It may have its place in film history as a proto-gangster film and I’m always interested in seeing von Sternberg’s work, but this one just never grabbed me. The pace is slow, the story and its love triangles are uninteresting, and the morality elements are heavy-handed. The only point I perked up was when one character says he isn’t interested in women, which I thought might be a nice early example of openness about homosexuality before Joseph Breen started enforcing…

This film has a strong first half, with a Jamaican country boy coming to the city after his grandmother has died setting the stage. While he struggles to find work and make his way in the world, we’re treated to scenes of the island and its people, which was cool. I loved seeing Jimmy Cliff and loved the soundtrack, which included several of his hits (‘The Harder They Come’, ‘Many Rivers to Cross’, ‘You Can Get It If You Really…

Temptation, flirtation, fixation. The strange ways the heart and libido work, set amidst gorgeous light and color, and to a wonderful soundtrack. Those masks at the sex cult were fantastic! But some of the film’s most erotic moments are in its first 20 minutes, when flirtation comes from the eyes and mouth, and a terrible nearness. Nicole Kidman is brilliant in this, and I thought it was clever of Kubrick to bookend the film with an opening shot of her…

“Growing up, I saw everybody else fall in love. I saw Europeans fall in love. I saw Americans continuously fall in love. But I never saw Africans fall in love. I saw Africans procreate. I saw Africans affected by HIV and AIDS, but those weren’t love stories. And so more than anything, I wanted to add a love story to African film history, and that’s why I made Rafiki.” -- Director Wanuri Kahiu

A touching story of two young women…