Arthouse

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ne of Emmanuelle Beart’s less known part but one of her most emotionally intense ,”Les Enfants Du Desordre” is a work by Yannick Bellon,once nicknamed the female Andre Cayatte (which ,IMHO ,is no insult for Cayatte paved a reliable way to activist directors ),who was the first in France to tackle the burning subject of rape ,just like a woman would do (she was preceded by American Ida Lupino ).Her work dealing with cancer (“L’Amour Nu”) was not as convincing,taking place in privileged milieus whereas her “La Triche” about homosexuality was downright embarrassing :killing the gay at the end of her movie is not an improvement on the American works of the sixties such as “the fox” or “children’s hour” !Read More »

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Fourteen desperate men named Frank, band together to escape from a repressive section of Helsinki. An English-speaking non-Frank named Pekka joins the barroom conspirators, whose avoidance of last names, and any affect, help them outsmart overwhelming forces as they sneak through dark subway tunnels and alleys, hoping against despair to reach magical seaside Eira. The Calamari Unionists take advantage of unending night to venture their intrepid journey.Read More »

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…Faust was originally intended as a production for the Laterna magika theatre. Svankmajer describes it as a “variety collage” in which elements from Marlowe, Goethe, Christian Dietrich Grabbe, Gounod and the Czech folk puppet play (Kopecky) are all framed by the reality of contemporary Prague… The films hero, an ordinary man in a dirty raincoat, lives in a rundown flat in Prague. Here (as in Conspirators of Pleasure), it is noticeable that Svankmajer avoids any exotic images of “tourist Prague”, preferring nondescript streets and down-at-heel cafes serving nauseous food… Like Alice Faust moves from scene to scene and from one world to another but, this time, also from text to text, with a time out for the occasional cigarette or glass of beer.Read More »

Synopsis
The Traveler is a 1974 Iranian drama film directed by Abbas Kiarostami that tells the story of Hassan Darabi, a troublesome, amoral 10-year-old boy in a small Iranian town. He wishes to see the Iran national football team play an important match in Tehran. In order to achieve that, he scams his friends and neighbors. After a number of adventures, he finally reaches Tehran stadium at the time of the match. The film addresses the boy’s determination in his goal and his indifference to the effects of his actions on other people, particularly those who are closest to him. In its element, the film is an examination of human behavior and the balance of right and wrong.Read More »

It is a film about motorway, tourists under transhumance, concrete picnic tables, lines to the restroom, tepid melon slices and carwashs. It is a film about a man who wants to leave and a kid holding him back. It’s a summer’s film.Read More »

Like a summer in Berlin…

Two Berliners, Maria and Niels, and one British student, Chloë, are drifting libidinously through Berlin, plunge headlong into a carefree and chaotic love affair with each other. Boisterously living life to the full, they grasp everything and anything they please. Their only compass seems to be the pleasure they experience together – which works perfectly well until Chloë unintentionally falls pregnant…Read More »

The Secret Glory tells the story of Otto Rahn (1904-1939), who worked in Ahnenerbe (Ancestral Heritage Society), a Schutz-Staffel division in the Nazi Germany. Rahn was convinced he knew where to find the Holy Grail and after being nominated an SS officer, he finally had the resources to pursue it.Read More »

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Scenes from a Marriage chronicles the many years of love and turmoil that bind Marianne (Liv Ullmann) and Johan (Erland Josephson), tracking their relationship as it progresses through a number of successive stages: matrimony, infidelity, divorce, and subsequent partnerships. Originally conceived as a five-hour, six-part television miniseries, the film is also presented in its three-hour theatrical cut. Shot on 16 mm in intense, intimate close-ups by cinematographer Sven Nykvist and featuring flawless performances by Ullmann and Josephson, Bergman’s emotional X-ray reveals the intense joys and pains of a complex bond.Read More »

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Subversive Italian satirist Marco Ferreri directed and co-wrote (with Rafael Azcona) this grotesquely amusing French black comedy about four men who grow sick of life, and so meet at a remote villa with the goal of literally eating themselves to death. The quartet comes from various walks of life — a pilot (Marcello Mastroianni), a chef (Ugo Tognazzi), a television host (Michel Piccoli), and a judge (Philippe Noiret) — but all are successful men with excessive appetites for life’s pleasures (food is used as mere metaphor here, as graphic as that metaphor becomes). ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie GuideRead More »