Two boys and a girl prepare for nightclubbing in the heart of Athens. Arriving, they face a deserted club, where music plays blaring but there is no one to listen. There, one by one falls asleep as they surrender themselves in a collective dream.Read More »
Time strung together by recollections, encounters and dreams. A farewell over a man’s last three months before his final transformation.Read More »
Synopsis:
Moro returns to Alma Ata to collect money owed to him. While waiting out an unexpected delay, he visits his former girlfriend Dina, and discovers she has become a morphine addict. He decides to help her kick the habit and to fight the local drug maphia responsible for her condition. But Moro finds a deadly opponent in “the doctor,” the maphia kingpin who is exploiting DinaRead More »
Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote:
“Pialat’s third feature takes up a theme which, on the face of it, could not seem more uninviting: a middle-aged woman dying of cancer, and how this affects her husband and son. But what Pialat makes of this is so recognisable, embarrassing and moving – even, on occasion, funny – that he more than justifies his use of a forbidding subject. He has ideas about how emotions involving sex and death are intimately related – and about the clarity and lack of it that they shed on everything else, as son and father each go lusting after every woman in sight. He has ideas about cinema, too, and an expressive style that can encapsulate a lifetime of memories in a single shot. Without a trace of sentimentality or easy effect, this seemingly semi-autobiographical work is as intense in its way as The Mother and the Whore, and unforgettable.”Read More »
When, after several arguments, adopted child Polo is placed with another family, power couple Gastón and Ema’s relationship is put under serious pressure. This also threatens the modern dance collective they are leading members of – he is the choreographer, she the lead dancer. Platinum blonde Ema refuses to let it go, and comes up with a master plan to get Polo back. Armed with a flamethrower and helped by her best friends, she labours day and night to reunite her family.Read More »
Heshmat, an exemplary husband and father, gets up very early every day. Where does he go? Pouya cannot imagine killing another man, yet he is told he must do so. Javad doesn’t know that proposing to his beloved won’t be the only surprise on her birthday. Bahram is a physician but is unable to practice medicine. He has decided to explain to his visiting niece the reason for his life as an outcast. The four stories that comprise Sheytan vojud nadarad (There Is No Evil) offer variations on the crucial themes of moral strength and the death penalty, asking to what extent individual freedom can be expressed under a despotic regime and its seemingly inescapable threats.Read More »
Eleven-year-old Amra is a child of the Mongolian steppe, where he lives in a traditional nomad community. His father drives him to school in the morning, and in the evening the boy helps to round up the family’s sheep and goats. Amra watches YouTube clips with his friends and dreams of making an appearance on Mongolia’s Got Talent. At home, the grown-ups convene to discuss the group’s future. Global mining companies and their hunger for gold represent an imminent threat to the herders’ way of life. When his father falls victim to a fatal accident, the challenges of harsh reality force Amra to abandon his childhood fantasies. Summoning all the strength he can muster and pushing beyond his limits, the boy sets out to honour his father’s legacy.Read More »
Quote:
‘Escape from Japan’ chronicles the misadventures of Tatsuo Ihara, a small-time criminal who dreams of seeking his fortune away from Japan. Timed to coincide with the Tokyo Olympiad and released on July 4, Escape From Japan can be safely assumed to have something to say about Japan’s place in the world and its relations with the U.S. in particular. It also proves less an imitation than a black-comic send-up of the sort of sordid crime stories that Seijun Suzuki and others specialized in.Read More »
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Buried beneath all the ballyhoo over Netflix’s premiere of “The Irishman,” another one of this year’s finest films slipped onto the streaming service with little fanfare last Friday. “Atlantics,” the debut feature from world cinema royalty Mati Diop made history earlier this year by being the first movie directed by a black woman ever invited to screen in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, where it went on to win the Grand Jury Prize.Read More »