Drama

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This lavishly spectacular film focuses on the character of Lorinc Parcen Nagy from the 1200-page Tibor Déry novel interwoven with numerous autobiographical elements.

Lorinc Parcen Nagy is the offspring of an upper middle class family, whose life is marked by two violent deaths: the suicide of his father and the slaughter of an innocent worker. He breaks with his family and his mother in disgust; she is of weak character, a person who abandoned her own husband. He is also unable to discover the right tone with his colleagues and his lover who is an illegal party worker.Read More »

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Set during Martial Law in Poland and centers on the young widow of an attorney who defended activists during political trials. The woman finds herself unable to deal with her husband’s death. The spirit of the departed intervenes in her life and the widow constantly feels this presence. Her longing for her deceased husband ultimately leads her to commit suicide. The storyline of the heroine’s personal experiences is intertwined with that centering on the political trial of a young worker. In the film, Kieślowski offers a series of reflections on the political stance of society and the professional ethics of lawyers.Read More »

A young woman, Claire, escapes from a lunatic asylum and falls under the protection of Louis Delage, a loner who rears horses for a living. When the man whom Louis has been sheltering is killed, both Claire and Louis become targets for a pair of unknown assassins. In the adventure that follows, Claire discovers why she was locked away in an asylum – her aunt wanted to prevent her from inheriting her father’s fortune. When the two killers make the same discovery, they kidnap Claire in order to extort a ransom, whilst continuing their pursuit for Louis. The outcome is far from pleasant…Read More »

Synopsis:
In August 1952, a family of British tourists is found by the roadside in Haute Provence, brutally murdered. In the ensuing, very public, investigation a local landowner, 75 year old Gaston Dominici, is arrested for the murders, having been denounced by his sons. Under police interrogation, Dominici confesses to have killed the family and it looks certain that he will be charged, tried and sentenced to death. But then the case begins to collapse. The old man retracts his confession and the lack of evidence against him becomes apparent…
– Films de FranceRead More »

Synopsis:
Gervaise Macquart, a young lame laundress, is left by her lover Auguste Lantier with two boys… She manages to make it, and a few years later she marries Coupeau, a roofer. After working very hard a few more years, she succeeds in buying her own laundry (her dream)… But Coupeau starts to drink after having fallen from a roof, and Lantier shows up… A faithful adaptation of Emile Zola’s novel “L’Assomoir”, depicting the fatal degeneration of a family of workers, mainly because of alcohol.Read More »

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A small village in the Jura is divided by the river Loue which marks the line of demarcation between Nazi occupied France and freedom. A French officer, Pierre, is released by the Nazi soldiers to find his chateau converted into a German command centre. Whilst he is obliged to co-operate with the enemy, his wife Mary plays a hand in supporting the French resistance. The Nazis step up their activity against the resistance, insisting that any who attempt to cross the line of demarcation will be shot. When his wife is arrested, Pierre decides to switch his allegiance…Read More »

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Inviting favorable comparison to the overtly political, social realist films of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, The Wound is an understatedly affecting, acutely observed, and profoundly sobering portrait of oppression, dehumanization, and exclusion. By incorporating organic, extended plan-sequences and using repeated images of interminable waiting – from Blandine’s detention, to her self-confinement at a derelict tenement, to Papi’s real-time ride through the countryside in the back of day laborer truck – Nicolas Klotz reflects the inherent inadequacy (if not outright failure) of immigration and asylum laws, lax procedural structure, and government-tolerated, often racially motivated policies (and undocumented, obstructive common practices) that willfully hinder or impede the integration and assimilation of immigrants into their adoptive countries. Using the treatment of Blandine’s wound while in French custody as a metaphor for the authorities’ repeated turning of a blind eye to the obvious, visible social problem, the film serves as a harrowing and trenchant exposition on intolerance and systematic marginalization.Read More »

Synopsis:
It’s 1896. Yankel Bogovnik, a Russian Jew, emigrated to the United States three years earlier and has settled where many of his background have, namely on Hester Street on the Lower East Side of New York City. He has assimilated to American life, having learned English, anglicized his name to Jake, and shaved off his beard. He is working at a $12/week job as a seamster, the money earned to be able to bring his wife Gitl and his son Yossele to America from Russia. Regardless, he has fallen in love with another woman, a dancer named Mamie Fein. Nonetheless, he is excited when he learns that Gitl and Yossele are indeed coming to America. Read More »

Prior to the adoption of Confucianism, it was the tradition to abandon one’s parents on a mountainside if they were over 70 years of age. In the ancient kingdom of Goryeo, now modern Korea, a nobleman defies this tradition when he refuses to leave his mother to starve to death.Read More »