1991-2000

In the future, humanity has been genetically engineered into four classes, ranging from the decision-making Alphas to the worker class Drones. The notion of individual relationships is outdated and people are encouraged to seek pleasure with anybody else. The use of the drug Soma, which provides instant happiness, is widespread. Bernard Marx is a rising publicity man with the Department of Hatcheries and Conditioning. He and his companion Lenina Crowne fly over the Savage Reservations where people who were born by natural means live outside of civilisation, but their helicopter crashes. One of the Savages, John Cooper, saves them from an attacking mob. Fascinated by John, they bring him back to the city where he becomes an object of curiosity by the sensation-starved populace. However, John also comes to challenge their beliefs about the society they live in.Read More »

When a psychopath (François Montagut, DANGEROUS LIAISONS) butchers the proprietor of a candy shop, Detective Mike Livet (Tomas Arana, THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST) assumes that the killer made off with the victim’s as a souvenir. When the ear winds up in the refrigerator of newly widowed Tracy Grant (Joanna Pacula, THE KISS), Livet suspects that the grisly gift may have something to do with the death of her husband Abe (whose corpse was disinterred from its grave the same night). When a woman is butchered in a shopping mall bathroom and a severed hand winds up on Tracy’s doorstep, Livet looks into Abe’s shady past and discovers sex, drugs, and a stalker who did not take Abe’s nuptials all too well.Read More »

Cremaster 4 adheres most closely to the project’s biological model. This penultimate episode describes the system’s onward rush toward descension despite its resistance to division. The logo for this chapter is the Manx triskelion – three identical armored legs revolving around a central axis. Set on the Isle of Man, the film absorbs the island’s folklore as well as its more recent incarnation as host to the Tourist Trophy motorcycle race. Myth and machine combine to narrate a story of candidacy, which involves a trial of the will articulated by a series of passages and transformations. The film comprises three main character zones. Read More »

Cremaster 2 is rendered as a gothic Western that introduces conflict into the system. On the biological level it corresponds to the phase of fetal development during which sexual division begins. In Matthew Barney’s abstraction of this process, the system resists partition and tries to remain in the state of equilibrium imagined in Cremaster 1. Cremaster 2 embodies this regressive impulse through its looping narrative, moving from 1977, the year of Gary Gilmore’s execution, to 1893, when Harry Houdini, who may have been Gilmore’s grandfather, performed at the World’s Columbian Exposition. The film is structured around three interrelated themes – the landscape as witness, the story of Gilmore (played by Barney), and the life of bees—that metaphorically describe the potential of moving backward in order to escape one’s destiny.Read More »

Cremaster 1 is a musical revue performed on the blue Astroturf playing field of Bronco Stadium in Boise, Idaho – Barney’s hometown. Two Goodyear Blimps float above the arena like the airships that often transmit live sporting events via television broadcast. Four air hostesses tend to each blimp. The only sound is soft ambient music, which suggests the hum of the engines. In the middle of each cabin interior sits a white-clothed table, it’s top decorated with an abstract centerpiece sculpted from Vaseline and surrounded by clusters of grapes. In one blimp the grapes are green, in the other they are purple. Under both of these otherwise identical tables resides Goodyear (played by Marti Domination). Read More »

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Helke Sander interviews multiple German women who were raped in Berlin by Soviet soldiers in May 1945. Most women never spoke of their experience to anyone, due largely to the shame attached to rape in German culture at that time. She documents the pregnancies, abortions, illegitimate children that resulted, as well as the break down in family relationships, the stigmatization these women experienced, and mental and physical duress these women underwent at the time of the rapes and as treaties were passed between the German and Soviets that never mentioned reparations for the rapes.Read More »

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In this 20-minute film, Jean Marie-Straub, who was born in Metz, Lorraine, unfolds the changing history of his homeland, a country torn by different wars and states. Victories are defeats and vice versa, and the land is saturated with iron, coal and blood. “Lothringen!” (“Lorraine”) is Straub’s personal account of “How Green was my Valley”, a lesson in topographical land survey and history.Read More »

An Artist violently grinds stones and uses the sand to create animated drawings. His first picture is the Garden of Eden. Once Eve becomes pregnant, all the tribulations of the real world are unleashed upon her. She follows through dream-like sequences populated with crying birds, brick-wall-faced bureaucrats and pensive philosophers in seemingly petrified poses. Irritated, repressed and allured by each other, the creatures on the screen start living a life of their own. Gradually, a dark climax builds up. Will the Artist himself be able to handle so much emotional intensity? Written by helge79Read More »

What happens if your husband is early retired? That is the master question of Germany’s famous actor, writer and director Vicco von Bülow’s comedy. He understands very well to show the audience the small things of life, that can be funny as well. Although nothing important or extraordinary happens in this movie, it is interesting for every minute. You won’t find simple jokes and gags (like in a Zucker movie) in this film, but you will be fascinated about the subtle sense of humor of Loriot. The only thing to criticise is the very poor quality of scenery and camerawork what seems to be an effect of the low budget of this film. But I would consider “Pappa ante portas” (a German-Latin play on words that means “Daddy in front of the door” and is an allusion to the Latin figure of speech “Hannibal ante portas”) as one of the ten funniest German movies in the history of German comedies.Read More »