Netherlands

Quote:
First full-length experimental feature by filmmaker Zwartjes about an actress, played by Willeke van Ammelrooy, who during the whole film, in continuously changes moods, is busy in her room. Eventually, she is made an offer by telephone. But what offer does the actress get? – letterboxd.com

Willeke van Ammelrooy stars in this acting tour de force, never leaving the screen for an instant. The movie follows her in her role as an actress who is trying to decide whether or not to accept a certain role. While she is worrying at the problem, she smokes, bathes, dresses, has a tantrum or two, makes phone calls, and cleans her room. – by Clarke Fountain, allmovie.comRead More »

Feature documentary about the life and work of MC Escher.

Letterboxd review
★★★★ Watched by NotASexyVamp 17 Feb 2019

After a slow start, this becomes a seriously satisfying film about a great artist. Escher considered his work “a search for the endless” and this film argues he achieved that. By using the tools of cinema to bring his art to life, we can discover the way it operates, the nuanced construction behind it. By using Escher’s own words (brought to life by Stephen Fry), we see his view on his work. Awe-inspiring.Read More »

Amazon reviews:
There are two films here. The first, ‘Conducting Mahler,’ features long segments showing several eminent Mahler conductors — Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Riccardo Chailly, Bernard Haitink and Simon Rattle — rehearsing the likes of the Royal Concertgebouw, the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, in long, lovely passages from all the Mahler symphonies (plus some of ‘Das Lied von der Erde’) interspersed with interviews (with the noted music writer, Donald Mitchell) with all five of the conductors. Not only is the music-making first class, but the insights that the conductors bring to the process, both in their conducting and in their thoughts about Mahler and his music, are exceedingly stimulating. Read More »

Looks like an awesome Bitomsky film, deals with images on film shot between 1910-1920.Read More »

An uninflected, docu-like study of an 18-year-old Dutch woman searching for her birth mother. (Variety)Read More »

Quote:
Transformation under duress is at the nexus of this excellent wartime drama by noted Dutch filmmaker Fons Rademakers. The setting is Holland under German occupation and young Ducker (Lex Schoorel) is surviving the war and an unhappy marriage the best he can. Then one dark night, a mysterious secret agent who looks remarkably like Ducker except for his black hair, parachutes into the young man’s back yard. The secret agent, Dorbeck, enlists Ducker’s help in his missions against the Germans, and before much time has elapsed, Ducker has joined the resistance fighters and is actively engaged in the anti-German, underground war effort. He becomes daring, confident, imaginative — all the qualities missing in his earlier life. But then the war ends and brings an ironic twist to Ducker’s career as a brave patriot.
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IMDB Summary:
This is a TV adaptation of a 1993 opera entitled “Rosa,” with a libretto by Greenaway and score by Louis Andriessen. “Rosa” is the first in a projected series of 10 operas, each dealing with the death of a famous composer – some real (Anton Webern, Jean-Baptiste Lully, John Lennon), others fictional. “Rosa” falls into the latter category; it tells the story of Juan Manuel de Rosa, a Brazilian who went to study music in America but spent most of his time in the cinema instead, becoming particularly entranced by Westerns. Now 32 years old and residing in an abandoned Uraguayan slaughterhouse, Rosa has become one of Hollywood’s foremost composers, specializing in (what else?) Westerns. He also has a beautiful 19-year-old fiancee, Esmeralda, but he pays her little heed, instead lavishing his attentions on a black mare named Bola. One day, a group of men attired as cowboys arrive at the abattoir and kill both Rosa and Bola; an investigation is conducted, with particular suspicion!Read More »

The great composer Arvo Pärt at work, whilst the artists who perform his music and are inspired by it illustrate the different aspects of the phenomenon the man is.Read More »

Quote:
The Zuiderzee Works episode of We Are Building was elaborated to the much longer film Zuiderzee by Joris Ivens in 1930. In 1934 Ivens used the same material, and additional footage, to make another version: New Earth. This time the film got a political message, and the editing became more compact and stronger, sustained by the stirring Music of Hanns Eisler. After the part on the reclamation and the closing of the dyke the film continues with images of the economic crisis and the poverty among labourers. Ivens opposes this with the speculation on the market: those who helped with the reclamation of new land for agriculture are now unemployed and starving, while grain is dumped at see to keep the prices up. The closing of the dyke is still one of the strongest editing sequences in the films of Joris Ivens.Read More »