Seventh Row is a nonprofit Canadian film criticism publication and publishing house. We're dedicated to helping you expand your horizons by curating the best socially progressive films from around the world and helping you think deeply about them. This newsletter is run by Seventh Row (http://seventh-row.com) but features exclusive content not found on the website.
The key to great character dramas
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Hello Reader, A great character drama isn't just interested in its characters as individuals but as people responding to the world around them (other people, the culture, systemic structures, etc.). So many movies make the mistake of becoming star vehicles without realizing the star can only shine as bright as the world they're responding to. But there's a new movie out this week that exemplifies this definition of a great character drama: a film as interested in the characters at its centre as the world around them which defines them. That film is... The Girl with the NeedleIt's Denmark's Oscar submission for Best International Film and one of the year's best films. Set around WWI in Copenhagen, The Girl with the Needle sits at the edge between social realism and horror, a black-and-white film about a young woman in crisis in a society that's indifferent at best and actively cruel at worst. But her choices (and the choices of a woman she meets and starts to work for) can only be fully understood through discovering the world they're living in. Today on the podcast...I discuss what good world-building looks like and why it's so important, using The Girl with the Needle as the exemplar. Then, I talk to the film's director, Magnus von Horn, about how he conceived the world of the film (shooting in black and white, working with miniatures, and beyond!) and what that taught him about the characters' choices. Happy watching/listening! Alex P.S. The December Globetrotting Newsletter, which offers streaming recommendations for under-the-radar films, goes out on Friday at 6 p.m. ET. Sign up now so you don't miss it!
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Seventh Row
Seventh Row is a nonprofit Canadian film criticism publication and publishing house. We're dedicated to helping you expand your horizons by curating the best socially progressive films from around the world and helping you think deeply about them. This newsletter is run by Seventh Row (http://seventh-row.com) but features exclusive content not found on the website.
I have a theory that when you see a film that changes you — that makes you feel seen in a whole new way or reorganizes how you think — you remember where you were when it happened. You remember the cinema you saw it in (or the couch you were sitting on). You remember who you were with. When a film feels like a discovery, you remember the exact conditions that made it possible for you to even see that movie. Maybe most crucially, you remember where you were in life at that moment that made you...
On Tuesday, I’m offering The Short Take — a free, one-time-only live workshop I’ve run once before — but I’m not sure I’ll ever run it again. We’ll be watching a 22-minute fiction-documentary hybrid short from 2017— the year Britain marked the 50th anniversary of decriminalizing homosexuality. The BFI commissioned this film, along with several others, to look back on that history. The film is thought-provoking and layered — and invites you to really look at how queer history is told, and who...
I recently discovered a tiny pasta shop a few blocks from my apartment (aptly named Tiny Market), where every weekend, they offer a different fresh pasta for takeout. They sell out fast. And if you snooze, they may never bring that particular recipe back. So time and again, I've found myself trying out pastas that I never would have ordered at a restaurant. I'm still thinking about a pasta I took a chance on a month ago, and loved enough to go back for twice in three days. Now, they sell...