Blu-Ray Review | 35 Shots of Rum | 2008
Perhaps it's because it was my first encounter with Claire Denis as a budding young cinephile, but 35 Shots of Rum has always held a special place in my heart. Perhaps too it's due to my general affinity for the work of Yasujiro Ozu, because this film is Denis' loving riff on Ozu-ian themes; a widowed father facing loneliness as his adult daughter falls in love and contemplates getting married and moving out. It's a classic Ozu storyline, most indelibly captured in his 1949 masterpiece, Late Spring . But Denis is not one to simply retread what has been done before, and she puts her own spin on 35 Shots of Rum 's bittersweet father/daughter tale. She sets the mood immediately - Lionel (Alex Descas) is a train conductor, we follow him riding the rails in cinematographer Agnes Godard's dusky hues, accompanied by the melancholic noodlings of Tinderstick's dreamy score. If any filmmaker can be said to be a master of creative vibes, it's Denis, and 35 Sho