Cult

“The Earth Is a Sinful Song” is the somewhat misleadingly lyrical title of this film. It is based on a novel set in Finnish Lapland in 1947-48 and concerns itself, in unusually intimate detail, with the lives of the inhabitants of a small, rustic community, and with particular emphasis on one family—an old man, his unhappy son, haggard daughter-in-law and teen-age granddaughter.

One is tempted to call these lives harsh and brutal. But that would be an urban judgment, passed upon people who exist so close to nature that the appearance of an automobile about midway through the film jars a viewer. No, these lives are simply different, stripped almost bare of what we like to call the amenities of civilization. They have no luxuries. Hardship is omnipresent. Death comes among them frequently, taking people and animals. Pleasures are simple—an outdoor dance (where a drifter is killed); drink; religion; the sauna; and sex, indulged in and depicted with a minimum of fuss.

The seasons pass. Lives change. People grow up, grow older, die, are killed, are born. The cycle is ancient and eternal; the landscape is literal paradise and figurative hell. — (The New York Times).Read More »

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Gilles and Christine a boy and a girl live in the outskirts of Paris, their families are ineffective and distant and they lead a purposeless life. They steal some records in a supermarket but she is caught and sent to a nursing home by force by her parents. She escapes and follows Gilles to a house where some other youths live. They then decide to go south: Christine has been told there is a commune there, where artists live. So they head south sleeping rough…Read More »

Yugoslavian vampire horror film
Directed by Djordje Kadijevic in 1973
Cast: Mirjana Nikolic, Petar Bozovic , Slobodan Perovic, Vasja Stankovic

This is a Yugoslavian female vampire horror film of the early 70s shot in the Serbian countryside and based on a novel. The film starts in a mill. The old miller listens strange bird voices and while he’s sleeping the millstone suddenly stops working and a strange creature with black hands, long nails, angry eyes and long teeth bites his neck and drinks his blood. You don’t manage to see the whole creature but you understand it’s a human, not animal…Read More »

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An eccentric, lovable scientist falls in love with the girl next door – in an unusual way. Set in 1960’s London (aka Swinging London), WONDERWALL tells the story of a reclusive professor who becomes obsessed with a stunning model called Penny Lane. A psychedelic fantasy steeped in voyeurism, this film features a musical score by George Harrison with musical contributions from Eric Clapton and Ravi Shankar.Read More »

Running in from seemingly nowhere, Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith & Peter Tork – better known collectively as The Monkees – disrupt a bridge opening ceremony. From where and why did they come to disrupt the proceedings? They were filming a series of vignettes in several different genres, including a wild west sequence, a desert war sequence, a Confederate war sequence, and a science fiction sequence. They disagree with much of what is happening around them, and try to figure out how to escape the oppression they feel – symbolized by a big black box in which they are seemingly imprisoned – by the forces around. That oppression is often shown in the form of “The Big Victor Mature”.Read More »

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In British director Don Levy’s Herostratus, a young poet, Max (Michael Gothard, The Devils), decides to commit suicide in public as a form of protest. He hires a prestigious marketing company to capture the event and promote it to the masses. As preparations begin, however, Max realizes that his plan might be flawed – he doubts that the company would cover the event as he wishes. With only a few days left, the young rebel is faced with an impossible dilemma – finish what he has started, or abandon his plan and run away.

Herostratus reminded me about two very powerful films: Marco Bellocchio’s Fists in the Pocket (1965) and Bernardo Bertolucci’s Partner (1968). In the former, a young epileptic (Lou Castel), frustrated with the world around him, goes on a family killing spree. In the latter – a film loosely based on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s work The Double – a passionate revolutionary’s (Pier Clementi) plan to commit suicide issuddenly thrown into turmoil when a mysterious double appears.Read More »

The Dogma 95 film movement appeared out of the need to make low budget films that will be concentrated on the storytelling and the acting. No long preparations, no stylish million-dollar bullshitting. Just film. For many years most of the filmmakers in the Balkan have been doing exactly the same. It is just that they haven’t made a manifesto and most of them have never even heard of Dogma 95. Does it hurt? The First Balkan Dogma is a no budget mockumentary shot on HDV according to the dogma rules.

Synopsis:
A Macedonian filmmaker wants to make the first official Balkan Dogma film in Macedonia. She lies to her friends that she got financial support from the Zentropa producers. The film starts from the moment that she gathers her closest friends and asks them to join her in the quest for finding the right story for the film. She has decided to film the whole process from the very beginning and use it later for the making off. Following the four characters in their quest we discover Macedonia and the Balkans in 2006. The camera captures visual sequences of the absurdity, humour and survival techniques of a land and people in transition. The making of project ultimately becomes the true subject of the film.Read More »

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With periodic flashbacks and fantasy sequences, Exposed, in terms of its narrative structure at least, is a bit more complicated than your average sexploitation picture. While on the surface Lena is a typical, if flawed, central character the film lets us get into her head enough that even if we don’t completely see her as an innocent, we can at least feel for her. Her plight with Helge and his blackmailing ways is a sticky situation to be sure and while his coercion into the world of kinky sex allows for many titillating sequences, you can’t help but feel sorry for Lena. That said, she uses her sexuality to put herself in rather precarious situations and at times you almost wonder if she subconsciously wants the dysfunction that seems to follow her around. Consider this alongside the way that she’s treated by most of the men in the film, whose eyes linger on her quite voraciously, and you’re left trying to figure out how much of her dire situation she’s put herself in, rather than found herself in.Read More »

A Dogme95 modern urban love story…

IMDB:
A French woman falls in love with a Yugoslavian man, not realizing that he is an illegal immigrant.Read More »