Drama

  • Dan Pita – Femeia visurilor AKA Dream Woman (2005)

    2001-2010ArthouseDan PitaDramaRomania

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    This full feature movie presents the story of a renowned director, Thomas (Dan Condurache), at the peak of his career, obsessed by the hallucinations of the desired woman, but also of his creative problems. Although his movies are awarded, and he is loved by the public, by actors and friends, Thomas is tormented by the desire to direct the movie of his life.Read More »

  • James Goldstone – Rollercoaster (1977)

    1971-1980DramaJames GoldstoneThrillerUSA

    Quote:
    Originally augmented with the Sensurround technique to simulate the thrills of its title, “Rollercoaster” spins a tale of one man holding thousands of lives at stake. A quiet man with a deep understanding of explosives, rollercoasters and electronics — and possibly a traumatic history in the Vietnam War — targets the patrons of an amusement park for his million-dollar extortion scheme. He informs federal agents and the owners of the park that he has planted a bomb and he demands $1,000,000. When they call his bluff, he detonates a device on a popular rollercoaster that sends cars and riders hurtling off the tracks. The authorities then call on the one man who can outsmart the bomber… and prevent any other losses.Read More »

  • Alexis Damianos – Evdokia (1971)

    1971-1980Alexis DamianosDramaGreeceRomance

    Synopsis:
    A prostitute (Evdokia) meets a sergeant (Yorgos). They fall in love and get married after a short love affair. Her profession, however, is a barrier for their relationship. They try to stay together and overcome their inner conflicts, but the social environment crushes them.Read More »

  • Alain Resnais – L’amour à mort AKA Love Unto Death (1984)

    1981-1990Alain ResnaisDramaFrance

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Quote:

    L’Amour à Mort (Love Unto Death) is one of the more difficult Resnais films of the 80s. Featuring a core of actors from La Vie Est un Roman who would also go on to make Mélo (and are still working with Resnais on his most recent films), the film has a chamber mood, an enclosed and tightly constructed meditation on two complex subjects – love and death.

    Elisabeth (Sabine Azéma) and Simon (Pierre Arditi) have been together as a couple for only a few months when Simon dies. To everyone’s surprise he revives after a few minutes and appears to be quite healthy again. The couple’s relationship appears to become more intense, but Simon is unable to come to terms with his near-death experience, feeling an irresistible desire to withdraw from life. Their friends, a married couple of Protestant pastors, Judith (Fanny Ardant) and Jérôme (André Dussollier) try to rationalise how Simon and Elisabeth must feel, offering guidance and consolation through theological and philosophical discussions, but the couple are beyond the reach of human understanding or explanation, and the pervasive and persuasive music of ‘the other’, of a love beyond death, exerts an irresistible attraction.Read More »

  • Abbas Kiarostami – Tadjrebeh AKA Experience (1973)

    1971-1980Abbas KiarostamiArthouseDramaIran


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    تجربه

    A fourteen-year-old boy is employed as general assistant in a photographer’s studio, where he is also allowed to sleep. From afar, he is in love with a girl who lives in a wealthy district. One morning, he comes to offer his services at the girl’s parents’ house. There seems to be a ray of hope. But that evening the answer is negative, and final… A sort of adolescent double of the young boy in Zang-e Tafrih , the young Mamad of Tadjrebeh has a different obsession: rather than his football, he is attached here to the face of a girl, the painful result of love at first sight. Rootless and homeless, Mamad is a body borne on the flux of the town, his nameless and aimless anguish soothed by a ride round the courtyard on his elder brother’s moped or the half-bare waist of a woman followed in the crowd… Counters, doors and windows punctuate this film of absence, as well as images: the photographs which the apprentice files and stamps, mirrors of elsewhere, of another possible world.Read More »

  • Anna Jadowska – Dzikie róze AKA Wild Roses (2017)

    2011-2020Anna JadowskaDramaPoland

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Imdb:
    Ewa returns to her village after a hospital stay. She works on a plantation that grows wild roses. While Ewa was away her mother has been taking care of her children Marysia and Jas. Ewa’s husband Andrzej also returns home after working for months in Norway. The time apart has created distance between them. During Marysia’s first communion, Ewa starts to feel ill. Her friend Basia drives her home. Basia admits that she leaked the gossip to Andrzej about Ewa’s affair with Marcel, a local high school boy. Ewa meets Marcel on the rose plantation. She says that their relationship is over. After Marcel leaves, Marta realizes that Jas, her 2-year-old son, has disappeared. The search begins. After hours a policeman appears and says that Jas has been found. Marta and Andrzej go to the next village and pick up Jas. Ewa returns to the hospital she left a few days before. We discover that Ewa had given birth to a child and put it up for adoption. Ewa wants her child back.Read More »

  • Fritz Lang – Scarlet Street (1945)

    1941-1950DramaFilm NoirFritz LangUSA

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    Quote:
    Bleak.. grim… uncompromising… masterpiece… these are the words usually batted around about the film Fritz Lang considered his best American title. And the film lives up to these accolades without excuses. Endlessly rewatchable, the film finds Lang’s mise en scene at its most precise, its most crystalline. The film flows like the rainwater down a polished glass… easy and languid here, pausing there to plump up and gather weight… letting go there with velocity, until Chris Cross (Robinson) eventually finds his bottom in inevitable oblivion. Banned in several states, the ending of Scarlet Street may be the grimmest of all “Golden Age” Hollywood films– and most amazing that it passed the censors. Joan Bennett’s Kitty, and Dan Duryea’s Johnny may be the most vicious characters ever sketched onscreen in a 1940’s melodrama.. and the murder at its climax may be the most shocking, despite the absence of blood and gore.Read More »

  • Abbas Kiarostami – Dow Rahehal Baraye yek Massaleh AKA Two Solutions for One Problem (1975)

    Drama1971-1980Abbas KiarostamiIranShort Film

    Quote:
    Two young boys are classmates: when Nader returns his friend’s notebook, the cover of which he has accidentally torn, the other is faced with two possibilities. Either he can quickly take revenge, or the two can look for a solution together, glue the book back together and remain good pals.Read More »

  • George Cukor – A Woman’s Face (1941)

    1941-1950DramaGeorge CukorUSA

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    Quote:
    A supposedly superior remake of the 1938 Swedish film of the same name that starred Ingrid Bergman. It’s based on the French play Il etait une fois by Francis De Croisset and written by Donald Ogden Stewart and Elliot Paul. Capable studio director George Cukor (“The Women”/”Susan and God”) does his usual fine job handling actors, creating a finely drawn tense atmosphere as he makes the best of this ridiculous courtroom melodrama into a pleasing film despite the inane dialogue and incredulous machinations in the storytelling. Joan Crawford jumped at the chance to star in this juicy role despite having to play a facially disfigured woman (at least for half the film), which she was advised by even Louis B. Mayer (MGM head) that it could be costly for the glamour actress in the future. Instead it turned out to be one of her more acclaimed roles and did nothing but promote her career further as a serious dramatic actress (she won an Oscar for Mildred Pierce in 1945, which she claims this film had a cumulative effect in helping her win that award). Crawford’s scar makeup was credited to Jack Dawn, who created makeup for such films as The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941).Read More »

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