1981-1990

The Mechanics of Women is based on the novel by Louis Calaferte and directed by Jerome De Missolz. It concerns one man’s obsession and one woman’s appetite, and the consequences of their ultimate meeting. A man is entering the final stages of a love affair. His girlfriend tells him a tale of a woman, lurking of the streets of Paris in a search of men to conquer. The man, obsessed with this image of the woman, embarks on a quest. He enters a series of brief sexual encounters in hopes of finding her. His mind flows between fantasy and reality as he relives a lifetime of hapless affairs and one-night stands. One night, he attends a party in the projects when he comes face-to-face with the object of his obsession…

Jerome de Missolz is a well-known documentary film -maker. He has also directed a number of television films on fashion, politics and social issues, including a potrait of Yves Saint-Laurent; < fascism: The Return >. < La Mecanique des Femmes > is his first feature.Read More »

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Jess Franco and Lina Romay co-directed this film, which is a vile, rather disgusting and lazy “comedy/porno”. The American title is Lulu’s Talking Ass so that should tell you something. In the film, a talking ass (provided by Romay) tells various sexual stories and we get to see the scenes. Even by Franco standards this thing here is pretty useless and the sex scenes never enter the erotic zone but instead go towards the vile level. Once again it seems this film was shot in the matter of days if not hours and it really shows on screen. I had to view the film in Spanish without any subs so I’m not sure if the “talking ass” has any good dialogue or not. The funniest moment of the film is when one of the male actors goes to switch positions and accidentally falls off the bed. Being Franco, he left it in the film. Franco’s opinion of the Academy Awards also gets a special mention since the talking ass comes upon an Oscar and does something to it, which I won’t mention here.Read More »

Synopsis
based on the novel of the same name by Miguel Delibes

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Somewhere in the spanish country, in the 60s. Paco and his wife Regula are very poor. They work as tenant farmers for a very wealthy landowner. They have 3 children. One is backward. The others can not got to school because the master “needs” their work. When Regula’s brother is fired from where he has worked for 61 years, he settles down at their little place… An attack against the archaism of the spanish country of the 60s.Read More »

Lebanon, 1975. How Talal, an affluent young man becomes a warlord; how Soraya, the girl he leaves behind, tries to help him in abducting a businessman; how Nabil, a press photographer deals drugs under the cover of the civil war and poses as the hero he aspires to be but is not at all…Read More »

Doctor Fournier arrives in Beirut as the civil war is raging. He finds himself with a colleague working in a hospital controlled by a Shiite militia and treating the injured. Driven by his doctor’s oath, he crosses the demarcation line to treat Christian casualties of the ongoing clashes. This causes Muslims in his neighborhood to brand him a traitor. He is kidnapped to be exchanged for a fighter captured by Christian militiamen. The film is part of the TV series Médecins des hommes (Doctors of Men). It was considered the best movie in the series.Read More »

From the Guardian:
Home Sweet Home: The tragic-comic tale of a lonely postman, the social workers who chivvy him about his estranged teenage daughter, and his secret affairs with the wives of his fellow postmen.Read More »

Jim Henson ventures into Tolkien territory in his all-Muppet fantasy feature The Dark Crystal. The titular Crystal maintains equilibrium in a mythical kingdom. When the Crystal is broken, the evil Skeksis take over, killing off the good-guy Gelflings and enslaving everyone else. Two of the Gelflings have survived: Jen was raised by the all-knowing Mystics, while Kira grew up amongst the swamp-dwelling Podlings. Jen and Kira join forces to “heal” the precious Dark Crystal and restore order to their world. Adults may find the whole affair a little precious, while children may be disturbed by the film’s mortality rate.Read More »

Synopsis:
Richard Wagner’s last opera has remained controversial since its first performance for its unique, and, for some, unsavory blending of religious and erotic themes and imagery. Based on one of the medieval epic romances of King Arthur and the search for the holy grail (the chalice touched by the lips of Christ at the last supper), it recounts over three long acts how a “wild child” unwittingly invades the sacred precincts of the grail, fulfilling a prophecy that only such a one can save the grail’s protectors from a curse fallen upon them. Interpreters of the work have found everything from mystical revelation to proto-fascist propaganda in it.Read More »

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One of Duras’ most fascinating treatments of the dialectical relationship between sound & image, what is spoken & what is left unsaid, is an evocative “adaptation” of her then unperformed play, Agatha. Featuring Bulle Ogier & Yann Andréa as the wandering protagonists, & Duras & Andréa’s disembodied voices on the soundtrack, it is equally a haunting meditation on the relation between humanity & its geographic surroundings. Shot in Duras’ beloved Trouville, whose remarkable array of beachside villas the writer-director considered “the most beautiful tracking” shot in “the history of cinema”.Read More »