Denis Lenoir's cinematography intersperses evocatively murky portraits of Tokyo nightlife and a rain-swept Paris with vertiginous animated sequences, then artfully blends the two styles.
"I use everything as a mirror," the German pop star Nina Hagen declares near the end of Peter Sempel's chaotic, murky, confrontational documentary portrait, "Nina Hagen = Punk + Glory," which opened yesterday at the Anthology Film Archives.
In the scene at the Rose Tavern portraits of Roman emperors hang on the walls: these are the idols of the so-called Augustan age, but on these murky walls all the portraits are defaced – except for Nero's.
The result: crisp and stark portraits picked out of murky blackness -- just heads, no longer cityscapes, the surroundings now blocked by the scaffolding.
The portraits of Carey's murky populace are a particular triumph: animated leather bladders who believe themselves human, women who vomit toxic darkness, or the poignant, random remnants of transformed, vanished children.
His portraits were heavy on contrast, all murky shadows and overwhelming columns of light, strange props, surreal situations, and the stoic, unfazed look on a subject's face.
The painstaking removal of layers of accumulated overpainting and murky varnish revealed Velazquez's signature brushstrokes on the Portrait of a Man, a three-quarter profile of a man in his thirties, sporting a jaunty moustache.
But before we delve into those murky depths, what did you think of "The Anthologist" as a portrait of writer's block?
Ms. Campion ("The Piano," "The Portrait of a Lady") is an inveterate navigator of the murkier zones of female sexuality, and "In The Cut," adapted from Susanna Moore's novel, plots a hazardous nexus of dread, danger and desire.
Ms. Campion ("The Piano," "Holy Smoke," "The Portrait of a Lady") is an inveterate navigator in the murkier zones of female sexuality, and this film, adapted from Susanna Moore's novel, plots a hazardous nexus of dread, danger and desire.
