The Enchanted Mirror

This site is dedicated to tracing the dialogue between audiences and that most dynamic of talking mirrors, the cinema screen. 

Enchanted mirrors are defined not only by what they can communicate but also by the participating audience that approaches them with questions and lessons to be learned. It is my wish that The Enchanted Mirror brings this relationship to life. By conjuring long views of history, I hope we can divine larger meaning from film and film criticism.

The criticism found on this site puts people first. Humans produce, make, and distribute our cinema. They are the ones who watch films. Movies themselves import and index human history just as they are in dialogue with other art created by people across time and space.

Compounded on this is a criticism that is also craft-conscious. It believes that content and form are in an ever-churning cycle, each dictating the expression of the other. Expression comes in many shapes and with a bricolage of influences, so it’s the critic’s job to be intellectually curious, able to draw from a wide array of knowledges to construct a relevant and supported lens for readers. The work published here is intentionally interdisciplinary, queer, and collective. Like the medium it celebrates, The Enchanted Mirror aims to inform and reflect the times.