Anatahan

Duncan Gray

Sternberg's best film? Well, it's definitely one of his most experimental, structured like he dove into one of his fantasias and reported on it like a newsreel. It's a fine and dandy allegory for the carnality that drives civilization, though I caught myself missing the wit and rapture of his more opulent Dietrich films. Still, this is a statement of his obsession: women transcending a world run and dominated by men.

Howard Orr

A grim and beautiful film, full of light and shadow, movement and horror, and not a little wonder at the destruction man can wreak. I don't feel embarrassed to point out the obvious and say that the jungle is a metaphor for all that's dark inside us, or that it's oddly appropriate that the image of Anatahan at the very end of it could be Mount Fuji at the beginning of any Japanese film.

Warren Spratley

Sternberg's greatest achievement?

FISCHER

cette avant-dernière création du cinéaste, où il cumule à la fois les fonctions de réalisateur, de producteur, de scénariste, de chef-opérateur, tout en assumant lui-même la voix off de la narration, se présente comme une splendide virtuosité cinématographique, de part sa fulgurante mise en scène du rapport de l'homme au désir, de la femme à la séduction, de la civilisation face à la barbarie. www.cinefiches.com

Stephane Tanaka

I'd like to love it: cult, rare, based on a serious true story (12 sea fishermen "imprisoned" 7 years with one pretty girl...); but... it's long and slow and too classical/theatrical (not in a Brooks or Greenaway way) and most of time not very catchy... Lack a bit of craziness and good shootings. I know, it was 1953...

le Gars

4,5 "The ideal film will be a synthetic one" (Josef von Sternberg)

Stian Gledje Bekkvik

Yes! Of course! This is cinema!

Samuel Andrade

★★★★ lost paradise.