1981-1990

  • Peter Greenaway – Four American Composers (1983)

    1981-1990DocumentaryPerformancePeter GreenawayUnited Kingdom

    AMG plot
    It makes sense that an offbeat director such as Peter Greenaway (The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, Prospero’s Books) would be attracted to a project such as 4 American Composers, a 1983 British television special profiling John Cage, Meredith Monk, Philip Glass, and Robert Ashley, four U.S. musical artists who haven’t been content simply to entertain, but feel compelled to “push the envelope” of music.Read More »

  • Yasuo Furuhata – Tasumania monogatari aka Tasmania Story (1990)

    1981-1990AsianDramaJapanYasuo Furuhata

    Eiji Kawano (Kunie Tanaka) has recently broken from the Japanese company he used to work for. As an immigrant to Tasmania, he has been won over by the island’s immense natural beauty, and he is conscience-bound to oppose his former employer’s ecologically unsound practices. He is also estranged from his grown son, who still resides in Japan. When his son comes to Tasmania for a visit, he must face the challenge of renewing their relationship.Read More »

  • Thomas Harlan – Wundkanal (1984)

    1981-1990ArthouseGermanyPoliticsThomas Harlan

    Quote:
    An old man is kidnapped. His interrogation uncovers the biography of a mass muderer: The 80 years old man was a SS leader and responsible for the killing of thousands of people in Russia. He also “invented” an evil technique of eliminating political prisoners: the manipulated suicide. Thomas Harlan reconstructs the history of a burocratic muderer, he also develops a direct connection between the Nationalsocialism and the treatment of prisoners of the RAF terrorists in the Stuttgart isolation prison. Robert Kramer filmed the shooting of Harlan’s Wundkanal: Notre Nazidocuments a social experiment in which the children of Nazis and of victims meet a real culprit. The reality seems to be stronger that the fiction in Harlan’s film.Read More »

  • Lothar Lambert – Fucking City (1982)

    1981-1990CultDramaGermanyLothar Lambert

    Four mediocre existences are on an increasingly desperate quest for love and sexual satisfaction in the urban jungle of West Berlin.

    In this low-budget film, underground director Lothar Lambert explores longings and sexual fantasies that link the main characters – namely, Berlin couple Rüdiger and Helga, their butcher colleague Kurt, and his sister Klara, who is visiting. In a mix of voyeurism, porn flick, and group sex, the film depicts stereotypes and clichés but also questions them. This humorous and provocative look behind the façade of ‘normality’ provides an unvarnished examination of exoticized fantasies and projections about society.Read More »

  • Nietzchka Keene – The Juniper Tree (1990)

    1981-1990DramaFantasyIcelandNietzchka Keene

    Quote:
    An unsung talent in her lifetime, director, professor and Fulbright scholar Nietzchka Keene’s stark, stunning debut feature The Juniper Tree is loosely based on a Brothers Grimm fairy tale of the same name, and stars Björk in her first on-screen performance. The film premiered to glowing reviews at the Sundance Film Festival in 1991 and led Keene to further direct Heroine of Hell (1996) starring Catherine Keener and Barefoot to Jerusalem (2008), the latter completed after her tragically early death in 2004.Read More »

  • Adrian Shergold – Christabel (1988)

    1981-1990Adrian ShergoldDramaTVUnited Kingdom

    Christabel Bielenberg’s historical memoir, “The Past Is Myself,” looking back on the years 1932-45, was the source for this depiction of life in Germany during Hitler’s rise.

    Daughter of middle-class English-Irish parents, Christabel became a German citizen in 1934 when she married German law student Peter Bielenberg of a prominent Hamburg family. The couple raised their two sons amid Germany’s shifting political climate. In 1939, as the situation became acute, Peter joined a military organization planning to remove Hitler from power.Read More »

  • Ken Russell – The Planets (1983)

    1981-1990DocumentaryKen RussellUnited Kingdom

    IMDB wrote:
    “The Planets” brings visual life to the classic Horst score with images that move beyond the graphic descriptions of the planets. It evokes thoughts of the solar system as it pertains to the systems that govern our lives, our society and our humanity. Ken Russell has always been known for his ability to let the audience feel uncomfortable. His images in this film are bold, but at the same time they show the subtle sensitivity that make all of his films so unforgettable.

    He explores the same genre that Godfrey Reggio and Philip Glass made famous, but his work in this film stand completely on its own.Read More »

  • Vibeke Løkkeberg – Hud AKA Vilde, the Wild One (1986)

    1981-1990CrimeDramaNorwayVibeke Løkkeberg

    In a rural western town in 1890 a woman has a mute old daughter after relations with her step father, which in his need of money, wants to sell them off to a rich skin tradesman. While resisting this, the woman turns lame.Read More »

  • Kiyoshi Kurosawa – Dramadas: Modae kurushimu katsuji chûdoku-sha jigoku no miso zô AKA Wordholic Prisoner (1990)

    1981-1990HorrorJapanKiyoshi KurosawaTV

    An early TV film by Kurosawa, one of two for the Dramada (1990-1993) series. Stars Kurosawa regulars Ôsugi Ren and Suwa Tarô. Read More »

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