Strategy of Tragedy: Chen Overdoses on Drama in Sprawling Family Portrait
The most succinct aspect of Singaporean filmmaker Anthony Chen’s latest feature, We Are All Strangers, which focuses on a modern day working class family in a country usually only defined by its opulence, is the title. Despite the prolonged running time, clocking in at over two-and-a-half hours, which allows for what feels like an endless parade of unfortunate events, the pressure cooker approach superficially bonds us to its characters’ woes, but we really don’t know too much about them at all. They are indeed strangers. If Edward Yang is who Chen aims to emulate, this falls perilously short by comparison (and, in fact, feels more spiritually aligned with something like Father of the Bride Part II, 1995).… Read the rest
Long have Chinese filmmakers used the medium of film to address China’s growing industrialisation and embrace of capitalism. Modern master Jia Zhangke comes to mind as an inspiration but few have tried something quite as unique as with Light Pillar. For his debut animated feature, Xu Zao (also known as Xu Jingwei) has crafted a sometimes baffling, visually daring dreamscape grounded in reality with genuinely unique formal decisions. The animation is pushed to its limits as he weaves live-action performers into its zany, eclectic world — though not in any way you’ve seen before.… 
The sovereignty of Australia was never officially ceded by its First Nations peoples, succinctly stated in the 1980s slogan “
True to form, or rather, anti-form, 
