Drama

Quote:
Debuting to critical acclaim in 1998, Diaz’s Serafin Geronimo, Kriminal ng Baryo Concepcion, announced the arrival of a major talent, and a possible new direction for Philippines cinema. Where Brocka had examined society’s effect on the individual, Diaz’s Kriminal looked at the effect of the individual’s actions on his conscience. His Russian influences written on his sleeve— the film begins with a quote from Crime and Punishment translated into Tagalog— Diaz’s hero was akin to that of Dostoevsky but atypical of Philippine cinema; a quiet man with a guilty past seeking redemption in the present. With Kriminal, Diaz laid down his archetype character and began to plot the path of his aesthetic.Read More »

Synopsis wrote:
A little boy, 10 years old, refuses to accept the death of his father who was killed in a car accident. He continues to claim that his father is away on a business trip and awaits for his return. Until, watching the 1969 lunar landing on TV, when his father isn’t there to watch it with him, he finally accepts reality.Read More »

Quote:The pinnacle of the decades-long collaboration between producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory, Howards End is a luminous vision of E. M. Forster’s cutting 1910 novel about class divisions in Edwardian England. Emma Thompson won an Academy Award for her dynamic portrayal of Margaret Schlegel, a flighty yet compassionate middle-class intellectual whose friendship with the dying wife (Vanessa Redgrave) of rich capitalist Henry Wilcox (Anthony Hopkins) commences an intricately woven tale of money, love, and death that encompasses the country’s highest and lowest social echelons. With a brilliant, layered script by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (who also won an Oscar) and a roster of gripping performances, Howards End is a work of both great beauty and vivid darkness, and one of cinema’s best literary adaptations.Read More »

Jiri Menzel of Closely Watched Trains fame directed the sweet little Czechoslovakian comedy/drama My Sweet Little Village. The life’s blood of the titular community is a collective farm. Marian Labuda is the farm’s truck driver, and also the
partner-protector of Janos Ban, who is the village idiot. Like everyone else in the village, Labuda has watched out for Ban and covered up his mistakes, but in recent weeks the situation has become intolerable and Labuda demands a new partner. As Ban prepares to be relocated to Prague, we cut away to various subplots, all of which lead to the same conclusion: the hapless Ban has always been the “glue” that has held the community together. A contrite Labuda heads for Prague to invite Ban to come back home. Originally titled Vesnicko Ma Stediskova, My Sweet Little Village was a 1986 Academy Award “best foreign-language picture” nominee.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie GuideRead More »

In 1906, after finishing a tough migrant job in the Philippines, Takichi has returned to Japan. He starts to work as a rickshaw driver, but his lover had died of an illness, leaving a baby girl, Hatsue. Hatsue grows up beautifully and falls in love with Shintaro. But Takichi objects to their relationship…Read More »

Quote:
“This neo-noir British crime drama, set at a decaying English beach resort, begins with a body dropped from a pier. Hairdresser Helen (Rachel Weisz) goes with local deejay Bob (Ben Daniels), but mute bicyclist Honda (Luka Petrusic), who secretly tapes people’s conversations, meets Helen at the beachfront and begins sending her flowers. Honda’s sad nympho sister Smokey (Macedonian-born Labina Mitevska) sings at a local club. A figure from Helen’s past, the enigmatic, mysterious Martin (Alessandro Nivola) checks out Helen but keeps his distance. Read More »

At the turn of the 10th and 11th centuries Boleslav’s kingdom fell apart in the fratricidal war between the Přemyslovci and the other clans the main profiteer of this being the German emperor. At that time it seemed as if the Czech state and the lineage of its princes was awaiting its end…” It is with these words that the tale of this film begins, whose narrative is based upon the the play by František Hrubín of the same name.Read More »

Quote:
This dialog-free film, originally presented as 33 short films, is an experimental, bizarre set of meditations and flashbacks of the grotesque.Read More »

Three encounters of revolutionary Milos (Velimir “Bata” Zivojinovic) with death during the war. In the episode one, Milos is watching the death of someone else. In the second episode, he is being prosecuted by Germans. In the third episode, he lived throughout the war in the situation to decide human lives. The dilemma which haunted him during the war stays: whether to punish or forgive.Read More »