A young woman lives a life filled with bad choices. She marries and has a child with an abusive thief at a young age who quickly ends up in prison. Left alone she takes up with his mate (another thief) who seems to give her some happiness but who also ends up in the nick. She then takes up with a series of seedy types who offer nothing but momentary pleasure. Her son goes missing and she briefly comes to grips with what is most important to her.Read More »
Drama
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Ken Loach – Poor Cow (1967)
1961-1970DramaKen LoachUnited Kingdom -
Miklós Szinetár – Az ember tragédiája AKA The Tragedy of Man (1969)
2011-2020AnimationDramaHungaryMarcell JankovicsQuote:
“The Tragedy of Man (Hungarian: Az ember tragédiája) written by Imre Madách was first published in 1861. The play is considered one of the major works in Hungarian literature and has earned a place in the national consciousness in that it is not only performed regularly in Hungary today but dialogue from the piece is often quoted and referred to.Starting with the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, the three main characters; Adam, Eve and Lucifer travels through history, playing their roles, from Ancient Egypt through the nineteenth century, into a distant and uncertain future. In each era the merits of the human race are presented by Adam, who believes in mankind and human achievement. But it is Lucifer, as the role of his servant or confidant, who exposes his dreams as ones built on injustice and misery.
Eve appears often as a temporary restorative for Adams disappointment in the failures of mankind.Read More » -
Benoît Jacquot – Journal d’une femme de chambre AKA Diary of a Chambermaid (2015)
Drama2011-2020Benoît JacquotFranceQuote:
It is an odd film: the central relationship between Joseph and Célestine is not entirely plausible, even as a desperate amour fou. But it is well acted and confidently performed. The antisemitism is a key to the film’s oppressive atmosphere. The pale, pinched neatness and pleasantness of this bourgeois household conceal a secret poison sac into which all the evil is drained: Vincent’s horrible leaflets, which express what so many respectable folk are thinking. This is a minor, flawed movie, but watchable in its suppressed, pornographic melodrama. –The GuardianRead More » -
Raoul Walsh – Me and My Gal (1932)
1931-1940ComedyDramaRaoul WalshUSASynopsis:
Young New York cop Dan falls in love with waterfront waitress Helen. Helen’s sister Kate falls for gangster Duke. Dan must do in Duke.Read More » -
Safi Yazdanian – Dar donya ye to saat chand ast? AKA What’s the Time in Your World? (2014)
2011-2020ArthouseDramaIranSafi YazdanianOn a sudden whim Goli decides to return to Iran after 20 years of living in France. She lands in Rasht, her home town, located in the north of the country. Farhad, a frame maker by trade, comes to welcome her. He seems to know her well, but the young woman has absolutely no recollection of him.
Director’s statement: I wanted to make a love story slightly different from those we are used to seeing. Farhad, the main character, is a man in love who demands nothing of that love to whom he has devoted all his life and who, like a sort of guardian angel, is content just to follow his beloved Goli’s life from afar.
The film considers what both parties bring to this love equation and reflects on what they gain and what they lose. To what extent can one maintain a sense of belonging when one lives outside one’s homeland and how does a revered image of home correspond to a concrete reality? What is more desirable, a world of one’s imaginings, the world as it is, or a mixture of the two?Read More »
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Julien Duvivier – Voici le temps des assassins aka Deadlier than the male (1956)
Drama1951-1960ClassicsFranceJulien Duvivier

André Chatelin is a restaurant owner in Les Halles in Paris. One morning, a girl named Catherine asks to see him. She happens to be the daughter of his estranged wife, Gabrielle, that André left more than twenty years before. As Gabrielle has just died, André accepts to accommodate Catherine first, then gives her a job in his restaurant before finally marrying her. But the angel-faced young lady might well be a devil in disguise.Read More »
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Marguerite Duras – Des journées entières dans les arbres aka Entire Days in the Trees (1977)
1971-1980ArthouseDramaFranceMarguerite DurasA woman whose son has been estranged from her for years travels to visit him in Paris. Despite offers of money and position, he would prefer to remain a petty thief, gigolo, and paid dancer rather than have anything to do with his mother. She has factories in Indochina which, despite political reverses, still run under her direction, and they could have been put under his control. The lad is happy enough to steal the jewels and money she has left lying around for just that purpose, knowing that he is too proud to accept gifts. His unhappy childhood in Indochina has left him too bitter to be approached.
Based on her novel and prior to directing a film version of the novel, Duras had already modified it into a stageplay that had enjoyed a theatrical run.Read More »
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Matthew Porterfield – Take What You Can Carry (2015)
2011-2020ArthouseDramaMatthew PorterfieldMumblecoreUSAA character study as well as a meditation on communication, creativity, and physical space, Take What You Can Carry is a picture of a young woman seen through the interiors she occupies and the company she keeps. A North American living abroad, Lilly aspires to shape an intimate and private place of her own while connecting to the world around her. When she receives a letter from home, it provides the conduit she needs to fuse her transient self with the person she’s always known herself to be.Read More »
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Noah Baumbach – Mistress America (2015)
Drama2011-2020ComedyNoah BaumbachUSA
Quote:
Tracy, a lonely college freshman in New York, is rescued from her solitude by her soon-to-be stepsister Brooke, an adventurous gal about town who entangles her in alluringly mad schemes. Mistress America is a comedy about dream-chasing, score-settling, makeshift families, and cat-stealing.Read More »







