A woman in her flooded kitchen thinks of Ophelia and death by drowning. A nun wonders about her vocation. A girl, dumb by choice, walks around in Naples. A ballerina in a wheelchair. Three youths around a bonfire in a little island. A man secluded in a tower waiting for the end of the world. And many other stories.Read More »
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The idea of mother as “home” continues in the MOTHER, I AM SUFFOCATING. THIS IS MY LAST FILM ABOUT YOU. Black and white, pensive and passionate in its expression of sorrow, the essay film by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese is an intimate farewell letter painstakingly written, but never sent. How can you say goodbye to your homeland? Citing European films and their cinematic goodbyes, the distracted voice shares snippets of intimate memories with pop culture references. The echoing and crackling lament of the voiced letter feels thrice removed, a sonic representation of memories recalled in exile. Drenched in perspiration and dragging a wooden cross, Mosese’s barefoot protagonist crosses contemporary Lesotho, occasionally returning our gaze and those of the unimpressed onlookers in the street. Read More »
Each night in Paris, hundreds of men and women anonymously use telephone lines that date from the German Occupation and are no longer listed to talk to each other, to love each other.
The plot of Le Navire Night concerns a love affair between a young man and a woman, F., who first make contact by telephone one night, quite by chance. They have never seen each other or met before, but a relationship begins as a result of the conversation; F. continues telephoning. He, however, never learns F.’ s full name, telephone number or address, and all initiative for the relationship falls to her. The affair unfolds purely as an affair of the human voice, but this adds to the sexual intensity of the relationship rather than detracting from it: ‘C’est un orgasme noir,’ one hears the voice of Bulle Ogier saying. ‘Sans toucher réciproque. Read More »
Three years after the partition of India, Shibnath returns from 11 years of imprisonment. He tries to pick up his life again but his past experiences make it impossible.Read More »
Film offers an unexpected perspective on the everyday life of Russian soldiers during the Chechen war. Not far from Grozny, an old steam locomotive and several wagons standing on the reserve tracks have been converted into a camp bathhouse where the soldiers wash their clothes. In conditions of war, the bathing room takes on a special meaning. It is both a piece of peaceful life and a camp. At the same time, the bathhouse on wheels symbolizes the beginning of a new road. It is an occasion to wash not only the body but also the soul, because everyone who has been through the bitterness of war will return home a completely different person…Read More »
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The overtly propagandistic, anti-religious plot of The Flower on the Stone (Tsvetok na kamne, Dovzhenko Film Studio 1960–1962) does not look like promising Parajanov material: when a new Komsomol mine and mining community is established in the Donbas region, a member of a Pentecostal cult sends his daughter Christina to recruit new believers. Arsen Zagorny, an upstanding Komsomol member and a talented violinist, falls in love with Christina and crosses paths with Zabroda, the leader of the local cell of the cult. Additional problems crop up in the form of Grigori Griva a local boy prone to hooliganism and drink and his buddy Chmykh, a dissolute accordion player. Grigori learns to mend his ways thanks to the guidance of Pavel Fedorovich Varchenko, the wise and patient director of the mine, and Liuda, the Komsomol organizer with whom he falls in love. The film’s title refers to fossilized plants visible on pieces of coal.Read More »
Soon-Young (Kim Sae-Ron) is a young girl who is the head of her family. She lives with her mentally handicapped father (Jo Yong-Suk), unscrupulous uncle (Lee Chun-Hee) and younger sister Soon-Ja (Kim Ah-Ron) who is always ill. Younger sister Soon-Ja plays with her Barbie doll everyday and dreams of one day living in the United States. Meanwhile, Mang-Taek comes into contact with an American man interested in adopting a healthy Korean girl. Mang-Taek arranges a deal for the American man to adopt Soon-Young. When her younger sister Soon-Ja hears of the adoption, she becomes jealous and asks to take the place of her older sister. When the American man and his young daughter arrive to take Soon-Young, the uncle, Soong-Young and Soon-Ja must decide who is to go. The American father has an ulterior motive for the adoption.Read More »
“A non-judgmental analysis of the driving forces of human behavior when confronted with the unknown, of the way we perceive the other and on how we relate to an unsettling future.” IMDbRead More »
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A jet-black comedy of contagion, a subversive medical-horror freak-out, and a sly metacinematic prank, Lars von Trier’s sophomore feature—born from a bet that he couldn’t make a film for less than $150,000—finds the director channeling his singular thematic obsessions into an evocatively lo-fi, perversely self-reflexive provocation. The filmmaker himself stars as a harried screenwriter whose efforts to complete a script about the outbreak of a deadly disease coincide with a grisly real-life plague. A twisted reflection on Europe’s haunted past—from the Black Death to World War II—and its scarred present, Epidemic is von Trier at his most idiosyncratic and audaciously experimental.Read More »