Saturday, July 12, 2014

Kaurismäki + Kurosawa!


Hello all! It's been a good few months since I last had some new writing to share, which was when an essay I wrote about Aki Kaurismäki was published in the 92nd issue of the Toronto-based film journal CineAction. I have been keeping up with my exploration and admiration of Kaurismäki, whom I now consider to be possibly my absolute favourite filmmaker, and now I have a new piece to my name that examines his work! In my latest essay, which is included in the 71st issue of the online film journal Senses of Cinema, I pair the Finnish master of conscientious deadpan comedy up with an at-first unlikely counterpart: Akira Kurosawa, that fabled maker of samurai epics, nail-biting Tokyo noirs, and humanist dramas. It is within the last category where I find common ground between Kurosawa and Kaurismäki, particularly in the context of Kurosawa's One Wonderful Sunday and Dodes'ka-den and Kaurismäki's Drifting Clouds and The Man Without a Past.

Intrigued? Please check out the whole essay here - and feel free to let me know what you think! Also, take the time to sift through the other contents of the issue (tackling Alfonso Cuarón, David Lynch, The Hunger Games and Romanian cinema, to name just a few of the subjects!). As I so often am, I am very proud to be included amongst such talented soldiers of cinema.

As always, thanks for reading!

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