Nancy Zastudil interviews acclaimed director Blackhorse Lowe, how David Lynch found his late style with "Lost Highway," and reviews of "Both Sides of the Blade," "Elvis," and more.
“I’m focused on contemporary Native American stories, the modern-day ups and downs of that lifestyle, but I’m not trying to do it in a traditional manner,” the award-winning filmmaker told Hyperallergic in an interview. | Nancy Zastudil “All of my themes kind of come from my earliest teachings and understandings of story, which come from the Navajo creation story. So I try to apply it to what’s going on now but with a more modern, darker sensibility,” he said. “I’m always more interested in the people who have to go through the spiritual struggles, just trying to find a way out of darker places and into the light.” A 4K restoration of the film offers a new chance to untangle its uneasily ambiguous, highly bifurcated plot. | Cole Kronman A new box set of four of the Iranian director’s features offers a great opportunity to get to know his singular style. | Forrest Cardamenis Ignored and undistributed upon its debut in 1982, in the decades since, the film Losing Ground has slowly gained the recognition it deserves. | Jourdain Searles Stuffed with references to historical and contemporary film, Olivier Assayas’s miniseries version of his own 1996 film Irma Vep is sometimes too clever for its own good. | Dan Schindel Baz Luhrmann’s film Elvis and Danny Boyle’s miniseries Pistol are both overly fixated on the influence their respective musicians’ managers had on them. | Jake Cole Fans of director Claire Denis should check the film out, but as an agnostic, I find it one of her few truly awful pictures. | Sam Bodrojan Croatian filmmaker Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović’s debut feature accurately captures a certain kind of Balkan machismo. | Manuela Lazic |