Not every film has an implicit
Thoreau signature reflective of the nineteenth-century Romantic turn from the
age of Reason. Not every film brings to mind the Romantic painter, Joseph M. W.
Turner (1775-1851), whose painting of nature’s green growing over classic Roman
pillars as if to say, nature has the last word. The European film, Strange River (2025), is
such a film. The key to making these connections lies not in the film’s dialogue,
but, rather, in Jaume Muxart’s consistent choice to direct the film by ending
several scenes with elongated camera-shots of nature. This leitmotif has
Thoreau’s Walden Pond written all over it and is an implicit critique of
rationality.
The full essay is at "Strange River."
