Beauteous western landscapes be damned! Hellman’s recreation of the idealized American past is Hell, man. Stupid men find their brains blown out; intelligent men are cursed to waste and wither away under the sun’s brutality. Gorgeous tableaus of red, yellow and brown, stone faces poking into those rays of gold on the cowboy’s back, are entirely absent. In their place we find the sallow, greyed dunes of sand that sap the life blood of any fool who travels across them…

Immigrants go out of the frying pan and into the fire, as the saying goes. Ostensibly a road movie, Pawlikowski focuses in on the idea of “what if it entirely took place at the first stop?” Introspection about why said journey was taken in the first place ensues. The promise of the West is shaky at best to the people who live within its boundaries but a dream to strive for to outsiders. Tanya comes for a better life, a…

What a joy it is to be alive, saturated by the warm blues and reds of passionate city life. The people may not be perfect but are Greek gods in the half-light. I want to hang with them; they’re so goddamn real and human. And music, of course, is the heart of all that we consider life. Beautiful, overlooked film. It’s a tragedy where the main character is allowed redemption, to learn from the mistakes of his fathers and so…