Classics

  • Dover Koshashvili – Anton Chekhov’s The Duel (2010)

    2001-2010ClassicsCroatiaDover KoshashviliDrama

    Save Shakespeare, Chekhov is the literary giant whose work is most frequently adapted for the screen. Based on his eponymous 1891 novella, THE DUEL gives life to a classic Chekhovian tale: the young ne’er-do-well aristocrat vs. the arrogant man of science; the attraction of a manipulative, narcissistic mistress vs. the life of the mind and of principled action. Gambling, alcohol and flirtations consummated in an impossibly beautiful countryside hold obvious attractions for Laevsky. But he’s brought up short when financial ruin and his mistress’s sexual dalliances lead to a violent denouement. Dover Kosashvili, director of LATE MARRIAGE, assembles a brilliant ensemble cast of British actors who strike just the right balance between intrigue and that particularly Russian brand of ennui we associate with Chekhov — but which today might elicit a prescription for Celexa.Read More »

  • Yukihiro Sawada – Tomodachi AKA Friend (1974)

    1971-1980ClassicsDramaJapanYukihiro Sawada

    Quote:
    A young girl moves from Iwate to Kawasaki after leaving her village, but she suffers from asthma and is ostracised by her friends. A young boy who dreams of becoming a footballer. The two gradually develop a friendship, but tragedy strikes at the end…

    A very pure and touching film. The last part of the film will make you cry.Read More »

  • Minoru Shibuya – Haha to ko AKA Mother and Child (1938)

    1931-1940ClassicsDramaJapanMinoru Shibuya

    This is an early film from the career of Shibuya Minoru and according to Donald Richie in The Japanese Film: Art and Industry, “One of his best, the 1939 [actally 1938] Mother and Child (Haha to ko), was taken from a onvel by Tsuneko Yada. This story of a young daughter, her businessman father, and his mistress was slightly overloaded with sentiment and burdened with the confused social criticism apparent in some of the director’s postwar work, but was nonetheless representative of the period.Read More »

  • Yasujirô Shimazu – Watashi no niisan AKA My elder Brother (1934)

    1931-1940ClassicsJapanRomanceYasujirô Shimazu

    Quote:
    Kazuo Hasegawa has wild friends and hates being compared to his stepbrother, Reikichi Kawamura, who is steady, works hard at his taxicab business, and is amiable. That’s why he left home a year ago. Now he has heard his mother is ill, and wants to come home, but thinks she hates him. That’s nonsense, says Kawamura. Hasegawa agrees to reform. Just then two men come in and want to hire a cab. Everyone has gone home for the evening, so Hasegawa shows his willingness to reform by taking the fare. They drive to a distant house. They ask him to wait. While he does so, Kinuyo Tanaka pops out, begs him to help her escape. He does so. The two men are her step-brother, and the man everyone wants her to marry…. except her, of course.Read More »

  • Carl Theodor Dreyer – Vampyr [Masters of Cinema 2K] (1932)

    1931-1940Carl Theodor DreyerClassicsGermanyHorrorWeimar Republic cinema

    Traveler Allan Gray arrives in the village of Courtempierre and takes lodgings in a small inn. Gray has a great interest in the supernatural, particularly vampires. He’s barely settled in when he feels a sinister force descending upon him. In the night an old man enters his room to tell him ‘she must not die’. One of the old man’s daughters, Leone, has been bitten by a vampire. In order to break the curse, Gray and Leone’s sister Gisele must find the original vampire and drive a stake through her heart.Read More »

  • Keisuke Kinoshita – Kotoshi no koi AKA This Year’s Love (1962)

    1961-1970AsianClassicsJapanKeisuke Kinoshita

    Hikaru and Ichiro are close friends in high school. Hikaru’s elder brother Tadashi fell in love with Ichiro’s elder sister, Mikako at first sight. Although she gave the cold shoulder to Tadashi, she gradually became fond of Tadashi.Read More »

  • Julie Taymor – The Tempest (2010)

    2001-2010ClassicsDramaJulie TaymorUSAWilliam Shakespeare

    Adaptation of Shakespeare’s play. Prospera, the female form of the male role in the original story, is banished from Milan by her brother. She finds herself stranded on an island with her four-year-old daughter and the beast Caliban. After 12 years of isolation, she gets the chance to take her revenge on her sibling, by causing a storm that wrecks his ship and strands those on board. Show lessRead More »

  • Goutam Ghose – Maa Bhoomi AKA Our Land (1979)

    1971-1980ClassicsGoutam GhoseIndiaPolitics

    Set during one of India’s main peasant risings, the Telangana insurrection between 1945 and 1951 in the pre-Independence state of Hyderabad, the Bengali director’s first feature tells the story of Chander’s best-known novel (Jab Khet Jaage (1948) from the peasant’s point of view. A young peasant, Ramiah, rebels against the corrupt rule of the nizam, and when his girlfriend has to submit to the potentate’s sexual coercion, Ramiah leaves. He befriends a Marxist activist (the rising was CPI-inspired) and participates in the Independence struggle.Read More »

  • Augusto Genina – Prix de beauté AKA Miss Europe [Silent] (1930)

    Augusto Genina1921-1930ClassicsFranceSilent

    From IMDb:
    Lucienne, typist and gorgeous bathing beauty, decides to enter the ‘Miss Europe’ pageant sponsored by the French newspaper she works for. She finds her jealous lover Andre violently disapproves of such events and tries to withdraw, but it’s too late; she’s even then being named Miss France. The night Andre planned to propose to her, she’s being whisked off to the Miss Europe finals in Spain, where admirers swarm around her. Win or lose, what will the harvest be?Read More »

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