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Floating World

Floating World is not a Tomatometer-approved publication. Reviews from this publication only count toward the Tomatometer® when written by the following Tomatometer-approved critic(s): Dustin Chang.

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Rating Title | Year Author Quote
Ariel (2025) Dustin Chang With stunning Azores' backdrop and his signature color tinted images, Patiño creates another hypnotic, dreamy film that is both thoughtful and whimsical.
Posted Dec 30, 2025  Edit critic review
The Secret Agent (2025) Dustin Chang The Secret Agent is about rebuking anti-intellectualism by having university researchers both past and present the heroes of the film which is also very pertinent in our own political climate.
Posted Dec 24, 2025  Edit critic review
If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (2025) Dustin Chang It's all about the hole both physical and metaphysical- the hole in the ceiling, the hole in the daughter's belly, giving birth, the black hole and the unknown universe, the empty space in Linda's life...
Posted Dec 22, 2025  Edit critic review
Die My Love (2025) Dustin Chang Ramsay makes a point that the film is not about Grace (Jennifer Lawrence) suffering from depression, but how a young woman is perceived when she behaves outside societal norms.
Posted Dec 22, 2025  Edit critic review
One Battle After Another (2025) Dustin Chang OBAA is a fantasy, based on Thomas Pynchon's Vineland, which was published in 1990 in the throes of the Bush Sr. regime. If anything, it shows that nothing much has changed- the kidnapping and deportation of the undocumented & overarching racism.
Posted Dec 01, 2025  Edit critic review
Bugonia (2025) Dustin Chang As Bugonia progresses to an absurdist territory with much blood shed, you are left with that cold feeling that we are supremely manipulated to and fro for laughs. But who is laughing anyway?
Posted Nov 29, 2025  Edit critic review
No Other Choice (2025) Dustin Chang The film touches upon a lot of modern society's illness with satirical humor. And usual, Park Chanwook is a first and foremost visual stylist. There's more visual ideas in No Other Choice than most Hollywood releases in a year combined.
Posted Nov 24, 2025  Edit critic review
Nouvelle Vague (2025) Dustin Chang Linklater, coming from the experimental indie filmmaking background, knows his history of cinema and understands how to pay homage without being nostalgic and sentimental about the New Wave and its influences that had on him as a filmmaker.
Posted Nov 20, 2025  Edit critic review
The Ice Tower (2025) Dustin Chang It's usually the negative space behind the façade that looms over all of Lucille Hadžihalilović's films, keeping all the mysteries intact and bewitching us to come back time and time again to see her dark and hypnotic artistry.
Posted Nov 14, 2025  Edit critic review
Sentimental Value (2025) Dustin Chang Sentimental Value is not about one thing, but about a lot of things- parents, siblings, history, art, trauma, loneliness and most importantly, love. Something that AI can never reproduce or emulate, at least not yet. My favorite film of the year by far.
Posted Nov 08, 2025  Edit critic review
Rabbit Trap (2025) Dustin Chang Verging on magic realism, the moss and fungus invading the interior of the cottage as Davenports are put under the spell of the child is truly a wonder (thanks to production designer Lucie Red). Patel and McEwen have terrific chemistry together.
Posted Oct 29, 2025  Edit critic review
Frankenstein (2025) Dustin Chang The story of a madman's obsession destroying everything he loves and blaming it on his own creation, their unbreakable bondage and finally forgiveness really moved me in the end. Del Toro created something classy and beautiful here.
Posted Oct 23, 2025  Edit critic review
Sirāt (2025) Dustin Chang It's not making a grand statement about the hopelessness of the state of the world. It shows how random death stalks, that grief is universal, that we can't ignore the suffering of others because, again, we are all in this together.
Posted Oct 08, 2025  Edit critic review
Resurrection (2025) Dustin Chang Bi, with Kaili Blue and Long Days, cultivated cinema as a waking dream with languorous filmic language with implausibly long takes and dreamlike atmosphere. Resurrection, its ironic title notwithstanding, is an elegy to the cinema and its history.
Posted Oct 05, 2025  Edit critic review
It Was Just an Accident (2025) Dustin Chang After being released from his jail sentence & years of house arrest in 2023, the prolific Iranian filmmaker doesn't shy away from being bluntly critical about the totalitarian regime of his country, while showing ordinary people's humanity not being lost.
Posted Sep 29, 2025  Edit critic review
Weapons (2025) Dustin Chang Over-exposition kills the movie magic. There's no mystery left. Cregger understands that.
Posted Sep 10, 2025  Edit critic review
Caught Stealing (2025) Dustin Chang Caught Stealing can be set present day or any other time in New York city's checkered history. Sure there's a talk of gentrification, Giuliani and Mets, but no one in the movie seems to be affected by them at all.
Posted Sep 10, 2025  Edit critic review
Eddington (2025) Dustin Chang Muddled in its messaging, the film plays out like a sub-par South Park episode, a vanity project of a self-absorbed director who thinks he is smarter than everyone else.
Posted Aug 01, 2025  Edit critic review
What Does that Nature Say to You (2025) Dustin Chang Hong, as usual, is showing his cynicism toward young artistic types. It's probably because he went through that phase himself and now can look back and have a laugh.
Posted Jul 06, 2025  Edit critic review
The Sparrow in the Chimney (2024) Dustin Chang As with their last two films, Strange Little Cat and The Girl with the Spider, The Sparrow presents Zürcher's unique visual style. The difference is that Zürcher's scope of visual filmmaking has grown and much more expansive.
Posted Jun 26, 2025  Edit critic review
28 Years Later (2025) Dustin Chang Boyle and Garland is not really up to making a blockbuster here, even though 28 Years Later is extremely Spielbergian- full of sentimentality with half-assed philosophizing.
Posted Jun 20, 2025  Edit critic review
Hard Truths (2024) Dustin Chang Mike Leigh and his collaborators, this time, the great Marianne Jean Baptiste as the lead, dig deeper into prevailing humanity underneath all the bitterness and hate. And it's a sight to see.
Posted Apr 24, 2025  Edit critic review
Misericordia (2024) Dustin Chang Think Misericordia as stripped down, depoliticized, working class Teorema where one person seduces everyone around him willingly or unwillingly.
Posted Mar 30, 2025  Edit critic review
Armand (2024) Dustin Chang With the strong performance from Reinsve, Armand is a commendable first feature from a promising young director.
Posted Feb 03, 2025  Edit critic review
Presence (2024) Dustin Chang When all said and done, Presence is not that memorable, just like any other Soderbergh film. Yes it's a cool small formalist genre exercise with the POV, but it's so devoid of any context that it leaves your head as soon as you leave the theater.
Posted Jan 30, 2025  Edit critic review
Thelma (2017) Dustin Chang Trier tries on his first genre film. But instead of making a typical teen superhero flick, he portrays being adolescent truthfully - frightening sexuality: massive confusion where you can't trust your feelings nor your body & the terror of being in love.
Posted Jan 22, 2025  Edit critic review
Personal Shopper (2016) Dustin Chang Hyper capitalism vs. Spirituality.
Posted Jan 22, 2025  Edit critic review
By the Time It Gets Dark (2016) Dustin Chang Dostoevskian concept- like a tobacco leaves and fungi, to give them meaning and purpose, these layers Suwichakornpong presents will need to sit and rot. I am just amazed by her wisdom & skills to convey this kind of complicated thoughts through film.
Posted Jan 22, 2025  Edit critic review
JLG: Self Portrait in December (1995) Dustin Chang The year is 1993- The Bosnian War is still raging, the signing of the uneasy Oslo Accord after much bloodshed and injustices. European Union was formed. The film reflects Godard's contemplation on these matters and mortality, art and culture & cinema.
Posted Jan 22, 2025  Edit critic review
Yourself and Yours (2016) Dustin Chang Hong's interest is not in identity crisis or duality of men. His double takes and alternate scenarios may seem manipulative but the movie is more to do with accepting a person for who that person is. It's also got to do with men's folly.
Posted Jan 22, 2025  Edit critic review
L'Immortelle (1969) Dustin Chang More so than Last Year at Marienbad, L'Immortelle plays with the images and its hidden meanings. A pair of woman's sandals, a caress of a neck, a view from a window - every shot becomes iconic and powerful.
Posted Jan 22, 2025  Edit critic review
Toute une nuit (1982) Dustin Chang Night is a powerful equalizer - in the shadows, we can hide all our imperfections. In the shadows, night is also an enabler for those who act on their impulses. This is how I felt watching Toute une nuit. No one does loneliness like Akerman.
Posted Jan 22, 2025  Edit critic review
Malgré la nuit (2015) Dustin Chang It is perhaps the most narrative heavy Grandrieux film to date. But the images he presents here is still tour-de-force. The alienness of white human skins against darkness make strong visual impact & brings out visceral, emotional reaction from me.
Posted Jan 22, 2025  Edit critic review
The Green Ray (1986) Dustin Chang Rohmer gently, beautifully sketches out a woman who suffers greatly from loneliness but too stubborn to be outgoing. The Green Ray makes me think about the relationships in the age of social media where everyone wears their emotions on their sleeves.
Posted Jan 22, 2025  Edit critic review
La Notte (1961) Dustin Chang La Notte might not be the most cinematic of Antonioni's. But with older, knowing protagonists, it is a lot more impactful & sadder than L'eclisse. The last scene, as the unhappy couple trying to have sex is perhaps the saddest movie ending ever.
Posted Jan 22, 2025  Edit critic review
The Trout (1982) Dustin Chang Losey wanted Bardot. The choice makes a lot of sense: a sexpot who can't be controlled by surrounding men & slip away from their grasp like a trout. But she would've been too obvious of a choice & it would've been less interesting. Huppert is god in this.
Posted Jan 22, 2025  Edit critic review
The Holy Girl (2004) Dustin Chang The sordid details of the lives of middle class bourgeoisie can be seen as melodrama. But as in all Martel's films there is always a it's-barely-there-but-there satire. I can't really think of any director working today who works on Martel's level.
Posted Jan 22, 2025  Edit critic review
The Terrorizers (1987) Dustin Chang Edward Yang's Terrorizers briskly, busily sets up the premise in the beginning twenty minutes. The film is a puzzle piece that doesn't resolve neatly, yet done in smart, intriguing way, you can't help but admire Yang's skills as a filmmaker.
Posted Jan 22, 2025  Edit critic review
Malina (1991) Dustin Chang It goes completely bonkers in the last 30 minutes as things turn completely surreal. Huppert gives all to her blistering performance as a woman who desperately needs to validate her existence.
Posted Jan 22, 2025  Edit critic review
Suzanne (2013) Dustin Chang We only get the glimpse of Suzanne's life every 5 or so years, not in a calculated way, but more fleeting, observing someone's life with a sense of melancholy. This way, Quillévéré eliminates a feeling of being manipulated that comes with filmmaking.
Posted Jan 22, 2025  Edit critic review
The Passion of Anna (1969) Dustin Chang Emotionally bare and structurally, technically jarring, The Passion of Anna is a deeply pessimistic, open wound of a film.
Posted Jan 22, 2025  Edit critic review
Another Sky (1954) Dustin Chang Writer Gavin Lambert, a friend of writer Paul Bowles, perfectly captures the melancholy and loneliness of the desert in his only film. It's about magnetic force of the desert landscapes, being lost while searching for something unattainable, a mirage.
Posted Jan 14, 2025  Edit critic review
10:30 P.M. Summer (1966) Dustin Chang 10:30's strength is in its visuals- with a lot of overhead tracking shots and zoom-ins, the striking color photography and the crazy tango bar scene are quite beautiful and energetic. It resembles Antonioni's work. But not Dassin's best work.
Posted Jan 14, 2025  Edit critic review
Shame (1968) Dustin Chang Shame is a complex anti-war film. The setting, its fuzzy time frame are almost expressionistic against realistic performances of the actors. It denounces war, any war and shows how it sucks humanity out of normal people. And what an ending!
Posted Jan 14, 2025  Edit critic review
Near Orouët (1971) Dustin Chang Du côté d'Orouët is more interested in capturing the excitement of summer vacation and its fleeting nature. Mostly handheld sunkissed cinematography has an intimate home movie feel to it.
Posted Jan 14, 2025  Edit critic review
Nosferatu (2024) Dustin Chang Even the sex and nudity can't liven up this dull, sodden version of the story.
Posted Jan 01, 2025  Edit critic review
The Brutalist (2024) Dustin Chang Corbet mistakenly assumes that giving a movie a 3 hrs 35 min runtime and a historical background as having a literary air. Accumulation of these images and narrative threads that goes nowhere don't automatically give the film depth. PT Anderson he ain't.
Posted Dec 22, 2024  Edit critic review
Late August, Early September (1998) Dustin Chang The film sketches out very naturally a creative person's life and its ups and downs and the meaningful relationships he forms. As usual, jobs don't define these characters. Their interactions feel genuine and truthful. Their joy and sorrow deeply felt.
Posted Dec 19, 2024  Edit critic review
Anora (2024) Dustin Chang Soon as Ani realizes that there's not going to be a fairy tale ending, the grim reality sets in - we are duped again by the rich. We are just playthings for the rich. And that is not a good thing to be reminded of at this climate.
Posted Dec 19, 2024  Edit critic review
It's Not Me (2024) Dustin Chang It builds up to a stormy solo piano session of the theme from The Young Girls of Rochefort, played by his daughter, Nastya - perfectly capturing the essence of Carax's career, his sentimentality, his art and beauty. One of the year's best.
Posted Nov 30, 2024  Edit critic review
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