The Big Picture Magazine
Watching Kei Shichiri’s Once Upon a Dream (Nemuri-hime, 2007/2016 – a remastered version with surround sound was released in 2016) in May 2020, at a time of isolation imposed by measures taken to combat the spread of COVID-19, creates a strong sensation of both strangeness and familiarity. Shots of deserted streets and trains without passengers […]
Gaspar Noe’s psychedelic foray into the drug-soaked, neon-lit underbelly of central Tokyo is an acutely realised claustrophobic nightmare; a cacophony of wincing lights, narrow corridors and squalid rooms where humans scrabble to procreate and self-destruct in an unrelenting cycle of misery and personal tragedy. It’s long and grandiose, beautiful and repellent; a two-and-three-quarter hour tour […]
Joy Division was always slightly apart from other iconic Manchester bands: darker, sharper and alienated from the swagger and mischief. As a band they were also geographically slightly apart. They hailed from and remained, largely, in nearby Macclesfield throughout their brief period together. As a young man Anton Corbijn created some of the most iconic […]
Depiction of the architecture of the future is the ultimate expression of the relationship between cinema and the built environment. Credible realisation on film required budgetary and technical restrictions to be overcome, but also an awareness of actual architectural achievement and an understanding that the distance between the present and any projected future is rather […]