Two buddies visit the schoolyard of the high school they used to attend, and remember their young and dumb days. They used to be the bullies in the school, until they find their own ways of life; one as a boxer, and the other as a member of the yakuza.Read More »
Jan Jakub Kolski has earned himself a strange reputation. His mystical and folklorish films stand apart from the general flow of Central European cinema. Critics have found him to have more in common with the “magic realism” of South American prose than with his fellow Central European film directors.Read More »
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As Another Girl, Another Planet’s hapless protagonist Bill (Barry Sherman) thinks back on relationships with girlfriends past, the Pixelvision might be read as the haziness of his memory drifting away from romantic love. As the characters break out into poetic litanies about pain and desire (“I wasn’t used to being happy. It was somehow exhausting,”) music becomes the tool to express their feelings. As one relationship crumbles apart, Nick Cave and the Bad Seed’s ferocious “The Mercy Seat” drives hard through the scene as Bill fiddles with lit matches. During a tender kiss between boy and girl, “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” opines in the background.Read More »
Synopsis:
Brigitte lives with her boyfriend, Daniel, who is on the run having escaped from prison for a series of armed robbery offences. Brigitte is a few months’ from giving birth when the couple’s home is raided by the police. At the time, Daniel is involved in a violent robbery which goes wrong – a policeman is killed and he is arrested. Both Daniel and Brigitte end up in prison, although Brigitte’s sentence is reduced to a few months. Daniel however must remain in prison for 18 years. Realising that this will destroy her husband, Brigitte resolves to rescue him in a daring prison escape involving a helicopter…Read More »
The General begins with the death of Martin Cahill–celebrated Dublin gangster who stole millions during the 1980s–then literally reverses the approach and assault of his IRA assassin, flashing back in time,back through Cahill’s colorful, criminal quest for his kind of ideal community. Boorman says his Cahill is a throwback to those Celtic chieftains of old who ruled by thievery and violence; as an anachronism, this charming, brutal bear of a man (perfectly incarnated by Brendan Gleeson) is undeniably reprehensible, but he stands in deliberate contrast to the institutionalized hypocrisy and corruption of church, state, and IRA alike.Read More »
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Story of a sin that looks like an accident in the beginning but in reality it’s an irrevocable and deadly act. Story of a relationship in which lies and love chains daughter to father, sinner to innocent. Story of a man whose fate suddenly starts to turn another way – and buries everything it finds beneath itself.
“You never think about sin, but then you are standing in front of it and it touches you.” (Attila Janisch)Read More »
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In 1992 Oliveira made O Dia do Desespero, which deals with the last days and suicide of Romantic novelist Camilo Castelo Branco and is based largely on the writer’s letters. Most of it was filmed in the house where Castelo Branco in fact committed suicide. The film opens, midway through the credits, with a 50-second static shot of a pen-and-ink portrait of the writer. Other portraits, always shot with a static camera, punctuate the film’s narrative, lending it a documentary tone from the outset.Read More »
French bad boy director François Ozon, who caused a stir with his controversial first feature Sitcom (1998) and his shorts A Summer Dress (1997) and See the Sea (1997), creates a dark and brooding tale of transgression and sexuality for his second feature outing. Alice (Natacha Régnier) is a bored, spoiled high schooler with a gorgeous body and a sociopathic mind. She persuades one of her suitors, the naive and trusting Luc (Jeremie Renier), to murder another suitor, the handsome, rakish Said (Salim Kechiouche). Read More »
Synopsis:
In a high-rise, a young man jumps to his death. His ghost remains in the building, observing and consoling three households. San San, fat, silent, and alone, hears the ghost of her mother constantly upbraid her. She futilely seeks the friendship of a wealthy woman with whom she was raised. Ah Gu, a tofu soup vendor, is at odds with Lily, his materialistic wife, a Chinese immigrant who longs for something he cannot provide. Meng spouts every moralistic bromide of the striving middle class, wears a T-shirt reading “My block is the cleanest,” and is unhinged by his teenage sister May (“Trixie” to her boyfriend) who won’t study, parties all night, and seems doomed by youth culture.Read More »