The Ascent: Criterion Collection (Blu-ray) by Justin Remer The Movie: There are two films I've seen critics cite in reference to Larisa Shepitko's 1977 film The Ascent, and I can't resist mentioning them too. The first is Elem Klimov's Come and See, which is another harrowing World War II film that examines Soviet hardships and Nazi cruelty. (Klimov was also Shepitko's spouse.) The second is Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc, which is another film that uses expressive close-ups to represent existential anguish and spiritual transcendence.These references suggest the style of The Ascent somewhat but don't quite capture Shepitko's masterful synthesis of...Read the entire review »

Still Life in Lodz by Oktay Ege Kozak "Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future"David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas)Still Life in Lodz, a haunting and hopeful documentary in equal measure, follows the journey of three Polish jews, ex-pats whose families immigrated to the USA and Israel, coming back to the Polish city of Lodz in order to reconnect with the ghosts of the past. Lodz once supported the biggest Jewish population in Poland, until Hitler Germany's invasion of the country in 1939 tore it apart and burned it into ashes for good measure.Paul Celler, an American who describes in vivid detail the stories of his ancestors' death at the hands of the Holocaust is solemn when he reveals how the non-Jewish neighbors who were friends with his family cheered when they were publicly humiliated by the Nazis. On the ot...Read the entire review »