Category: International
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For our final screening of the semester, I was surprised. Throughout this course, I came into every screening expecting there to be sharp and cutting violence that jolts the senses, but The Son (2002) does so differently. The film’s realist tendencies undercut how sometimes the worst part of violence is not just the act itself,…
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During the Bosnian War (1992-1995), a Bosniak soldier by the name of Ciki falls into a trench after being ambushed by Bosniak Serbs. One of the Bosniak Serb soldiers, Nino, is held hostage by Ciki after the latter ambushes him, and despite some antagonism, the two are tenuously bonded by the need to survive after…
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Grave of the Fireflies (1988) defines itself as a relentlessly grim film from start to end. The opening scene sees siblings Seita and Setsuko run frantically through Kobe as it is firebombed, and while they make it out alive, they are nevertheless terrified. When Seita learns that their mother died during the attack, he and…
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During the Russian Civil War, Vasily Chapaev organizes a ragtag band of Red Army troops in the impoverished countryside against the White Army. After forming a bond with Furmanov, a commissar from Moscow, the White Army advances against Chapaev’s forces, despite the Red Army’s proficiency with a machine gun. However, Chapaev dies in the crossfire,…
BEYOND THE FRAME 