The following article is an excerpt from the new edition of “In Review by David Ehrlich,” a biweekly newsletter in whichour Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the site’s latest reviews and muses about current events in the movie world. Subscribe here to receive the newsletter in your inbox every other Friday.
Given the state of things at home, I thought that I’d give this week’s newsletter a decidedly foreign bent and focus what little attention I have left on my favorite contenders for this year’s Best International Feature race. The United States might feel like a lost cause at the moment, but at least the movies can spirit us away to idyllic places like … um, modern-day Iran and 18th century Austria.
Okay, so maybe America isn’t special in its suffering, but until the shock of what just happened wears off I’d honestly just prefer to think about any country that doesn’t care about Joe Rogan. And while the admirably gonzo but audaciously miscalculated “Emilia Pérez” might be a shoo-in for the Oscar, especially with Payal Kapadia’s miraculous “All We Imagine as Light” getting left out of the race, I only see that as all the more reason to shine a light on the beautiful things that our world still offers in small doses, especially as they’ve seldom been so easy to overlook. I’m still eager to catch up with some of the top contenders myself (with Palestine’s “From Ground Zero” being at the absolute top of my list, and Brazil’s “I’m Still Here” not far behind it), but for starters you should keep your eyes peeled for these six great films over the coming months.
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“Cloud” (Japan)
An action film as only “Cure” and “Pulse” director Kiyoshi Kurosawa would think to make one, “Cloud” leverages the social disaffection at the heart of his analog horror masterpieces into a sterile — but eventually bullet-filled — morality tale about the dehumanizing nature of digital communication. The first hour is a slow accumulation of the petty crimes (and other various insults) that the internet allows people to commit against one another from a distance, and with the benefit of anonymity. The second hour observes what happens when those petty crimes reach a critical mass, and the animus that’s been welling up on social media spills into the real world with the deadly force of a double-barreled shotgun. Not timely at all!
If Kurosawa’s work has long displayed a morbid fascination with the relationship between diffuse psychic distress and localized physical violence, “Cloud” updates the filmmaker’s signature focus for a modern world that’s enmeshed in an infinite (but invisible) network of small cruelties and bitter grievances — a network so ubiquitous that even the better angels of our nature might drive us straight into hell. Almost too mundane to care about until it becomes impossible to stop watching for much the same reason, this riveting and highly unusual shoot-em-up finds Kurosawa returning to his roots, only to discover that psychological terror isn’t quite as abstract as it used to be. It’s extremely cool that Japan had the good sense to submit this movie to the Oscars, and I hope that decision makes it easier for people to see it.
“Cloud” is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
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