Drama

Quote:
Casting aside the humor and striking visuals that made “Woman on Fire Looks for Water” appealing, rising Malaysian helmer Woo Ming Jin jumps full-on into wearying miserablism with “The Tiger Factory.” A predictable tale of a young woman ground down by poverty and exploitation, the pic never lets up in its drive toward nihilism, culminating in her loss of compassion. Lensed in a coldly observational manner (inspired perhaps by Brillante Mendoza), “Tiger” will remain chained to rarefied fests partial to this particular brand of Southeast Asian low-budget despair.Read More »

Synopsis:
Two young women from England’s northern counties; the plain Brenda and the flamboyant Yvonne, arrive in London to find fame and fortune. Misdirected and separated, they strike out on their own with Yvonne becoming a model and Brenda a waitress. After Brenda sabotages Yvonne’s date whom takes advantage of her, they lose their jobs and soon the roles are reversed with Brenda succeeding as a model and Yvonne becoming a waitress. With both of them competing with the other, they soon learn that they have to team up to take on their adversaries in order to succeed.Read More »

Synopsis
Ostensibly Imamura’s first work in documentary features, A Man Vanishes is much more, heralding the future work of Kazuo Hara and Werner Herzog, amongst others, in the genre-defying mix of style and loose adherence to filmic “reality.” Imamura follows one case of a growing phenomenon of working Japanese men who, sent to other cities while their families are left behind, disappear completely. The film concerns Yoshie Hayakawa, whose fiancée vanishes from sight, leaving behind only shadowy evidence of his past, casting darkness over Hayakawa’s relationship with her sister, her fiancée’s family, and even the investigator, who himself may not be what he seems to be.Read More »

This is the sequel to the Straubs’ Operai, contain.

Excerpts from the novel Donna di Messina (1949 and 1964, 1967) by Elio Vittorini (1908-1966).Read More »

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A sewerage worker’s dead body is found inside a manhole in Mumbai. An ageing folk singer is tried in court on charges of abetment of suicide. He is accused of performing an inflammatory song which might have incited the worker to commit the act. As the trial unfolds, the personal lives of the lawyers and the judge involved in the case are observed outside the court.Read More »

Synopsis:
The story follows the decadent heir Henri de Marsay, who becomes enamored of the eponymous beauty, Paquita Valdes, and plots to seduce her. He succeeds but becomes disillusioned when he discovers she is also involved with another lover and so plots to murder her. When he arrives to kill her, he discovers that she is already dead by the hand of her lover, his half-sister. She declares that Paquita came from a land where women are no more than chattels, able to be bought and used in any way. In the last lines of the story, de Marsay tells a friend that the girl has died of “something to do with the heart.”Read More »

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A French drug dealer living in Tokyo is betrayed by his best friend and killed in a drug deal. His soul, observing the repercussions of his death, seeks resurrection.Read More »

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Jean-Baptiste Poquelin is raised by his father and his grandfather because his mother dies when he’s still very little. He works as a handyman, studies the law at a university and travels the country as an actor before he becomes the celebrated playwright Molière who impresses firstly the Duke of Orleans and then even King Louis XIV.Read More »

Synopsis:
Pregnant nineteen-year old Marie Allen (Eleanor Parker) is sentenced to prison as an accessory to robbery. The warden, Ruth Benton (Agnes Moorehead), dedicated to reforming even the most hardened of the prisoners, deals fairly with Marie, even upon learning of her condition. The naïve Marie comes up against tough block matron Evelyn Harper (Hope Emerson) and must decide whether accepting the friendship of the toughest prisoners will rub off on her and affect the future of her unborn child.Read More »