Arthouse

Description from the University of Massachussetts website:
This two-part drama examines the fate of Haneke’s own generation which came of age after World War II. The first part depicts the generational gap between 1950s teenagers and their parents while the second shows this same group of characters twenty years later as they have grown up to be dysfunctional and suicidal adults. Regarded as the most significant of Haneke’s early works, Lemmings contains incipient treatments of many of the themes he would later elaborate on in his theatrical features.Read More »

Haneke unplugged – consistent themes, early, bare-bones exploration.

The dark mood is set in the first scene: the vandalizing of cars. At once a deeply anti-bourgeois impulse and an act that expresses the faceless anomie of the post-war generation, this film is a melodramatic exploration of teenage resistance to overbearing parents and the constricting influence of a too-small Austrian town. Haneke upends Arcadia (youthful innocence) by transgressing boundaries such as sex out of marriage; smoking; and adultery with an adult. His teens damage cars and otherwise passive-aggressively act against parents. Haneke then subverts the bourgeois fiction of happiness and security by suggesting that in the end our own self-absorption and lack of empathy will relegate our relationships to hostile acts. Read More »

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An examination of life inside the Grande Chartreuse, the head monastery of the reclusive Carthusian Order in France.

In 1984 director Philip Gröning asked the Order of the Carthusians for permission to film them. He was told that it was too soon. Perhaps in ten or fifteen years. Sixteen years later came a call from “Grand Chartreuse” monastery. The time had come.

The preparations for the film lasted two years, shooting alone took one year, and post-production another two years. Twenty-one years elapsed between the first idea and the finished film.Read More »

A struggling musician sets out to find the legendary guitar maker Elmore Silk, with whom he hopes to strike a deal to make himself rich and famous.Read More »

Schizophrenic tramp performs outrageous acts in the streets of Salvador, and in the end tries to fulfill his ultimate dream: to fly over the city, as a superhero would.Read More »

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Shi Ba is an alienated youngster living by himself in Beijing. He quits his “iron-rice-bowl” job arranged by his late high-ranking parents and becomes a private entrepreneur. While he is wandering in a Beijing subway station one day, he meets Yu Jing, a pretty dance student. Their relationship soon leads to cohabitation. Shi Ba’s involvement with some illegal business brings him wealth and threats of blackmail as well. The blackmailers leave him with a crippled leg after he refuses to comply with their demands. Although this docs not prevent him from marrying Yu Jing, Shi Ba never manages to maintain his human dignity in and outside the family. One evening, after some self-meditation, he jumps over the railing of a balcony and throws himself into the darkness.Read More »

IMDB wrote:
More than just an abbreviated form of “La Belle Noiseuse”, Rivette re-cut his footage with some important differences in point of view – this one being more from Marianne’s point of view, shifting the emphasis from artist to model.Read More »

Ermanno Olmi’s PROFESSION OF ARMS adds significantly to the reputation of one of the most distinctive Italian filmmakers of the post-war period. Olmi established his career with a number of beautifully observed studies of ordinary people, culminating in his winning the prestigious Palme d’Or at Cannes for “‘L’albero degli zoccoli’ The Tree of Wooden Clogs” in 1978. His subsequent work focused on historical subjects, leading to this magnificent film, one of the best Italian productions in years.Read More »

“Driven more by style and attitude than by narrative, this freeform adaptation of Michelle Tea’s cult novel/memoir is always stimulating…” Variety

Valencia is an experimental feature collaboration of 20 directors each adapting a chapter of Michelle Tea’s award winning queer memoir of the same name.

Filmmakers in Chapter Order: Aubree Bernier-Clarke, Lares Feliciano, Clement Goldberg, Sara St Martin Lynne and Michelle Lawler, Dia Felix, Silas Howard, Alexa Inkeles, Jerry Lee, Peter Anthony, Sharon Barnes, Cary Cronenwett, Courtney Trouble, Cheryl Dunye, Bug Davidson, Samuael Topiary, Olivia Parriott, Chris Vargas and Greg Youmans, Joey SolowayRead More »