The Film Comment Letter

Parallel lines: Park Chan-wook’s epic detective story Decision to Leave is the most overtly romantic entry in Park’s often blood-soaked filmography

Through the looking glass: Jafar Panahi’s No Bears offers a timely story about the real and imagined borders—national, social, religious—that constrict the freedoms of Iranians

Love bites: Claire Denis’s first “straightforward thriller,” Stars at Noon, is a too-oblique portrait of the exploits of Western colonialists abroad

Multi-tasking: Edward Yang’s 1994 ensemble piece, A Confucian Confusion, wryly weaves references to the ancient philosophy into a relentlessly busy big-city network narrative

Tick-tock: the Swiss director discusses his anti-nostalgic approach to historical narrative, summoning an everyday sense of the past, and the central place of objects in his film, Unrest

Truth claims: the French-Senegalese filmmaker discusses the real-life roots of her fiction debut and what it means to embody universality in a Black woman

It takes two: the Portuguese auteur discusses how his latest, an innuendo-filled sci-fi musical fantasy, parlays past injustices and present-day anxieties into a euphoric vision of the future

Ambient environment: dark “plumes,” musical flourishes, and semiotic quandaries abound in Noah Baumbach’s sweetly astringent satire, White Noise

Face to face: Martine Sym’s firecracker feature debut, in theaters now, abounds in bold text, bolder colors, and wry humor to explore the construction of Black feminine identity

Mommy dearest: a host of titles from the recently wrapped TIFF explore the complexities of the modern family, including The Eternal Daughter, Saint Omer, So Much Tenderness, and more