Drama

  • Raja Amari – Satin rouge AKA Red Satin (2002)

    2001-2010African CinemaDramaMusicalRaja AmariTunisia

    “Sensual Performances, excellent acting and the great Arabic music only add to the film’s garden of earthly delights.”
    – Flaunt Magazine

    A widowed Tunisian seamstress takes an unlikely journey of self-discovery in writer- director Raja Amari’s sumptuous and sensual Satin Rouge. While investigating a suspected liaison between her headstrong teenaged daughter and a cabaret musician, young widow Lilia becomes drawn to an exotic nightclub netherworld of Rubénesque belly dancers and nocturnal pleasure- seekers. She strikes up a friendship with one of the dancers, then eventually takes the stage herself-quickly becoming the favorite of both cabaret patrons and the club’s hot-blooded drummer. As she gradually sheds her shapeless, matronly housedresses for the flamboyantly sequined bar-girl garb, she also begins to emerge from her cocoon of melancholy and loneliness.Read More »

  • Hampe Faustman – Flickan och djävulen AKA The Girl and the Devil (1944)

    1941-1950DramaFantasyHampe FaustmanSweden

    Karin (Gunn Wallgren) is a young servant girl on a Swedish farm. She has a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality: her better side enjoys all the human emotions of love, kindness, and romance, while the evil being within her is controlled by the Devil (Stig Jarrel) to bring revenge and destruction upon a farmer and his family.Read More »

  • Pavel Lungin – Ostrov AKA The Island (2006)

    2001-2010DramaPavel LunginRussia

    Quote:
    The spirit of Tarkovsky is never far from this rebarbative fable of guilt and atonement by Pavel Lounguine.

    A prologue set in 1943 reveals how a young Russian sailor, captured by the Nazis, saved his own life by shooting his captain. Thirty years later the man, Anatoly (Pyotr Mamonov), lives a monkish existence on a remote island in the White Sea, begging God to forgive his “sin” and baffling his fellow monks with his strange behaviour. The film’s austere palette of white, black and icy blues are contrasted with the fiery reds of the furnace Anatoly tends – his personal hellfire or a purifying flame? Nothing much is certain in this bleakly enigmatic tale, which moves at a pace most will find unacceptable. Those who stay the course will perhaps, like the monk himself, want to take a long rest afterwards.Read More »

  • Toshiya Fujita – Kaerazaru hibi aka The Days of No Return (1978)

    1971-1980AsianDramaJapanToshiya Fujita

    The story of a high school boy (Toshiyuki Nagashima) in Tokyo returning to his home town of Nagano upon the death of his father.

    Kaerazaru hibi was nominated for the Award of the Japanese Academy in 1979 for Best Director and Best Screenplay. Director Toshiya Fujita won the Readers’ Choice Award given by Kinema Junpo in 1979 as Best Japanese Film Director for the film.Read More »

  • Cristi Puiu – MMXX (2023)

    2021-2030ComedyCristi PuiuDramaRomania

    IMDb wrote:
    Oana Pfifer, a young therapist visibly distracted by some unknown reasons, is slipping little by little inside the net of the questionnaire she is supposed to submit to her patient. Mihai Dumitru, Oana’s younger brother, worrying about the preparations of his anniversary and not realizing how inappropriate his demands are, is stuck in a story far bigger than what he can handle. Septimiu Pfifer, Oana’s husband, concerned about his health regarding a possible Covid-19 contamination, is vaguely listening to a strange story his ambulance colleague was caught inside long ago, while waiting for the next emergency call. Narcis Patranescu, an organized crime inspector, perturbed by the recent death of one of his colleagues, is on the grip of an unsettling dark story while interrogating a young woman during a funeral. Four short moments in time that are capturing the wanderings of a bunch of errant souls stuck at the crossroads of history.Read More »

  • Elem Klimov – Proshchanie AKA Farewell (1983)

    1981-1990DramaElem KlimovUSSR

    Matyora is a small village on a beautiful island with the same name. The existence of the village is threatened with flooding by the construction of a dam. This is the story of the inhabitants of Matyora and their farewell to their homeland.Read More »

  • Jean Renoir – Le tournoi AKA The Tournament (1928)

    1921-1930DramaFranceJean Renoir

    In a Villeville bustling with the upcoming jousting tournament, two men covet young Isabelle Ginori: François de Baynes, womanizer and overbearing leader of the Protestants, and Henri de Rogier, a Catholic nobleman and Isabelle’s beloved. Queen Catherine de Medicis is aware of the conflict opposing the two men, and commands that the adversaries fight in the Tournament according to the Rules of Divine Judgement; the champion will win Isabelle’s hand.Read More »

  • Augusto Genina – L’assedio dell’Alcazar aka The Siege of the Alcazar [Italian censored version] (1940)

    Italy1931-1940Augusto GeninaDramaItalian Cinema under FascismWar

    Set during the Spanish Civil War, Genina’s film celebrates the 70-day defence of the Alcazar fortress in Toledo by Nationalist troops under the command of General Moscardo. It is an example of a documentario romanzato or “fictional documentary”, a combination of historical facts with elements of romanticised fiction.Read More »

  • Kazuki Ohmori – Betonamu no kaze ni fukarete AKA Blowing in the Winds of Vietnam (2015)

    2011-2020ComedyDramaJapanKazuki Ohmori

    After Misao divorced, she moved to Vietnam. She has always admired the country. There, she works as a Japanese language teacher. She learns that her brother-in-law is taking her mother with Alzheimer’s into a facility. Misao decides to take her mother to Vietnam instead. At first, her mother is uncomfortable adapting to life in a strange land. Her mother comes around though and embraces the warm people in Vietnam. One day, her mother is injured and Misao faces the reality in nursing her.Read More »

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