Drama

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In this preternaturally assured feature debut by Carlos Reygadas, a man (Alejandro Ferretis) travels from Mexico City to an isolated village to commit suicide; once there, however, he meets a pious elderly woman (Magdalena Flores) whose quiet humanity incites a reawakening of his desires. Recruiting a cast of nonactors and filming in sublime 16 mm CinemaScope, Reygadas explores the harsh beauty of the Mexican country­side with earthy tactility, conjuring a psychic landscape where religion mingles with sex, life coexists with death, and the animal and spiritual sides of human experience become indistinguishable. A work of soaring ambition and startling visual poetry, Japón is an existential journey through uncharted cinematic territory that established the singular voice of its director.Read More »

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My Universities (Moi universiteti) is the last installment of Russian director Mark Donskoy’s “Maxim Gorky” trilogy. Having endured a painful youth in My Childhood (1938) and a torturous sojourn as a serf in My Apprenticeship (1939), future writer Gorky (Alexei Lyarsky) reaches maturity with an insatiable desire for personal and artistic freedom. The “university” of the title is actual the school of Hard Knocks, as Gorky goes to work in the shipyards and commisserates with the hard-drinking, philosophical dockworkers. Donskoy’s depiction of street life under the Czarist regime of the late 19th century as unrelentingly depressing, filled with disenfranchised derelicts. This, of course, was meant to be a contrast to the “perfection” of the Stalin years. We can forgive this propagandizing in the light of Donskoy’s indisputable cinematic brilliance. In 1941, a considerably edited version of My Universities was released in the US as University of Life. (Hal Erickson, Rovi)Read More »

Synopsis:
Adopted by a nomadic pansori singer, Dong Ho (Cho Jae Hyun) and Song Hwa (Oh Jung Hae) grow up as brother and sister, bounded by a deep unspoken affection. Their father trains them strictly, and Song Hwa’s love and talent for pansori becomes both her blessing and her burden. Young and brash, Dong Ho tries to keep pace as a traditional drum player, but eventually leaves the family in search of a better life. Though in the ensuing years he encounters news places and new people, he can never forget his love for Song Hwa. Together and apart, reunion and separation, the two keep moving in different directions while restlessly chasing each other’s shadows. Dong Ho spends a lifetime trying to find a place he belongs, a way to Song Hwa’s heart.Read More »

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Set before the first Wold War in part of Poland under Austrain occupation, the story of a young boy in primary school who later grows up to become a rebellious, poetic-minded teen in the same school when the national movement toward liberation is under way. The story of a country where church and state work together to suppress the human spirit.Read More »

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Miklós Jancsó’s Silence and Cry is set during a turbulent era of disquiet, fear, persecution and terror, which permeates every corner of post-WWI Hungarian society. In 1919, after just a few months of communist rule the Hungarian Republic of Councils falls victim to a nationalist counter-revolution. Admiral Horthy, leader of the nationalist far right movement, becomes the self-proclaimed regent of Hungary, and assumes power as the legal Head of State. Soldiers of the short-lived Hungarian Red Army are now on the run from relentless secret policemen and patrol units of the nationalist Royal Gendarme.Read More »

“Hungarians” is as stolid as its characters, a group of peasants who leave Hungary to work in Germany during World War II. The most knowledgable of them has never heard of Hitler. Yet signs of the war are unmistakable, as bands of refugees and wounded soldiers pass through the farm where the Hungarians have signed on as field hands. Zoltan Fabri’s film details their growing understanding of what is going on around them, as well as the fierce and renewed patriotism they begin to feel during their sojourn abroad.Read More »

IMDB:
In a small village lost in the middle of a boundless forest a teenager is in love with an older woman. He does not know how to strike up a conversation with her, much less how to tell her about his feelings. The boy’s father is pursuing the same woman and is ready to leave his family for her. The personal conflict between father and son is swept up in the turmoil of outside events which turn neighbor against neighbor, dividing them into ‘us’ and ‘them’. Every day those who are stronger show more and more disregard and contempt for the values of the weak, pushing everyone’s life towards a disaster.Read More »

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The film, depicting life in working-class Liverpool from the 1940s into the 50s, is already a modern classic.

Now that Eileen, Maisie, and Tony are adults, their childhood memories – and in particular those associated with their father – are inconsistent. While Eileen clings to happier times, her siblings remember his brutal violent nature, which has been a major influence on their growth and development. This troubled family must deal with the day-to-day alongside their past. Terence Davies creates a loving portrait with this partly autobiographical tale (shot in two sections), and it was voted one of the greatest British films by Sight & Sound.Read More »

In 1918, after the Balkan Wars and the First World War, thousands of Macedonians immigrate to Bulgaria. Among them are pro-Bulgarian Macedonians who want to exploit the emigrants for their own political agenda. Infighting in the revolutionary organization VMRO leads to the assassination of a number of Macedonian freedom fighters. The victim of one such assassination in Sofia is Gjorche Petrov, a hero of the Macedonian revolutionary movement. He is killed by a young boy who is not aware he is assassinating one of the last true fighters for Macedonian freedom. The realization that he has become unwittingly involved with the pro-Bulgarian organization and was used to execute this vile act is a death sentence for the young boy. The story revolves around the psychic condition of the young assassin who becomes easy prey to the intrigues woven around him until the final moment – his death.Read More »