Antonio Gaudi, 1984

Hiroshi Teshigahara’s Antonio Gaudi is a spare, astonishing, and haunting documentary on the designs of famed turn of the century Spanish architect, Antonio Gaudi (1852-1926). A profound influence on the Spanish art nouveau movement, Gaudi’s sensual adaptation of Gothic, Middle Eastern, and traditional architecture is a truly a unique artistic vision. Teshigahara immerses the viewer […]

The Face of Another, 1966

An off-camera psychiatrist (Mikijiro Hira) overseeing a processed batch of prosthetic appendages describes his fragile role of diplomatically treating – not a patient’s physical imperfection – but rather, the psychological insecurity that underlies his seemingly superficial malady. The curious, fragmented shot of randomly floating, artificial body parts is subsequently reflected in an X-ray profile of […]

The Pitfall, 1962

Under the cover of darkness, a visibly harried miner (Hisashi Igawa) and his young, impassive son (Kazuo Miyahara), accompanied by another desperate co-worker, desert their employers at an unidentified mining village in order to strike out on their own as migrant hired laborers away from the inhumane working conditions of (and overreaching control exercised by) […]