Synopsis:
After having been forced to leave the Soviet Union 1929 Trotsky has ended up in Mexico 1940. He is still busy with the politics. Stalin has sent out an assassin, Frank Jacson. Jacson befriends a young communist and gets an invitation to Trotsky’s house. Read More »
Synopsis wrote:
A thief (Duke Anderson) just released from ten years in jail, takes up with his old girlfriend (Ingrid) in her posh apartment. He makes plans to rob the entire building. What he doesn’t know is that his every move is recorded on audio and video tape, although he is not the subject of any surveillance.Read More »
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Some describe CALIGULIA as “the” most controversial film of its era. While this is debatable, it is certainly one of the most embarrassing: virtually every big name associated with the film made an effort to distance themselves from it. Author Gore Vidal actually sued (with mixed results) to have his name removed from the film, and when the stars saw the film their reactions varied from loudly voiced disgust to strategic silence. What they wanted, of course, was for it to go away.Read More »
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A woman who has long had a stifling marriage in a boring province. She has an affair with a traveling photographer, follows him to Paris, and then has a series of unsatisfactory but interesting relationships, one of which is with a woman.Read More »
Naderi’s second film is set in the slums of Tehran. Hanging out in a pool hall, Ali Khoshdast becomes involved in a brawl with three brothers, and accidently kills one of them. He runs for his life, eventually taking refuge in the home of a young woman. The victim’s brothers continue the chase, and finally close in on him. Following the murder, streets, alleys and houses that were all part of Ali’s everyday world suddenly become dangerous and hostile. Although in many ways a classic tale of revenge, Naderi uses this story to imply that an underlying violence pervades society, ready to burst forth with or without justification.Read More »
In expressive, melodic tones, the fraternal pair debate God’s true message and intent for His creations, a conflict that leads their followers – in extravagantly choreographed song and dance – towards chaos and sin.
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Moses and Aaron finds Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, through their exemplary craft, transforming a familiar Biblical tale into a borderline-surreal cinematic opera of seemingly endless possibility. In expressive, melodic tones, the fraternal pair debate God’s true message and intent for His creations, a conflict that leads their followers — in extravagantly choreographed song and dance — towards chaos and sin. Set almost entirely within a Roman amphitheater whose history lends every precise line-reading and gesture, every startling camera move and cut, a totalizing force, Straub-Huillet’s adaptation of Schoenberg’s unfinished opera opens us to the stimulating worldview of a filmmaking duo whose masterful efforts are finally coming to light.Read More »
Two teenage friends, Eugenia (Ornella Muti) and Nicola (Eleonora Giorgi) conspire to find out how much their youthful sensuality can disrupt one of their households, headed by a dentist, Dr. Emilio Rutelli (Gabriele Ferzetti) and his mentally-ill wife Elisa (Valentina Cortese).
Chronicling the competition of two nubile girls who attempt to seduce the patriarch of a household, Gianluigi Calderone’s movie didn’t shy away from depicting such forbidden subjects as incest or the early sexual awakening of teenagers. This disturbing story was made more all the sensual by the lush underscore of Piero Piccioni. “Valzer di Valentina” (Valentina’ waltz) is one of hist most famous themes.Read More »
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Based upon a true incident in 1930s Japan, Nagisa Oshima’s controversial film effectively skirts the borderline between pornography and art — making Bernardo Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris of four years earlier look like children’s programming in comparison. The story concerns servant and former prostitute Sada Abe (Eiko Matsuda) who becomes sexually obsessed with her employer Kizicho (Tatsuya Fuji), a businessman, after seeing him making love to his wife. After making love to Sada, Kizicho becomes obsessed with her as well. As their love-making becomes more and more intense, they find themselves unable to separate themselves from each other, until every waking hour is spent in more and more dangerous sexual acts with Sada becoming more and more of the aggressor. Finally, for the ultimate in eroticism, Kizicho agrees to be strangled during sexual ecstasy for the ultimate in orgasmic fulfillment.Read More »
In 17th-century France, Father Urbain Grandier seeks to protect the city of Loudun from the corrupt establishment of Cardinal Richelieu. Hysteria occurs within the city when he is accused of witchcraft by a sexually repressed nun.
Alice Stoehr wrote:
With this film, Russell pushed his then-nascent penchant for extreme imagery of sex and violence as far as it could go. It makes up The Devils’ thematic core, expressing myriad ideas about lust, greed, power, etc. through explicit acts of unremitting cruelty. Nothing is here just for the shock value, though certainly that’s part of it.Read More »