‘Komorebi’ connects us to natural world in two recent Japanese movies

Film
We noticed it right away. Evil Does Not Exist, the new film by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, director of Academy Award-winning DRIVE MY CAR opens with a long montage of treetops in a forest. Hey! We just saw something very similar in Wim Wenders’ Academy Award-nominated movie, Perfect Days (2023). This marvelous film, an artsmeme favorite, also had ...

‘Perfect Days’: Wenders’ cinematic diary of dappled light & shadow

Film · Reviews
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Soon after the pandemic, acclaimed German filmmaker Wim Wenders was invited to witness Tokyo’s award-winning urban renewal project, The Tokyo Toilet, in which renowned designers reimagined the typical urban public restroom. Wenders, who is also a celebrated documentarian (Buena Vista Social Club, Pina, and the new Anselm), was expected to craft short films about each ...

Wim Wenders brings PINA to Aero Theatre Mon Feb 16

Dance · Film
Fresh from the Berlinale festival conferring its Honorary Golden Bear on the 69-year-old filmmaker for lifetime achievement, Wim Wenders, the son of Düsseldorf beloved by the dance world, as well, for his magisterial filming of Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal in PINA, the American Cinematheque has nailed the hot-hot-hotter Wenders (on March 2, the Museum of ...

Happy 75th birthday, Laemmle Theatres!

Film
At arts·meme, we love movie theaters and none has sustained us better over the past two decades than the wonderful seven-location art-house chain Laemmle Theatres. Over the next week, the Laemmles are celebrating a significant birthday, with great screenings and charitable donations. Two of the screenings here, Monday, December 16, Noho Seven, North Hollywood: Wim ...

Between “Pina” and a hard place 4

Dance · Film · Reviews
Heavy-hitting filmmakers are turning their cameras on dance and it’s an honor. It’s also a puzzlement, to the dance world. It surprises us. We thought that the only folk attending dance performances were fellow dancers, parents, and dance critics. But clearly we were wrong. Other artists – filmmakers – love dance too. With “Pina,” German ...

Preparing for “Pina”? Watch Sprockets.

Dance · Film
German filmmaker Wim Wenders’s sumptuous new film about the choreographer, Pina Bausch, is a wonder for the eyes — tucked though they are behind thick 3-D glasses. The film, “Pina,” opening in L.A. on 13 October, is marketed as a documentary. But aren’t ya ‘spozed to learn stuff from a documentary? Part of the film’s ...

Wim Wenders in-person at Aero Theatre retrospective

Film
Director Wim Wenders began his career as a member of the new German cinema movement of the 1970s; along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Werner Herzog, he brought German culture and film to an international audience. Throughout his career, Wenders has been interested in identity and landscape, coupled with a deep sense of observation and ...