Features : Cinelogue

On that note, some find themselves entirely swayed by the aesthetic edge of the man’s work. It has been remarked that Park is some kind of Asian Quentin Tarantino. There’s an abundance of irony in that classification, not least of all considering where Tarantino finds most of his best ideas. Beyond that there’s a very different undercurrent to Park’s films- a spark of insight that reminds us that one is a philosophy graduate while the other graduated from a video store. His work is often violent, sometimes pushing boundaries that send casual viewers running for the exits, but it is also steeped in a cautious affection both for people and cinema itself. Park is always looking to unveil more, to dig deeper into both his characters and us.

In the more than two decades since their first feature, an often tumultuous and uncertain period in American cinema, the Coens have carved their legacy in stone. They have a distinctive voice that will not be silenced nor succumb to the whims of pop culture or pressure from the studios. Whatever your opinion of the duo or their cinema, one can’t deny the tenacity of their vision. Here’s to hoping they persevere and continue to provoke and spellbind us for two decades more.

The story of Kurosawa is more than the story of a man who did this or that, more than an accumulation of successes and praises. It all started with Sugata Sanshiro, a film that effectively punctured centuries of flat Japanese composition with its unchained camera. Kurosawa began by painting in three dimensions, but the innovations wouldn’t end there. Over the course of a dozen films, his increasingly confident style of telling a story with framing and movement, a narrative complexity rare in the cinema of any country at the time, would influence countless artists both consciously and subconsciously.