Capsules on LITTLE WOMEN and ONE CUT OF THE DEAD for Reverse Shot's 2019 - Two Cents

I provided commentary on two lovely films of 2019 for Reverse Shot’s annual round up of things we missed (2019 - Two Cents): Greta Gerwig’s terrific adaptation of Little Women and the ‘best film of 2019’, Shin'ichirô Ueda’s One Cut of the Dead.

“Best Aging Effects: Little Women
Both Eliza Scanlen and Timothée Chalamet were cast for their resemblance to young girls; Amy (Florence Pugh) is transformed from a hormonal free spirit to a poised woman of the world purely through immaculate physical performance; the extended use of close-ups on the later period Jo (Saoirse Ronan) emphasizes Yorick Le Saux's deft lighting nuances; and if you think you spotted a touch of grey in luminescent matriarch Laura Dern's hair, I put it to you that this is pure projection. The poster tagline for The Irishman was “Time Changes Nothing.” Well...yes and no.”

“Best Film of 2019 (in 20 years time): One Cut of the Dead
This zero-budget guerrilla zombie comedy from Japan's Shin'ichirô Ueda is actually not a zero-budget guerrilla zombie comedy at all. Ueda credits his audience with supreme cinematic sophistication and then predicts our every reaction in advance: he hacks the fourth wall to pieces, builds a fifth, and incinerates that too. Disgusting, hilarious, bewildering, terrifying, and beyond poignant, it combines elements of Marker, Antonioni, and Chaplin without having been obviously influenced by any of them. And it’s a stone-cold, unequivocal masterpiece. But you don't know this yet. You will know this in twenty years time when we've all finally managed to get our heads around it. I just hoped I could be the one who told you this first.”