War

In May 1948, shortly before the creation of the State of Israel, hundreds of immigrants from across Europe arrive in Palestine – only to risk arrest by British troops.Read More »

Plot Synopsis by Hal Erickson
Three Stripes in the Sun was based on The Gentle Wolfhound, a New Yorker article written by E. J. Kahn Jr. Set in postwar Japan, the film concerns the activities of three U.S.-occupation soldiers: Sergeant Hugh O’Reilly ( Aldo Ray), the Colonel (Phil Carey) and Corporal Neeby Muhlendorf (Dick York). Though he hates the Japanese with a passion, Sergeant O’Reilly softens as he gets to know the local citizenry. Soon, the hard-bitten sergeant is sneaking food provisions to Japanese children and donating his GI pay towards the building of an orphanage; he also falls in love with lovely interpreter Yuko (Mitsuko Kimura). Meanwhile, the Colonel handles his responsibilities with slick, military precision, while Corporal Muhlendorf spends his time looking for “action.” Serving as technical advisor on Three Stripes in the Sun is Master Sergeant Hugh O’Reilly, the real-life model for the Aldo Ray character.Read More »

a gripping war drama

IMDB summary:
When two enemy sides ex-change the captives in the middle of a minefield, a nameless man without identity and memory, subsequently named Jakov, leaves the column unnoticed and wanders around in order to minimize other people’s sufferings. On his dangerous journey, he meets a female first-fighter who runs an orphanage, a commander who got back from Foreign legion and runs a defense line from a disco club, and goes through many other adventures only to end up in the endless backwaters of the Neretva river where war threats to arrive.Read More »

End of 19th century German ethnologist Hoffmann travels to the former colony “German Southwest Africa” to gather art and skulls for the Berlin Ethnological Museum and slowly begins to lose his moral compass.Read More »

A Marine platoon led by Captain Stern (Richard Harrison) has 36 hours to scout the island of Rabaul and make sure all of the Japanese resistance has been wiped out before the Allies launch one massive, final bombing mission. This is an Italian response to the excellent “Beach Red” by Cornel Wilde.Read More »

Quote:
WWII. In the German-occupied Paris, Helene is torn between the love for her boyfriend Jean, working for the resistance and the German administrator Bergmann, who will do anything to gain her affection.Read More »

The May 1961 premiere of The Song of the Gray Dove (Piesen o sivom holubovi, 1960) directed by Stanislav Barabas (1924-1994) marked the start of filmmakers’ use of ideologically unassailable themes (in this case, the Slovak National Uprising) to tell stories that were true-to-life and yet were filmed creatively. The Song of the Gray Dove rejected the narrative topics loved by Palo Bielik, who was the most creative member of the founding generation of filmmakers. By using boys as his heroes, Barabas was able to concentrate more on children’s fears, games, and happiness, which had not vanished even during the war years, rather than on reeducating viewers. Critics took notice of the film (it won the 1961 Czechoslovak Film Critics’ Award together with the Czech film People Live Here Too [Vsude zijí lidé; dir. Jirí Hanibal and Stepán Skalsky, 1960) because of its intimate storytelling—six stories loosely connected by child-heroes—and its premise that children’s distorted reality can be more truthful than a so-called objective reconstruction of history.Read More »

Joshua is a former U.S. military official who fled to the Foreign Legion when his wife Maria was killed by Muslim fundamentalists in Paris, and now he’s a mercenary, fighting in the Yugoslav war on the Serbian side against Muslims.Read More »

Acclaimed screenwriter and filmmaker Haruhiko Arai dusts off his director’s hat following his 1997 Body and Soul to turn a passion project of 30 years into a reality. An adaption of Yuichi Takai’s prize-winning 1983 novel of the same name, This Country’s Sky is a nuanced drama set in Suginami, Tokyo towards the destitute final years of WWII. Satoko (Fumi Nikaido) is a 19 year old girl falling passionately in love with her older married neighbor (Hiroki Hasegawa), who has been spared combat due to his failing the military physical examination. Even away from the battlefield, as they grow closer their feelings are caught up in the violence of war.Read More »