Story and You

(image via The Playlist) May was the kind of month where I look back and think, hey, maybe I really do watch too many movies. I watched so much and to be honest, some of these films could have used more time for reflection than I gave them as I just kept moving on to the next thing. With that being said, this was also a month where I often went out of my comfort zone and really learned a lot a variety of filmmakers and styles of filmmaking that I was previously ignorant of. In particular, I watched a lot of documentaries this month, my supposed least favorite genre--and discovered that I just have not been watching the right documentaries, as is usually the case when I make broad statements about film genres or movements. I watched Monterey Pop, Gimme Shelter, and Dont Look Back , all incredible and engaging looks into the 60s rock scene; the adorable and informative Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story ; Icarus Film's 8-film DVD retrospective of Jean Rouch's work; ...

(image via The Guardian) The 1995 French film La Haine fits comfortably in the longstanding tradition of realist filmmaking in Europe, but it uses these traditional conventions to tell an entirely modern story, highlighting painful realities regarding the link between racism and violence in the late 20th-century. While La Haine's visual style evokes the stark, gritty black-and-white iconography made famous by the Italian neorealism movement in the 1940s and 50s, this stylistic decision is not merely an homage to European film history: it is a choice made for the express purpose of contrasting the characters with their environment, furthering the themes of the narrative through visual storytelling. The sparse black-and-white images initially appear to bring order and to assure an adherence to a "safe", classical style of filmmaking, but this sense of order is quickly dismissed as unattainable as the film's violent world is revealed. One visually notable scene see...