Nonfiction filmmaking is at point of explosion with so many great works being made that defy the narrow boundaries of what is expected of the form. Dickinson stars as a tech exec tasked with figuring out how to market “Augmento” glasses, while using them to pursue his obsession with his friend’s girlfriend. The black-and-white world that Dickinson created with limited funds is one of the most visually exciting and inventive independent films in recent memory, with the comparisons to a young Kubrick not being entirely without merit. There’s a rich cinematic history of Amazon jungle films and “Serpent” absolutely belongs alongside Werner Herzog’s jungle survival masterpieces, as well as “Big River Man,” and James Gray’s recent effort “The Lost City of Z.” “ Creative Control”īenjamin Dickinson’s Brooklyn is a recognizable near future that explores the morally dangerous side of augmented reality. The result is a trippy, engaging fable that rips apart the way we talk about “progress” and “civilization” when discussing the collision of native cultures and the white western world. The film has two parallel stories, set 40 years apart, about two scientists’ desperate quest for a sacred healing plant. The term “visually striking” is often a cliché, but in the case of director Ciro Guerra’s “Embrace of the Serpent” there simply is no other way to describe the haunting images of his black-and-white “Heart of Darkness” journey down the Amazon river. It’s both a celebration of the gorgeous surfaces movies create, while deconstructing them from a piercing feminist perspective that might change how you watch movies.
Samantha Robinson is incredible as Elaine, who comes to a small coastal California town on the prowl for a new husband after killing her last one. Instead, writer-director Anna Biller seems almost ahead of her time, inviting the audience to enter a violent female gaze as playful as it is deadly serious. Sure, it looks like a late-era technicolor film - shot on 35mm, with deliciously saturated production and costume design - but this isn’t nostalgic kitsch. You have never seen anything like this film. Here are seven recent gems you shouldn’t miss. What often gets lost in Amazon’s suboptimal browsing interface is the number of recent lower-profile indies on the service that feature some of the most exciting filmmaking of the last year. Between funding auteur-driven Amazon originals like Jim Jarmusch’s “Paterson,” Park Chan-wook’s “The Handmaiden,” Kenneth Lonergan’s “Manchester By the Sea,” and their exclusive deal with A24 (“American Honey,” “Lobster,” “Swiss Army Man,” and “Moonlight” which arrives 5/21), Prime has a good percentage of the best titles. In the battle for what will be the premier streaming home for current independent film, Amazon Prime is showing signs that it could top Netflix, FilmStruck, and MUBI.
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