Volume 2, Issue 3 / August 1998

Fantasia 1998

1) Mother and Son
Donato Totaro , – 23-09-98

I have left for last the most powerful alienating effect on nature, Sokurov’s use of special distorting lenses and mirrors that give the image an oblique, quivering feel. It is a unique form of distortion, one that has had many viewers baffled. When

2) Fant-Asia 1998: The Year of the Torture, Part 1
Donato Totaro , – 15-10-98
Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival returns for its third successful year, presenting challenging Asian and International films. Read here for in-depth converage of Montreal’s most popular (populist?) film fest.

3) An Introduction to Korean Cinema
Peter Rist, – 16-10-98

For the second year in a row, Le Festival des Films du Monde is putting the spotlight on a country in which the cinema is at the heart and soul of its nation’s culture. Susan Sontag recently pronounced that cinema is dead because cinephilia is dead.

4) Fant-Asia 1998: The Year of the Torture, Part 2
Donato Totaro , – 19-10-98
The extreme levels of violence found in Hong Kong and Japanese films confounds many Western viewers because Western culture, unlike most Eastern cultures, tends to moralize violence. Read on for a cultural contextualisation of violence Asian style.