This is cinema on the grandest of scales.

Unfortunately, so are greed, racism, and hatred it would seem. These are precious moments in time forever captured on film so we can remember, and hopefully affect positive change by virtue of this amazing woman and the foundation of goodwill she and others poured.

To be very brief, by virtue of the manipulation of the images such as going backward in time, Vertov provides his audience with the tools to understand the medium they are being immersed in. The artificiality of the entire experience will immediately make one aware of the absurdity of the action on the screen, thereby understanding, subconsciously at least, that what they are watching is a 'fiction'.

I think that because there are no grand statements nor tragic events that this film is being ignored as a mere trifle of pseudo feminism. Marginalization is not something that one immediately considers as the stuff of academy award winning films... this is not the female retelling of 'Dead Poet's Society', this is a story about the indoctrination and marginalization of a population that, for the purposes of a very masculine, patriarchal, and militaristic set of circumstances aka WWII, had the opportunity to taste the sweet fruits of freedom and choice for a very brief but calamitous moment in time and then chose to claim that freedom as manifest destiny much to the chagrin of the order of the time that expected that, like the subservients that they once were, would simply slide back into their previous positions as caregivers and abuse takers.

This three piece omnibus benefits from superior art and idea, but may not appeal to those who like their anime psycho sexual and bloody. The three stories rely on character, plot and structure all buoyed up by brilliant visuals and a wicked and witty sense of humor... one has to wonder why this is not more readily available as it compares in strength and quality to Animatrix.

One has to wonder what the hell is wrong with Miramax and the W Brothers? The director's cut of Dust Devil is superior cinema! Brilliant visuals, innovative camera work, mystical, compelling narrative that takes time to flesh out character... wow I guess I just answered my own question. Richard Stanley is a great talent, one can only hope that he will somehow get back into the Cinemadrome someday soon.

Frenetic, hyperkinetic hommage to Seijun Suzuki(Branded to Kill) and Shohei Imamura(Vengence is Mine) employs innovative amalgam of edgy cinema to deliver an outrageously twisted Yakuza/Superhero genre hybrid.

Boasting solid perfs and surprisingly well developed central characters, this odd foray into the psycho-sexual works as both off-the-wall cult item and stylized spoof all the while threatening to seduce us, through slick, smart, highly skilled filmmaking, into believing that it's brilliance is merely accidental.

Well crafted and employs a valid artistic foundation but ultimately it is what the producers want it to be and that is conventional. and since I have made my comment and the rules state that I must at least write 4 lines I will attempt to impress you with my meaningless banter so that I may fulfill my literary prerequisite.

When I first watched this film in '85, on video, I ignored it because it wasn't up to the gore quotient of Dawn of the Dead but I have, over the years, come to regard this as smart, referential, and entertaining. Classic 'B' cinema!!!