The year is 1967. It's a groundbreaking year for music — psychedelia is in full force, The Velvet Underground are inspiring the next generation of bands, and The Beatles have perfected the art of the concept album. Rock idols are our saviours! The seismic force of their cultural impact still reverberates today and it also reached the shores of Latvia, a baltic country sharing borders with Estonia and Lithuania.
Four White Shirts, a Latvian film directed by Rolands Kalniņš in…
Frankly, I debated a lot about this film. It's something that Netflix clearly assembled in the afterglow of their Oscar win, perhaps in an effort to re-promote the short or to encourage viewers to watch the even shorter segments.
I debated whether it should count among Wes Anderson's feature film filmography. I debated whether this should be a 2023 film or ranked for 2024 and how those arbitrary release technicalities complicates my obsessive list-keeping, largely wishing Netflix strung it together…
Sorry to Jodie Comer and Michael Shannon, if you go up against Tom Hardy in a silly voice contest you are going to lose. Even Austin Butler knows to bow down to the champ.
The bleakest and most intense film Wes has ever made. I couldn't have taken another five minutes.
I've been coming to terms with the lingering damage my childhood bullies did to me. I had buried it down and I only started talking about it for the first time recently. It was never anything as severe as what's depicted in the film, but there's a catharsis here in the mere act of storytelling that I found very affecting. It tore my heart to shreds.
