Now that we’ve ed the midpoint of 2024, it’s time to check in on our Letterboxd stats. Thanks to a handful of trips to film festivals, I’ve logged more movies than there have been days in the year so far. That’s not unusual for someone whose job is, in part, to keep up with what’s going on in cinema culture. What’s strange, at least for me, is the number of movies I’ve rewatched in 2024.

The sheer number of titles released (and re-released) every year can be intimidating, but it also carries a certain urgency. There are so many movies I haven’t seen yet, why spend time watching ones I’ve already experienced? A few reasons, actually: Sometimes, it’s been long enough that it may as well be a first-time watch. Things can jump out on a rewatch that you didn’t notice the first time. There are those times when you have a new friend or love interest, and you’re making sure that your tastes are compatible. (Good luck!)

Perhaps most importantly, you already know that your favorite movie is going to be good. Whatever your reasons for rewatching (or not), Shelf Life covers both the classics and the best new-to-us titles in (re)circulation.

Peter Strickland / A Curzon Collection

Box set available on Blu-ray July 15 from Curzon.

Hukkle

4K restoration in theaters now from Dekanalog.

Technically, Dekanalog’s 4K restoration of Hungarian director György Pálfi’s debut feature Hukkle premiered last month at the BAM Cinématek in New York. But it was such an unusual and intriguing find—not to mention a strong recommendation for Peter Strickland fans—that I just had to include it here. Pálfi is another director best described as a “sensualist,” as well as one who manages to be quirky without being insufferably cute. Hukkle has the aura of “sitting on your porch and just listening to the sounds of the world around you,” as Levi describes it, wordlessly observing life in a rural Hungarian village with an eye for natural beauty and poetic irony.

The film unfolds in a series of vignettes, beginning with an old man with the hiccups, whose rhythmic gulping provides a sort of heartbeat for the film. We follow residents—both human and animal—as they go about their daily business. Although there are hints that something sinister is going on, the animals don’t really care. They notice when the ground shakes or the wind blows, of course. But what does it matter to the pigs and fish and sheep if humans are dying?

The result is a radical shift in storytelling perspective, “a story told without prioritizing humans” that’s calming and a little unsettling at the same time—or a “less emotional, low-budget, foreign Tree of Life,” says Kelsea. If people are just animals like any other, then a wedding day—or a murder—is no more significant than the giant swinging testicles on a pig as he ambles down a country road. Jake calls it a “brilliantly observed slice of human frailty and insignificance” that “[shows] the human characters as the most inconsequential of all the flora, animals, and cycles of nature they meander through as if they’re astronauts in a strange land.”

With a note for animal lovers that Hukkle contains a scene of a cat being poisoned that’s upsetting but staged (according to the director’s commentary), as well as real footage of frogs and moles dying, Pálfi’s film is currently touring art houses across North America.

Burden of Dreams

4K restoration from Argot Films in theaters beginning July 19 at Film Forum.

The production of Fitzcarraldo was full of broad strokes and cascading disasters, but the director of Always for Pleasure and Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers (two of my favorite documentaries of all time, for what it’s worth) had an eye for detail. That shines here through Blank’s fascination with the Indigenous tribes who played the chorus in Herzog’s self-destructive tragedy: His camera studies the faces of Amazon people as they regard the folly around them, and lands on a young boy wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt while Herzog laments the loss of Native culture. “Herzog makes his film through force of will. Blank makes his through observational intimacy. When I was young I wanted to be Herzog. Now that I am old, I want to be Blank,” Joshua states.

In the end, the jungle wins, as it must. Blank filmed Burden of Dreams in grainy 16mm, but the film shines in 4K with a new restoration that highlights the sweltering beauty (or evil, depending on the mood that day) of Amazonian flora and fauna.

Seven Samurai

4K restoration from Toho and Janus Films in theaters now at Film Forum and July 12 at Laemmle Royal.

The new restoration is crisper and has deeper, more dynamic shades of gray than the grainy 2K currently streaming on the Criterion Channel, and premieres in coastal art houses in July. If the release takes the same path as other recent restorations distributed by Janus, a Criterion 4K isn’t far behind.

Savage Hunt of King Stakh

On Blu-ray this month from Deaf Crocodile.

Folk horror, at least in its classic incarnation, is closely associated with the British Isles. But some especially moody variants come from Eastern Europe—which is where Deaf Crocodile comes in. Although we previously featured its re-release of the Blaxploitation oddity Solomon King, the Belarusian fantasy Savage Hunt of King Stakh is more typical of Deaf Crocodile’s output, which frequently includes films from the former Eastern bloc.

King Stakh takes place before the Communist era, at the turn of the 20th century amid the Gothic beauty of muddy fields, misty winter landscapes, and damp, chilly castles. The film opens on a note reminiscent of Dracula, as a folklorist arrives at a remote manor home. At first, the house appears uninhabited, but it’s actually the domain of a sickly heiress whose family is riddled with ghosts and curses. There’s the Little Man and the Lady in Blue, for starters, but neither of them really factor into the narrative; this film’s all about the title apparition, leading a skeletal horde whose hoofbeats echo across empty rooms and barren plains.

Gothic horror blends with Buñuel-lite surrealism, giving Savage Hunt of King Stakh the air of a more dreamlike Hammer film. (Letterboxd also compare it to Roger Corman’s Poe cycle, the Russian folk horror film Viy, Mario Bava’s Black Sunday, Polish director Wojciech Jerzy Has, and Czech filmmaker Jaromil Jires.) If you like ominous puppet shows and pale women with big eyes whispering prophecies while wrapped in fur cloaks, then the vibe here will be very much for you.

This movie’s mostly vibes, casting an atmospheric spell that breaks with an ending Letterboxd reviews compare to a Scooby-Doo episode in both good ways and bad. “We feel the world is somewhat less wondrous as the myths and legends are put to bed throughout,” Andrew writes. “This effect is very deliberate on the part of the film, and one feels an aching romanticism for this era ing.” As one character confidently states early on, “There’s no place for apparitions in the age of steam and electricity.”