2001-2010

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A dark old house that holds its secrets close. Two sisters tormented by an evil stepmother and clinging to one another for comfort while their aloof, ineffectual father hides in his work and tries to ignore the mounting tension in his household. The onset of puberty, the first spilling of menstrual blood, is marked by terrifying visitations. If, as A Tale of Two Sisters unfolds, you’re put in mind of a fairy tale—albeit by way of Angela Carter or Tanith Lee—you wouldn’t be wrong; the story is in part based on a Korean folk tale that’s made it to film several times before in that country.Read More »

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It is somehow fitting that the unruly plot of “In the Loop,” a sharply written, fast-talking, almost dementedly articulate satire on modern statecraft, should commence with a verbal slip-up. In an atmosphere of impending military action, as the governments of Britain and the United States gear up to invade an unspecified Middle Eastern country, Simon Foster (Tom Hollander), the British minister of international development, gives an interview to the BBC. Surprised by a question outside his area of expertise —whatever that might be — he declares that in his view “war is unforeseeable.”Read More »

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The year is 2016 and fashion and standards of beauty have changed dramatically. A new rage has swept through the ranks of the young: radical facelifts. George, a young graduate who has recently had a facelift, takes advantage of his summer holidays to join up with the most respected bigshots of the area, 15 rich bullies with extreme facelifts who pass their time watching virtual sports and using superfluous technologies. After a failed attempt to give himself a facelift with a stapler, Blaise is rejected by George, his one-time childhood friend. Desparate, Blaise kidnaps a young girl so that the ransom money will buy him a proper facelift just like everyone else’s.Read More »

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Buenos Aires in the year 2002; the economical depression has caught the country. Elsa keeps her head above water through several badly paid jobs and occasional criminal offenses with her friends Walter, Laura and Toni. She’s saving money for a ticket to Rome to get out of her life and visit an Italian with whom she had a one night stand several months ago.Read More »

A writer at the height of his fame: Daniel Boltanski, known to the world as bestselling author Serge Novak, lives in Switzerland with his wife Nicoletta. Her son Fabrizio is getting married on the isle of Capri. On the way there, on the hydrofoil, Daniel meets an extraordinarily beautiful woman, Mila, and they spend the night together. Daniel wakes up in the morning after a wild night of sex to discover there’s no trace of her. He’s late for church; everyone’s waiting for him. As the radiant bride enters, Daniel realizes she’s the woman he’s just spent the night with. But they secretly keep up their affair, abandoning themselves to their passion. It’s the start of a relentless mechanism where Daniel is the target of a devious blackmailer…Read More »

Synopsis:
Anura is a loyal soldier tainted by the tedium of a service he has forgotten how to define. His only company at the remote outpost is an alcoholic soldier named Piyasiri, whom he sees in passing as they trade shifts. Anura finds that even the prankish behavior of the infrequently passing soldiers isn’t enough to offset the numbing stillness of his eternal wait anymore. Even at home, the inertia of the emotionless landscape persists, and between disconnected sexual encounters with his disinterested wife, Lata, detached conversations with his single sister, Soma, and the heart-breaking dejection of their young charge, Batti, it appears as if, in this war-torn wasteland, hope is nothing more than forgotten emotion and routine is the only nourishment for a collection of sad, starved souls.Read More »

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Like his last film, 2008’s 24 City, Jia Zhangke’s Un Certain Regard title I Wish I Knew is a documentary/fiction hybrid about modern-day China. Where 24 City took a personal focus on the citizens of a Chinese town affected by the construction of a high-rise condominium, I Wish I Knew takes a broader view, examining the history of Shanghai as viewed from the present. It combines interviews with citizens, actors, and filmmakers with architectural shots of present-day Shanghai and footage of actress Zhao Tao wandering the city. The film is never less than gorgeous, and there’s often an intuitive and pleasing internal rhythm to how he cuts within and between shots.Read More »

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Working from his own novel Metaphysics, writer-director Lech Majewski (Glass Lips, Gospel According to Harry) crafts magic in The Garden of Earthly Delights intimate passion plays, which are filled with loving detail (Village Voice) and creates a luminous, highly erotic treatise on art, love and death (Chicago Reader). When London art historian Claudine (Claudine Spiteri) meets engineer Chris (Chris Nightingale), it is love and lust at first sight. But their spiritual and erotic connection is threatened by a devastating and deadly illness.Read More »

A self-styled “accident choreographer,” the Brain is a professional hit man who kills his victims by trapping them in well crafted “accidents” that look like unfortunate mishaps but are in fact percectly staged acts of crime. After one mission accidentally goes wrong, causing the life of one of his men, the Brain is convinced that this accident has been choreographed, someone is out there to terminate him and his team. He becomes increasingly paranoid when he discovers that a mysterious insurance agent Fong is somewhat related to one of the “accidents” he has staged, the Brain becomes obssessed that this man must be the mastermind behind a conspiracy to take him out. To regain his sanity and to save his life, he must strive to kill Fong before he makes his next move.Read More »