Mystery

  • Steven Soderbergh – Kafka (1991)

    1991-2000DramaMysterySteven SoderberghUSA

    Quote:
    It seems the lives of writers are hot movie properties these days. First Barton Fink, then Naked Lunch, and now Kafka. Whoever could have imagined such a thing? After the meteoric commercial success of Soderbergh’s debut feature sex, lies, and videotape, the director chose for his second effort this hypothetical presentation of the life of Franz Kafka. The movie is not so much a biography but rather, a speculative depiction of Kafka’s daily circumstances. While not untrue to the specific facts of Kafka’s life, the movie focuses more on the environment of 1919 Prague that so influenced the author. In large part, the things at which the movie excels are precisely the things that also make Kafka’s work so enduringly vivid — the absurdity anchored by an exacting realism, the incomprehensibility coupled with utmost lucidity, the looming sense of paradox, futility, labyrinthine logic and impenetrable pressures.Read More »

  • Denis Villeneuve – Incendies (2010)

    Denis Villeneuve2001-2010CanadaDramaMystery

    Twins journey to the Middle East to discover their family history, and fulfill their mother’s last wishes.Read More »

  • Ki-young Kim – Iodo AKA Io Island (1977)

    1971-1980HorrorKi-young KimMysterySouth Korea

    A company is studying the possibility to open a spa hotel named after a mythical island, Ieodo. The island is inhabited by the souls of drowned sailors. During a study trip to the location of the hotel lost a journalist under mysterious circumstances. One of the contractors go to Ieodo’s neighboring island, populated by widows of the dead sailors, to unravel the disappearance.Read More »

  • Michael Tolkin – The Rapture (1991)

    1991-2000DramaMichael TolkinMysteryUSA

    A Los Angeles telephone operator who tires of mate-swapping and turns to a religious sect for spiritual guidance.Read More »

  • Ala Eddine Slim – Tlamess (2019)

    2011-2020Ala Eddine SlimArthouseFranceMystery

    Quote:
    In Tunisian director Ala Eddine Slim’s experimental second feature, a soldier deserts his unit and lives on his instincts in the woods.

    An experimental anomaly on the Tunisian film front, writer-director Ala Eddine Slim has won a following with two films that leave logic and realism behind to chart a muddy course through the minefield of experimental-apocalyptic narrative. Although their meaning is hard to grasp (perhaps on purpose?), they have attracted attention. After Eddine Slim’s first feature The Last of Us was shown in New Directors, New Films in New York, his new but cut-from-the-same-cloth Tlamess turned up in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight. Wherever these enigmatic, schematic and often pretentious works are shown, their basic lack of dramatic truth haunts them and they run the risk of hearing frustrated audiences demand the emperor put some clothes on.Read More »

  • Roman Polanski – Lampa aka The Lamp (1959)

    1951-1960MysteryPolandRoman PolanskiShort Film

    In waning winter light, a doll maker works in his shop, a kerosene lamp beside him, a jumble of dolls and doll parts, whole and broken, surrounding him. There are noises, too: a cuckoo clock chirps the workday’s end. The artisan completes a repair and leaves, shuttering the shop from outside. Back inside, whispering begins. What else is in store for the shop’s seemingly lifeless denizens?Read More »

  • Robert Hossein – La nuit des espions AKA Night Encounter (1959)

    1951-1960DramaFranceMysteryRobert Hossein

    Synopsis:
    ‘In England during the Second World War, a German spy is pursued by the British secret service in a bid to prevent him from returning to France with a valuable microfilm. In a mountain chalet, two spies, one male, the other female, meet, neither knowing the identity of the other. Not knowing which side the other is on, they are powerfully drawn to one another…’
    – James TraversRead More »

  • Elmer Clifton – The Secret of Treasure Island (1938)

    1931-1940ClassicsElmer CliftonMysteryUSA

    Plot
    The serial is set on a remote island in the Caribbean, where reporter Larry Kent (Don Terry) and his enemies search for a lost treasure trove of gold. Kent arrives on the island in search of another reporter who had gone missing. Kent discovers that valuable lost treasure is buried on the island, and finds half of a map which holds a clue to its location. Toni Morrell (Gwen Gaze), the daughter of a shipmate whose murdered partner knew where the treasure was buried, agrees to help Kent investigate his friend’s disappearance and locate the treasure. Morrell and Kent are opposed by a villain named Collins (Walter Miller) who uses his henchmen and supply of weapons and land mines in an attempt to stop them. Kent’s enemy in the film is Dr. X. (Hobart Bosworth) who wears a skull mask and pirate clothing, and is in the process of developing a powerful explosive. Due to the actions of Dr. X., Kent is nearly buried alive, killed with dynamite and slashed in a sword battle. He defeats Dr. X. in the last installment of the serial titled “Justice”.[2][4][5]Read More »

  • Joyce A. Nashawati – Blind Sun (2015)

    2011-2020FranceHorrorJoyce A. NashawatiMystery

    Greece. Sometime in the near future. A seaside resort struck by a heavy heat wave. Water is rare and violence is mounting. Ashraf, a solitary immigrant, is looking after a villa while its owners are away. On a dusty road crushed by the sun, he is stopped by a police officer for an identity check.Read More »

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