Arthouse

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A very unusual, quietly intense experience, the film’s beating heart is Myriam Mézières, who co-wrote the script and is in every scene. Never afraid to appear ridiculous, she gives her all to the role, whilst Tanner (with whom she had a relationship) coolly observes from a distance through the soft, hazy grain of 16mm. The film unfolds in a dreamlike manner as the protagonist Mercedes slides from passionate, sensitive actress towards an increasingly fragile and needy state, suffering from a hunger that can only be satiated by pure, ceaseless love.Read More »

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An ageing writer Paul is determined to make a film but he cannot decide on the subject or location. Instead, he chooses to concentrate his efforts on finding the actress who will star in the film, believing that she will define the lead character and content of the film. He recruits a young man, Jean, to try to find an Italian actress, Dara, whom he has lost sight of. Jean finds Dara in a small Italian town, serving in a modest restaurant, but she refuses to return to acting…Read More »

Wikipedia wrote:
It is based on the short story “In the Ravine” by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. The movie is an important work in the Indian Parallel Cinema movement which started in the early 1970s. It is one of the last films to be part of the movement as it died out by the early 1990s.

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Maniram lives in a town and is a crooked businessman. The elder son is jailed for counterfeit currency. The younger son is a mad simpleton and married, but his wife loves another guy. She goes in business with land wrestled from Maniram.Read More »

Rich imagery and political allegory enliven an already complex story in this late Soviet-era mystery/drama. In the story, a government investigator has come to town to look into the validity of bribery charges that were brought against an official there. In the meantime, we discover that a twin and his brother have been engaged in a kind of very close warfare. One twin was a medical doctor, and was married to a beautiful woman. The second twin was interested in bedding the wife, and had no feeling for his brother. Thus, he impersonated him in the hospital, and openly engaged in medical malpractice of the grossest sort, resulting in a patient’s death. The first twin lost his career and was forced to support himself by going door to door selling kerosene. The second (and clearly sociopathic) twin, naturally, became an important figure in the activities of his local soviet.Read More »

Review from Bloomsbury Foreign Film Guide by Ronald Bergan and Robyn Karney:
Three generations of a family – grandfather, father, grandson – are obsessed with swimming. This passion destroys the first two, while the middle-aged surviving member tries to keep it at bay.
Made in Georgia, this is an original piece of work, constructed as a film within a film, and shot asdistinct segments intercut with the activities of the crew which is supposed to be making it. Grandfather’s tale is photographed in sepia, intriguingly beautiful and lyrical; son’s episode is black and white, and redolent with the atmosphere of the postwar Stalinist period; grandson’s story takes place on the contemporary film set and is in colour. There is little dialogue, voice-over commentary being largely used, and it is difficult to appreciate why the film’s release was withheld for a few years. An interesting, often absorbing curiosity, that falls apart in the third segment.Read More »

In a sleepy provincial town, a Jehovah’s Witness community is attacked by an extremist group. In the midst of this conflict, the familiar world of Yana, the wife of the community leader, slowly crumbles. Yana’s inner discontent grows as she struggles to make sense of her desires.Read More »

A man trying to get away from it all finds both love and conflict in the woods in this offbeat drama from Lithuania.Read More »

Irma can only think about getting rid of her cowardly dirty husband. She seeks out lovers not to commit adultery or for pleasure, but to find an accomplice to kill her husband.Read More »

Every Monday morning, a team of advisors welcome in a facility a group of people that has just died with the mission of helping each one of them to select their best memory that will last for the eternity in the first three days. On Thursday, filmmakers begin to recreate the selected memory, and in the end of the week they screen it in a movie theater and he or she moves to Heaven.Read More »