Arthouse

Quote:
In Roy Andersson’s film work, the ambition is to come as close to the truth as possible. In some instances this objective has put Andersson in a difficult position with those who commission works from him. One example is the film Something Happened – an information film about AIDS, commissioned by the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare – on which he began work in 1986. When Andersson in 1987 had three-fourths of the film completed, the Board forced him to stop production. The official explanation was that the film was too dark in its message, and it went unseen by the public for a number of years.Read More »

Quote:
Mother, father and sister visit the adult son in the family in his small apartment for a dinner. The father gives one critical view after the other about his sons life.

Roy Anderssons school shorts has not got the same aesthetics as his most well-known works; “You, the Living”, “World of Glory” and “Songs from the Second Floor”. But it is easy to compare them to his other early works, such as “A Swedish Love Story” and “Giliap”. This is the first of major three school films Roy Andersson made. All released recently by Scanbox and SFI in a dvd collection containing the best known Andersson shorts.Read More »

Color/Sound/95 mins at 24 fps
(filmed late July 1967)

Tom Baker/Bettina Coffin/Stephanie Graves/Cynthia May/
Ivy Nicholson/Nico/Valerie Solanis/Ingrid Superstar/Ultra Violet

Tom Baker: “The first time I sensed impending danger was during a scene with Ivy Nicholson. She had stipulated that she would not appear on camera with me in the nude. Shortly after the scene began I walked out of the frame and removed the towel I was wearing in order to put on my pants. Clad only in unlaundered bikini underwear, Ivy exploded in an emotional fury and stormed out of the room in tears, claiming she had been betrayed. I was talking with Warhol, who was very much perplexed by Ivy’s behaviour since, as he casually pointed out, ‘Ivy’ll cut her wrists for me…’ My third scene was with Valerie Solanis. I felt no personal threat from Valerie. Just the opposite. I found her intelligent, funny, almost charming, and very, very frightened.” (POP273)Read More »

David Robinson, The Times of London wrote:
Frumin has [a] gift for discovering the unexpected in every shot and character, and a lifelike way of inextricably mingling farce and tragedy.

-oOo-

One of the best Russian films of the 1990s, Viva Castro! is set in a small Russian town in 1965. “At this time Fidel Castro was as important for the Russian people as Elvis Presley was for the Americans,” says the director, Boris Frumin, who returned to Russia after sixteen years of exile in America to make this film.

Young Kolya is in love with his singing teacher, but his life isn’t easy. His father skips town after stealing some coins from a museum and his mother is sent to a labor camp as punishment. When the father returns a year later, Kolya becomes involved with the pretty young woman hired to nurse him.Read More »

A wry psychological comedy about a man who prefers his cat to his two wives. Some of the most famous Japanese players are the leads: the first wife is the legendary Isuzu Yamada (she was in over 300 movies between 1929 and 1956, had been married six times, and was still playing romantic roles); Kyôko Kagawa, usually a demure heroine, plays the unsympathetic second wife; Hisaya Morishige is the indolent cat-loving husband; the character actress Chieko Naniwa plays the mother. The story (by Junichirô Tanizaki) is set among shopkeepers at a small seaside town near Osaka, in the Kansai district. —Pauline KaelRead More »

Jutka, a young woman who works in a factory, falls in love with Andras, a university student. She pretends to be a student, to him and to his parents, and begins to live a lie. Finally she rebels against Andras and his demands and the social conventions that forced her to live a lie.Read More »

Hopelessly oblivious, frustratingly tyrannical, and emotionally stunted, a woman suffering from a wide variety of personality flaws does her best to talk through two deeply destructive friendships.Read More »

Film Threat: When director Joe Swanberg hit the scene with “Kissing on the Mouth,” I was impressed. The film did exactly what it set out to do: take a microscope to inner-personal relationships and show an up close view, warts and all. As much as I liked the film, there’s still a feeling that it’s a cinematic experiment with a loose narrative that soars at times and stumbles through at others. Yet it was undeniably brave and intriguing. With his second feature “LOL,” Swanberg has settled into a solid narrative while still using his “Dogme” type style to look closely at how people relate to one another…or why they can’t.Read More »

Synopsis
Things could hardly turn out worse for Katrin. In Corsica, her boss and lover of many years tells her that his wife is pregnant. In one abrupt instant, all hopes for a life together are dashed. Her plans for her future unraveled, her heart broken, Katrin breaks up with him. But all her attempts to start a new life simply toss her deeper into a maelstrom of aimlessness and pain.

She then happens to meet Malte, an adventure-hungry young man who lives on the edge and strictly for the moment. He overwhelms her with the honesty and clarity of his feelings – and suddenly, from one minute to the next, her life becomes a dangerous tightrope walk.Read More »