Quote:
Lars von Trier´s direction makes this film a shocking look into the disturbed mind of a woman who has been scorned and left. Medea´s revenge is horrible but never unbelievable. She does what every sane person would do, when deprived of all that she loves. The film burns itself into your mind and leaves you with a lasting impression of what human misery can be like.Read More »
Synopsis
Madame Rosa, a former prostitute, lives in a top floor apartment in a mixed race district of Paris. Although her health is failing, she manages to look after the abandoned children of prostitutes, including a rebellious young Arab boy named Momo. An Auschwitz survivor, Madame Rosa imagines that the Nazis are still around and instructs Momo to protect her from them. Momo faithfully repays his guardian’s kindness by raising money to support her in her dying days, but he is curious to find out about his own origins…Read More »
Synopsis: Director Ken Loach and writer Paul Laverty team up again for the romantic drama Ae Fond Kiss. The filmmaking team’s third film set in Glasgow, this story involves a mixed-race relationship that causes problems for all involved. Casim Khan (Atta Yaqub) lives with his Punjabi-born Muslim family in Scotland. He wants to open a nightclub with pal Hammid (Shy Ramsan), but his parents have arranged for him to marry his cousin Jasmine (Sunna Mirza). Then he meets Irish schoolteacher Roisin Hanlon (Eva Birthistle), whom he quickly falls for. After calling off his family-approved engagement, Casim is ostracized by his father, Tariq (Ahmad Riaz). Meanwhile, Roisin runs into a concerned priest (Gerard Kelly) when she tries to get a job at a Catholic school. Ae Fond Kiss won several prizes at the Berlin Film Festival in 2004. -Andrea LeVasseur (AMG)Read More »
IMDB:
When her sister is mugged and raped, Oili, a young female forensic dentist, meets a group of abused women who have taken matters to their own hands to make the living in fear and just letting it happen stop.
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SYNOPSIS: The title of Child Murders has a chilling double meaning. In this black and white melodrama about children, the child murders that the film’s title refers to are the million and one ways that children’s souls are ravaged by neglect, unkindness and cruelty, even though several physical deaths take place in the story. 12-year-old Zsolt lives a lonely life with his grandmother. He spends so much time taking care of his grandmother, that he has little time for much else. However, he makes friends with Juli, a homeless young gypsy woman living in an abandoned railway car. This friendship becomes known to the other children in his circle, and results in his being actively ridiculed, ostracized and beaten. When Juli has a miscarriage and Zsolt helps her dispose of the baby’s corpse, they are seen by one of the hate-filled local children, who notifies the police. The gypsy girl is taken to a prison hospital where she hangs herself. Zsolt quietly takes his revenge on the informant.Read More »
IMDB:
Nina, an end-of-teenage orphan with mental problems, starts a new job as a garden cleaner when she meets Toni. They fell in love with each other, but soon Toni starts betraying Nina. In the meantime, Francoise is picked up at a psychic department of a Berlin hospital by her husband, Pierre. After seeing Nina, Francoise believes that she has found her kidnapped daughter Marie, but neither Toni nor Pierre believe her. Nina is unsure about what to think… Read More »
The Naked Island
Filmed on the virtually deserted Setonaikai archipelago in south-west Japan, The Naked Island was made — in the words of its director — “as a ‘cinematic poem’ to try and capture the life of human beings struggling like ants against the forces of nature”. Kaneto Shindô (Onibaba, Kuroneko) made the film with his own production company, Kindai Eiga Kyôkai, who were facing financial ruin at the time. Using a tenth of the average budget, Shindô took one last impassioned risk to make this film. With his small crew, they relocated to an inn on the island of Mihari where, for two months in early 1960, they would make what they considered to be their last film.Read More »
synopsis
Pastorale won the International Critics’ Prize from the 1982 Berlin Film Festival. Director Otar Ioseliani was something of an outsider in the Soviet system and now lives and works in France. This film, made in 1976, was not released in the West until 1982. Iosseliani’s films show a characteristically Georgian film style; focusing more on character and mood than narrative coherence, they exhibit a characteristically whimsical humor. Pastorale explores what is truly valuable in human relationships, when one cuts away the non-essentials. The story shows what happens when a highly cultured group of musicians from a string quartet spend the summer rehearsing in a small village in the Georgian countryside. In this contemplative, idiosyncratic and somewhat humorous film, they get embroiled in local controversies, and share their gusto for living, loving and drinking with the villagers, to whom they are otherwise incomprehensible, while they rehearse and bicker among themselves.Read More »
Plot:
Northern Lawyer John Reynolds (John Wayne) goes up against the lottery racket in 1880 corrupt Louisiana.
While on the riverboat to New Orleans, he meets and falls in love with Southern Belle, Julie (Ona Munson), General Anatole Mirbeau’s beautiful daughter. The General (Henry Stephenson) and his right-hand man Blackburn ‘Blackie’ Williams (Ray Middleton) run the popular Louisiana State Lottery Company, which support illegal activities and brothels while corrupting judges and other city officials. The battle between the men are complicated with Reynolds’ love for the General’s daughter and interrupted by torrential rain storms that breaks the levees, floods the city and threatens to destroy the city of New Orleans.
Stylishly directed by Bernard Vorhaus who had previously directed John Wayne in the memorable drama, Three Faces West. Includes an early performance by Dorothy Dandridge (Carmen Jones). Read More »