At the end of the XIX century in Russia, Prince Dimitri Necklivdov is called as a jury-man in a trial. The defendant is Katiuscia Maslova, accused of murdering a merchant in order to rob him. Dimitri recognizes Katiuscia: she was the girl he seduced many years before. Dimitri decides to save her.(imdb)Read More »
Synopsis
An experimental documentary about resistance, balance and fame, Kings of the Sky follows tightrope artist Adil Hoxur as he and his troupe tour China’s Taklamakan desert amongst the Uyghurs, a Turkic Muslim people seeking religious and political autonomy. The film gracefully hovers between travelogue, ethnographic visual poetry, and an advocacy video for preserving a traditional art form.Read More »
Journalist Bruno (Auteuil) is swithering between a wavering wife (Devos) and a much younger girlfriend (Sagnier), and politically undecided after the collapse of communism. Realising a break in routine is required, he answers a call for help from his uncle (Yanne), which takes him to the countryside near Grenoble. Charged with delivering a letter to the old man’s romantic rival, he’s soon deep into uncharted territory and a disorienting encounter with the volatile Béatrice (Scott Thomas). All this resolves itself into a narrative homily about needing to lose yourself in order to find your way again, but you get the feeling that Bonitzer (former Cahiers du Cinéma editor and frequent Rivette collaborator) is less interested in the destination than the uncertainties of the journey. Read More »
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A soldier returning from war is hired by her own father to drive his prostitutes around town. She calls upon herself to help one of them.Read More »
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Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly is a film that is both serious and playful. The film tackles a sensitive racial political issue, namely the denial of the cultural identity of the Chinese minority in Indonesia, but is also filled with humorous and bizarre jokes and situations.
The film is made up of several sketches that can differ in their tone and approach, yet keep returning to the central issue of the glossed-over Chinese identity. The insecurity, fear and uprooting this causes among Chinese Indonesians is the real subject of the film. The subject is obviously close to the maker’s heart.Read More »
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A meditation on the human quest to transcend physicality, constructed from decaying archival footage of old silent films shown at eight frames per second to enable the viewer to grasp the effect of the decay on each frame. The film is set to an original symphonic score by minimalist composer Michael Gordon, featuring detuned pianos and the instruments of the orchestra playing out of phase with each other, mirroring the decomposition of the film stock.Read More »
Amazon reviews:
There are two films here. The first, ‘Conducting Mahler,’ features long segments showing several eminent Mahler conductors — Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Riccardo Chailly, Bernard Haitink and Simon Rattle — rehearsing the likes of the Royal Concertgebouw, the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, in long, lovely passages from all the Mahler symphonies (plus some of ‘Das Lied von der Erde’) interspersed with interviews (with the noted music writer, Donald Mitchell) with all five of the conductors. Not only is the music-making first class, but the insights that the conductors bring to the process, both in their conducting and in their thoughts about Mahler and his music, are exceedingly stimulating. Read More »
The movie is a documentary about the argetine poet Juan Laurentino Ortiz, known as “Juan L” or “Juanele”. It’s a story about a travel trought the Paraná river (Entre Ríos, Argentina), where the nature acting (water, birds, air, rain, trees, sun, etc). The film have parts of documentary about Juan L. Ortiz, and can hear his voice talking a reciting a poem. La orilla que se abisma is poetry made image.Read More »
SYNOPSIS
Unveiled is about a woman’s identity crisis, so it’s probably fitting that the film itself is torn between its affections to the shrill Yentl and grim Boys Don’t Cry. Fariba (Jasmin Tabatabai) arrives illegally in Germany from Iran and applies for political asylum after declaring she would be persecuted in her homeland for having had a lesbian affair with a married woman. In the film’s best scene, director Angelina Maccarone hints at the gender transference that will save Farbia: Inside a seemingly unisex bathroom (really it’s a trash heap for all undesirables), the woman offers a cigarette to a weeping man, Siamak (Navid Akhavan), in the adjacent stall, and Maccarone codes her main character’s uncertainty of the world in her decision to light the cigarette before passing it on.Read More »