Criterion Collection
Articles and Essays on Criterion Collection
Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987)
There is a moment in a child’s life where an instant word or action they committed was something they would immediately regret but could never take back. The reason why these moments usually happen within our childhood is because when we are younger we aren’t yet trained to think before we act. Unfortunately one of these instant […]
Continue
Spirit of the Beehive, The (1973)
The film opens in the year 1940 in a small isolated Spanish village on the Castilian plateau, as a ramshackle truck arrives as the village’s children scamper around it shouting, “The movies coming! The movies coming!” A screen and projector are set up within the public hall, as children and adults gather together to see the James […]
Continue
Cranes Are Flying, The (1957)
Any realistic portrayal of World War II wasn’t permitted when the Soviet Union was under the strict and dominating control of Joseph Stalin. “The effective prohibition on any honest depiction of the war until Stalin’s death paralyzed cinema,” wrote Josephine Wall. Stalin controlled the film industry with an iron fist and used fear, murder and […]
Continue
Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962)
It is said in France that between the afternoon hours of five to seven, those are the magical hours that lovers first meet one another. And during these two hours of Agnes Varda’s film Cleo from 5 to 7, nothing can be further from the truth. (Even though technically the film is clocked in at only 90 minutes.) […]
Continue
Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)
Infidelity was one of the many bleak themes that Swedish director Ingmar Bergman dwelled on within his films and his early film Smiles of a Summer Night is one that greatly emphasizes that. Smiles of a Summer Night, Bergman’s witty sex comedy, came at a time in which Bergman’s marriage, and love affair was deteriorating, and he was extremely […]
Continue
