​A visual and aural tapestry that elucidates the imbalance in our global world. Far more striking in its social-political undertones than Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi examines the rapid ascent of industrialization in the third-world, using image and sound to exhibit the contention between tradition and modernity through its haunting visual constructions. The transnational promises brought by neoliberalism are viewed with a keen eye, as the film questions the coercive effect of such global movements in which force is wielded for the sake of perceived social progress. As hypnotic and stimulating as one would expect from Godfrey Reggio & Philip Glass yet what perhaps surprised me the most about Powaqqatsi is its polemic denouement - the ending title card an explicit repudiation of these faux promises of modernity and industrialization, illustrating the culling of distinct culture and traditions which takes place under the coercive push towards modernity where social autonomy cannot be embraced.

​Tsui Hark's Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind is a film which I somewhat feel ill-equipped to write about, in large part due to my inability to fully grasp the specificity of what it exhibits through a polemic display of disobedience and rebellion.  Perhaps one of the most defining works of "Punk cinema", Hark's stark vision of Hong Kong violently expresses the collective angst of its people in constant conflict. Caught between the forces of transnational capital and commerce brought by modernity and colonialism, and that of traditional hegemony in which Hong Kongers struggle to find their own unique identity, Dangers Encounters of the First Kind is a grim, violent descent into collective angst purveyed through youth aggression.  Hark deploys a bleak and kinetic style that is very much attuned with the somewhat shapeless narrative, enunciating this sense of angst, despondency, and aggression through a formal structure that largely feels inconsequential from the perspective of the power structures which oversee the colony.  Subjugation breeds anger and an eruption of violence, yet for Tsui, there is no escape for this Hong Konger, as despite their rage, they are nothing more but a rat in a cage under the current paradigm of governance in which the tenuous political situation between foreign and local interests rages on but with little promise of a resolution.

An immersive experience, Schrader's hyper-expressive direction evokes the disorienting psyche of Patty Hearst as her world, and everything she knows is turned upside down in a matter of minutes.  Confined spaces, contrasting light with darkness, and a general observational approach that is rigorous in its attention to detail, the opening act of Patty Hearst is effectively a masterclass in atmospheric filmmaking.  Schrader's film may be classified as a tad reactionary when it comes to his examination of this far-left movement yet how the film uses spatiality, juxtaposing Patty's bourgeois upbringing with that of her revolutionary present, is a beautiful exhibition of the pervasive ways in which privilege itself is detached from ideology.  While It seems fair to say this film struggles to maintain the inertia of its opening act, Schrader's film is not so much about politics as it is about a portrait of privilege from a non-pejorative perspective, demonstrating through its narrative schematics a character in Patty Hearst whose never had cognitive autonomy.  Whether it be the ideology of the bourgeois persuasion or that of the revolutionary left, Schrader's key focus here is not in politics per se Patty Hearst's lack of identity, in a sense exhibiting how her inability to forge her own perspective has left her susceptible to persuasion on all fronts.

Sophia Coppola's On the Rocks is a breezy but effective work, a film that manages to demonstrate the pervasiveness of self-doubt through a congenial tone that never feels particularly high-stakes.  Perhaps this is due in part to the simple fact that the characters it profiles come from a place of elevated status, class, and privilege, but I think such a statement does ignore what the film is capable of accomplishing.   The narrative revolves around the plight of an upper-crust Manhattanite who begins to suspect her husband may be cheating on her.  While one does find themselves rooting for and caring for this woman, I couldn't help but notice how much On the Rocks perfectly aligns with Apple+'s highly affluent brand aspiration, a film which in a sense feels insignificant due to the state of the world.  Buoyed heavily by Bill Murray's infectious performance as a flamboyant elder bachelor and father to our principal character, On the Rocks wields a film grammar rooted in repetition, elucidating the mundanity of domestication for this once proud novelist who now finds herself stuck-in-a-rut, effectively forced into the caregiver role due to the normalization of strict-gender roles in a patriarchal society.  The strength of this film lies in this juxtaposition between our principal character and her misogynist father, one which slowly reveals how their relationship bolsters her insecurity and sense of self-doubt and her marital status.  His myopic and binary perspective on gender roles infuses his younger daughter with a host of insecurities, blinding, and disrupting the sense of trust she had originally built up with her husband.  The film is playful and breezy while touching on some interesting thematic ideas, yet I couldn't help but wonder how much more pointed and effective the film would have been if POV was completely flipped to that of the husband, played by Damon Wayans, a character whom one can implicitly surmise didn't come from money, whose perceived despondence as of late ends up being due to his desire to impress his privileged wife with his company's success, given her successful, upscale family.

Jamaa Fanaka's Emma Rae re-contextualizes the tyranny of the status quo through the lens of the African American experience.  It's a tacit repudiation of the normalization of afro- pessimism / despondency while being explicit in its desire for direct community action against an oppressive state apparatus that manufactures division and dissent in the working class through social schisms, which in this case are exemplified via the rural/urban divide. Emma Rae and her narrative arc aren't rooted in martyrdom but are instead emblematic of a society deeply entrenched in systemic racism which suppresses working-class people and their struggle for economic security under the simplistic, deceptive promise of the American dream.​

"The balance of nature gets imbalanced sometimes, I suppose it's man's fault".  Phil Karlson's The Big Cat is an effective Western melodrama, an ode to the frontier which synthesizes man with nature through a fish-out-of-water motif.  Set in the depression era, The Big Cat effectively encapsulates the epoch, one of desperation which is largely caused by man.  Through its narrative arch, the film exhibits in many ways how modernity is a facade, a false pretense which detaches man from its place in nature, and through its rugged aesthetic constructions the film elucidates how self-determinism is detached from man-made dichotomies between rural and urban, modernity and tradition.  As stark as it is hopeful, The Big Cat adheres to this notion of personal action while fully acknowledging that when it comes to the natural world there is still plenty of which is out of man's control.