Search

Search only in certain items:

A Brighter Summer Day (1991)
A Brighter Summer Day (1991)
1991 | Crime, Drama, Romance
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"Taken together, Edward Yang’s two masterpieces run nearly seven hours. I would give almost anything for more of either. Mathematically structured and teeming with ideas, characters, wisdom, and feeling, they move with astonishing humanity through every big thing: love, family, alienation, technology, cinema, politics, globalism, history, regret, obsession, murder, sex, time, adolescence, and so much more. Despite their novelistic hugeness, Yang’s genius feels approachable rather than impossible. (As opposed to Hou Hsiao-hsien, for example.) This quality also inspires the tantalizing thought that, hey, I could do that. No, no I can’t. I really encourage listening to the wonderful commentaries on both: Edward Yang and critic Tony Rayns for Yi Yi, and, in an act of epic insight, Rayns solo for A Brighter Summer Day."

Source
  
40x40

Connor Jessup recommended Yi Yi (2000) in Movies (curated)

 
Yi Yi (2000)
Yi Yi (2000)
2000 | Drama, Romance
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"Taken together, Edward Yang’s two masterpieces run nearly seven hours. I would give almost anything for more of either. Mathematically structured and teeming with ideas, characters, wisdom, and feeling, they move with astonishing humanity through every big thing: love, family, alienation, technology, cinema, politics, globalism, history, regret, obsession, murder, sex, time, adolescence, and so much more. Despite their novelistic hugeness, Yang’s genius feels approachable rather than impossible. (As opposed to Hou Hsiao-hsien, for example.) This quality also inspires the tantalizing thought that, hey, I could do that. No, no I can’t. I really encourage listening to the wonderful commentaries on both: Edward Yang and critic Tony Rayns for Yi Yi, and, in an act of epic insight, Rayns solo for A Brighter Summer Day."

Source
  
40x40

Emma Watson recommended The Complete Persepolis in Books (curated)

 
The Complete Persepolis
The Complete Persepolis
Marjane Satrapi | 2003 | Biography, Comics & Graphic Novels
8.8 (5 Ratings)
Book Favorite

"Satrapi grew up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution and its aftermath; Persepolis is the story of her childhood. Through Marji’s youthful (though not-always-innocent) eyes and mind, we see a turbulent moment in history unfold, and we witness the tremendous impact that local and global events and politics can have on even the most intimate moments of personal lives. We experience with Marji her day-to-day dreams and struggles, from family strife to wrestling with religious faith and custom. We’re swept up in her parents’ anxieties and her grandmother’s memories of an utterly different era. And we get a very real sense of what it was like to be a woman in Iran during this intense time of cultural and political transition."

Source
  
Outstanding insight, meticulous and moving
Other than historians and international lawyers you will not have heard of the lawyer Hersch Lauterpacht yet he is a very important figure in Philippe Sands' magnificent book.

East West Street is different and distinct in many meaningful ways, telling the fascinating story of the beginning of international human rights, but rather do so as dry legal history it focuses on two of the most significant individuals.

The author weaves the stories of Lauterpacht and Raphael Lemkin into Sands' own personal family story, which all tie into the 'city of lions' (Lviv/Lwow/Lemberg) in the first few decades of the 20th century. Both men and Sand's own family lived here, a place where East and West meet, hence the book's title.

It culminates into their assistance with the Nuremburg trials of ten senior Nazi figures, with Lauterpacht preparing the first drafts of the opening and closing speeches of the chief prosecution. Crucially he crafted the wording of Article 6 of the Nuremberg Charter, enshrining crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression into international law. Lemkin, in the same vein, constructed the concept of genocide, even coining the term.

And Sands discusses his detective work to find answers to numerous questions about his family. In the end his journey reveals tragedy, but a tragedy lightened by knowing the truth.

This is an outstanding book by a barrister, filmmaker and writer. It reeks of intellectual strength, and truly superb.