One of the most piercing distillations of paternal oppression and toxic masculinity I've ever seen, Mike de Leon's Kisapmata slithers its way under your skin, constructing a familial nightmare that mercilessly builds towards its finale. Abject authority only leads to violence. An incredible film that is structurally tense and progressively restricting traversing its narrative with a rich, subtextual underbelly. An incredible film that deserves to be seen.
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An incisive, empathetic portrait of welfare in which assistance itself isn't viewed in any pejorative way. Rapturously portrays the dehumanizing nature of a system plagued by the marginalization intrinsic to bureaucracy and embedded with racism. Emotionally affecting, having such a great sense of dramatic escalation in a way that never feels contrived. Impeccable in its illustration of the entangled relationship between class, race, and gender-normative expectations in American society
The text of the film itself provides ample opportunities for variant readings - how past familial trauma can be transferred generationally, how society holds women to higher standards when it comes parenting, and how much property managers suck lol. A ghost story which effectively builds atmosphere and really features a phenomenal lead performance by Hitomi Kuroki. One could certainly argue the whole film is an ode to mothers.
"Maybe I should just give this whole thing up and go look for a job"
An absolutely deranged found-footage horror film that is difficult to properly qualify on initial approach. The documentary artifice is cunning and effective, subtextually crafting a rather vivid portrait of abject paranoia and how conspiracy theories manifest themselves. Salient in its exhibition of how some people grasp for meaning or purpose as a way to escape the banality of their existence, which makes the film's horror aspirations all the more effective in the back-half. Very funny in moments, largely due to the filmmaker at the center of this investigation having absolutely no social skills. An extremely clever repurposing of the found-footage horror film that had become increasingly derivative and stale over the years. |
AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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