The British New Wave had several key characteristics closely linked with social realism and the British documentary movement. These films follow ordinary lives, without unrealistic characters, but most importantly were “free from the pressures of the box-office or the demands of propaganda” (Dupin, n.d.). This short essay explores if A Taste of Honey (Richardson, 1961) was a typical film of the British New Wave.
Guillermo del Toro is known for creating fantastical tales of conflict – whether it is humanity’s fight for survival against the Kaiju in Pacific Rim (2013), Hellboy’s discovery of his origins in Hellboy (2004), or Ofelia’s desire to escape reality in Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), there is always some form of conflict which is central to the premise of the film. He uses this to his advantage when exploring the history of the Spanish Civil War in The Devil’s Backbone (2001).
Russian Ark (Sokurov, 2002) was shot in one continuous take and travels through the history of Russia. The impression given is that Sokurov feels that the Siege of Leningrad was too important to exclude from the film, but he wanted to move on quickly having covered it.
The tensions between East and West Germany are approached carefully in Contemporary German Film, or, at least that is the case in Good Bye Lenin! (Becker, 2003).
Meadows didn’t set out to make a particularly political film but did admit in an interview with IndieLondon that it was “probably the closest thing to a political film I will ever make”. This short essay explores what unites and divides characters within This Is England (Meadows, 2006).
Could it be that Leos Carax was trying to prove Raphaël Bassan wrong after Bassan classified him a “director of the look”?