Classical Period is a portrait of Cal and his friends in Philadelphia. They meet and have long conversations about books, poetry, music, and architecture, most notably Henry Longfellow’s 1864 translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy . Filmed in rich, grainy 16mm color, the film forefronts character and portraiture, leaving the artificial trappings of narrative cinema behind.Read More »
The perfect anti-hero, Mike is 30, ambitionless and not particularly skilled for anything. When offered a better job in a bigger city, Philadelphia, he decides to go. Aimless as always, Mike floats, as if in a trance, from one low-key comic folly to another, each one a strange and subtle moral tale.Read More »
Twenty years after WWII an Italian general (Marcello Mastroianni) and a military chaplain (Michel Piccoli) embark on a mission through the heart of Albania searching for the remains of Italian soldiers who once fought on the side of the Fascists. Based on Albanian author Ismail Kadare’s famous 1963 novel of the same name. Also starring Anouk Aimée.Read More »
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One of Ingmar Bergman’s most satisfying marital comedies, A Lesson in Love stars the droll and sparkling duo of Eva Dahlbeck and Gunnar Björnstrand as a couple deep into their married years and seeking fresh pastures. Björnstrand’s gynecologist falls for one of his patients (Yvonne Lombard), while his wife flounces off to Copenhagen to renew her fling with a sculptor (Åke Grönberg). Deftly interspersing scenes of farce with interludes of tranquil reflection, A Lesson in Love serves as an aperitif before the full-blown comic brilliance of Smiles of a Summer Night the following year.Read More »
On the one hand, there’s the desert eating away at the land. The endless dry season, the lack of water. On the other there’s the threat of war. The village well has run dry. The livestock is dying. Trusting their instinct, most of the villagers leave and head south. Rahne, the only literate one, decides to head east with his three children and Mouna, his wife. A few sheep, some goats and Chamelle, a dromedary, are their only riches. A tale of exodus, quest, hope and fatality. Rahne and his family travel across hostile lands under a lethal sun, walking endlessly onwards and frequently crossing paths with death. But “Sounds of sand” is also a parable about determination and eternity that takes us in the footsteps of Shasha, a nomad child full of the joys of life, whose tenacity and strength will conquer her father’s love.Read More »
Jézus Krisztus horoszkópja (Jesus Christ Horoscope, 1988) was made as the second film of a tetralogy. This time the theme is directly an agony of Communism. Cserhalmi plays a demonic-looking poet named Josef K (who, contrary to the author of Der Process / The Trial, has his surname spelt “Kaffka”) who in a black hat and a waving coat walks through different flats and hotels in Budapest and has unclear relationships with three women: Márta (Ildikó Bánsági) and ex-policewoman Kata (Dorottya Udvaros) are murdered in mysterious circumstances; Josef K himself then vanishes in the presence of a meteorologist, Juli (Juli Básti).Read More »
Jacob Gronlykke directed this $3 million Danish drama, the first production filmed completely in Greenland, with Inuit dialogue. The story begins with the 1947 ceremonies in which Greenland becomes part of Denmark; Danish king Christian X gives a ceremonial rifle to Greenland’s Niisi Lynge. A half-century later, Niisi’s son Rasmus (Rasmus Lyberth) still has the rifle, but past dreams have gone sour. The alcoholic Rasmus, married to aggressive Marie (Vivi Nielsen), has many problems because of his drinking, and so does his son Niisi (Knud Peterson), who drunkenly kills his brother’s girlfriend and then commits suicide. The grief-stricken Rasmus sets out across the frozen land on a risky hunting trip, and the film’s tone shifts from realism to satire as Danish female environmentalists make fun of his crude clothing and gear. A helicopter pilot lands and tries to talk Rasmus into turning back. In a folkloric vein, Rasmus encounters a hermit, the Qivittoq (Anda Kristiansen), who takes him into a mystical world for a reunion with his father. Shown at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.Read More »
Eigth part: HISTOIRE D’UN BALLON: LE LYCEE NO. 31 A PEKIN (The Football Incident):
A report on an ideological debate between a teacher and a pupil regarding an incident with a football.Read More »
Synopsis: Erotic, explicit letters between a young man and his incarcerated lover recall happier (and hotter) times. The story of 2 lovers, one in jail (Richard Locke), the other, younger one (Robert Adams), still living in the San Francisco apartment they shared. A series of letters and remembrances to and of each other, but primarily from the point of view of the younger Robert who’s anxiously awaiting the release of Richard, and they’re reunion.Read More »