A satire about the French small businessman: A naive, middle-aged and paternal managing director (Mondy), subject to takeover by a wily American conglomerate, becomes besotted with Darc, supposedly the PR man’s niece but actually a callgirl hired as an inducement for the night.Read More »
Both trifles and structure are tossed out the door by director Ken Russell in this film. Here, historical content matters not so much as metaphors, feelings, emotions, and interpretations, and pay close attention, as every word and frame is intended to be important. The film takes place on a single train ride, in which the sickly composer Gustav Mahler and his wife, Alma, confront the reasons behind their faltered marriage and dying love. Each word seems to evoke memories of past, and so the audience witnesses events of Mahler’s life that explain somewhat his present state. Included are his turbulent and dysfunctional family life as a child, his discovery of solace in the “natural” world, his brother’s suicide, his [unwanted] conversion from Judaism to Catholicism, his rocky marriage and the death of their young child. The movie weaves in and out of dreams, flashbacks, thoughts and reality as Russell poetically describes the man behind the music.Read More »
Bette Gordon’s first film, made in collaboration with James Benning, is both an investigation of the relationship between two women and a formalist study of cinematic syntax.Read More »
Two criminal gangs are ruthlessly fighting for a 1-million dollar check that, purely by chance, got into the flat of shy high school teacher George Camel. As the number of victims sharply increases, Camel is mistakenly regarded as a mass murderer and cunningly uses his horrifying reputation to get the respect and heart of his beloved Sabrina, a journalist from a local newspaper. But this game turns out to be risky and in the end, both gangs don’t hesitate to seize the check at all costs, including an improvised operation.Read More »
PLOT: Irene Rakowitz, aged 48, is a divorced mother of four, who lives with her two youngest children in West Berlin’s Märkisches Viertel public housing district, surviving on disability payments. Her ex-husband, a former miner, lives in the same high-rise. But loud and abrasive conflict persists regarding his ongoing influence on the children. The older daughters are hateful and judgmental of their mother, calling her a ‘crackpot’. Irene Rakowitz holds nothing back as she talks about why her family is falling apart, while at the same time expressing, sometimes vehemently, her own ambitions, in front of the camera and again during the editing process, throughout which she is associated.Read More »
Voyage of the Damned is a 1976 war drama film directed by Stuart Rosenberg, with an all-star cast featuring Faye Dunaway, Oskar Werner, Lee Grant, Max von Sydow, James Mason, and Malcolm McDowell.
The story was inspired by actual events concerning the fate of the ocean liner St. Louis carrying Jewish refugees from Germany to Cuba in 1939. It was based on a 1974 nonfiction book of the same title written by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts. The screenplay was written by Steve Shagan and David Butler. The film was produced by ITC Entertainment and released by Rank Film Distributors in the UK and Avco Embassy Pictures in the US.Read More »
English scholar visits a small Spanish town in the Andalusian mountains to investigate the disappearance of another English scholar long ago. He learns of the legend of Sabina, a mysterious dragon woman who becomes his obsession.Read More »
In Nazi-occupied Paris, the immoral art dealer, Robert Klein, leads a life of luxury, until a copy of a Jewish newspaper brings him to the attention of the police, linking him with a mysterious doppelgänger. Will Mr Klein clear his name?Read More »
A re-release of an acclaimed documentary classic by John Darling – A film about the life and death of the 116-year-old Balinese Master-Artist.
In April 1978, in a village situated in the fertile central hills of Bali, the island’s greatest living artist died at the age of 116. Lempad’s longevity was cause enough for wonder, but the magnificent body of art and architecture that he left behind is a greater tribute to an unusual man. He lived his creative life through the most traumatic century of Balinese history.Read More »