Arthouse

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Rare is a film like Eugène Green’s Le Monde Vivant (The Living World), one of such humor, wit, whimsy, and spirit told in a mode so strict, formal, and minimal. It is a fable, or a fairy tale, or a certain way of looking at reality if you like, but it is impossible not to suggest a child-friendly and cheerful homage to Robert Bresson’s Lancelot du Lac. The Bresson comparison is inevitable, what with Green’s frank simplicity in framing, his deliberating speaking and minimally performing actors (resembling Bresson’s “models”), and most importantly his respect not just for each individual shot, movement, and line of dialog, but in the accumulation of these things.Read More »

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A 50-year-old caretaker is employed to look after 10-year-old girl. His most important task is to maintain her dentures that are made of ice and must be changed several times a day.
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Ebbo and Vera Velten have been living in Africa for a long time. Ebbo is managing a sleeping sickness program. His work is fulfilling. In contrast, Vera feels increasingly uncomfortable with her life in the expat community of Yaoundé and the separation from her daughter Helen, 14, who is attending boarding school in Germany.
Ebbo has to give up his life in Africa or he loses the women he loves. But he has become a stranger to Europe. His fear of returning increases from day to day.
Years later. Alex Nzila, a young French doctor of Congolese origin, travels to Cameroon to evaluate a development project. He hasn’t been to Africa for a long time. But instead of finding new prospects, he encounters a destructive, lost man: like a phantom, Ebbo slips away from his evaluator. (Synopsis courtesy of the Berlinale)Read More »

Postmodernistic version of the grotesque and blasphemic novel The Sufferings of Prince Sternenhoch by czech anarchistic and subjectiv-idealistic philosopher Ladislav Klima (1878-1928) transposed into reality of the Prague 1989. The visual look of the film is credited by painter Michael Rittstein, a representative of the Czech grotesque. The film instead of the Prince’s headquarters takes place on the television transmitter, the main role is played by Czech punk-rock star Vilem Cok. The film is full of blasphemy, allusions to pornography and aesthetics of decay and kitsch. For Jan Nemec meant the project return to the Czech film, but also in his time shocking failure – Czech society was not ready for such hyperbole.Read More »

Film about Sakamoto Ryōma. The focus is on Oryo, the maid who became Ryoma’s wife and lived with him for one year before his death. Directed by Jun Ichikawa.Read More »

After a painful separation from the woman he loved, Julien (Laurent Terzieff) leaves his apartment.
He goes in search of his yesterday friends but no one answers him and the town stays silent.
So Julien is leaving the city in search of his childhood, his old school and his favorite teacher.
To the children who are here today he speaks a language that charm them
as it also charms the discreet Sylvie (Dominique Sanda)
His original teaching method is not to the taste of everyone.
It will even provoke the hostility of the parents and the administration. He’s fired.
Continuing his way, Julien goes to the sea and enters the sea.
The classroom doors suddenly open and a huge crowd of children
suddenly appears at the top of the dunes preparing to invade the beaches.
Then a storm breaks, a new battle is prepared and Utopia seems closer than ever.Read More »

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Kiarostami’s fascination with both Tehrani car culture and the uses of power in post-revolutionary society come together in this documentary about a traffic officer assigned to enforce driving restrictions in central Tehran (a locale near the director’s Kanoon office). The officer, a rock star in his own world, remains coolly authoritative as he faces a steady stream of exasperated motorists.Read More »

The men who surround and torment the young protagonist (demanding teacher, owner of the company that rapes his own daughter, despotic and uncompromising father) are opposed to women (victims of men) as embodiment of salvation.Read More »

When her husband leaves her for a younger woman, a woman plots revenge against him.Read More »