Bette Gordon explores the cinematic representation of women in this feminist experimental work, which, in the words of the filmmaker, centers on “women’s inability to place and define themselves in language and politics, the location of radical struggle.”Read More »
The psychology and life of Brazilian hitmen, common in the Northeast part of the country. In this particular case, the story revolves around a young and idealistic politician from Salvador, whom the enemies are eager to eliminate.Read More »
In the industrial North, Giovanni is a skilled factory worker offered a promotion if he’ll go to Sicily for 18 months to assist in a new department. His impending absence strains his already nearly wordless relationship with Liliana, his fiancée. They meet regularly at a dance hall and sometimes go riding on his motorcycle. We watch him arrive in Sicily, walk the town, live in a hotel, find lodgings, work, and participate in local events. It’s a solitary, melancholy life. In his mind’s eye he thinks about Liliana. He hasn’t been entirely faithful. There’s pain and detachment in her eyes. Across this distance, can anything bring about a breakthrough? Do they have a future?Read More »
Sicilia, late ’60s. Two men are killed during a hunting party. The hurried inquiry indicates that it was a killing made for ‘honor’ reasons. Paolo Laurana is a leftist professor not convinced of the official truth and starts investigating by himself. He finds some help from a solicitor, Mr. Rosello. While investigating, he is fascinated by Luisa, the widow of one of the victims. But the reality is too different from what Laurana could imagine. Reality includes not only the mafia and corrupt politicians, but also Church connections. The reality is that there could be only one end for Laurana. It won’t take long. [IMDb.com]Read More »
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Donaldson’s The Bounty was a strikingly solid adaptation of the tale of rebellious Fletcher Christian, stalwart Captain Bligh and the breadfruit and Tahitian beauty that inspired mutiny on the HMS Bounty. Unlike the rollicking 1935 classic that starred a dashing Clark Gable as the swashbuckling Christian and an imperious Charles Laughton as the evil Bligh, this is a revisionist tale that casts the Bounty captain in a more compassionate light. Hopkins’ Bligh is a usually fair and just leader who’s unprepared for the tropical lust that takes over his crew, and soon finds himself up against Gibson’s Christian, a man torn between his duty to his captain and the newfound love he has for the South Seas … Donaldson’s strength lies in keeping the audience sympathetic to both Hopkins and Gibson, making out neither to be a monster but rather men driven by their differing moral compasses. Donaldson further distinguished The Bounty from its predecessors with its attention to historical detail and sumptuous location photography, which seduced audiences as well as the crewmen of the ill-fated ship. – Mark Englehart, imdbRead More »
A young salesman may inherit a wine-estate on one condition: he can’t drink a drop of alcohol for at least a month.Read More »
This is the new restoration of Yvonne Rainer’s Kristina Talking Pictures. Namechecking both Virginia Woolf and Jean-Luc Godard in the film’s opening segment, Rainer continues to experiment in her elegiac, hybrid third feature with unshackling narrative from conventional representation, using the paradoxical feminine figure of a lion tamer, Kristina (played by several women, including Rainer herself), and a disjunctive audiovisual syntax that pushes avant-garde film grammar into thrillingly novel, expressive realms. Kristina arrives from Budapest to 1970s New York City, harboring hopes of becoming a dance choreographer, as well as romantic affections for an elusive sailor named Raoul.Read More »
Sensual adventures in Africa and New Mexico for Emmanuelle as she learns a sexy secret of her good friend and former lover, Mario.Read More »
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The documentary feature ARAKIMENTARI explores the work of popular and controversial Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki in a style designed to match Araki’s own. Araki’s fame and the debate around his photography derive mostly from his work with nudes, which blur the lines normally established between art, erotica, and pornography. The photographs have often been credited with reversing the Japanese ban on the visual representation of pubic hair, and Araki has been seen by his supporters as one of the artistic champions of free speech and social criticism in Japan. Some of Araki’s celebrity fans–Bjork, Takeshi Kitano, Richard Kern and others–are interviewed to explain the appeal and importance of his photography. Liberally peppered with images of the photography and presented in a manner designed to imitate the combination of titillation and estrangement Araki’s work engenders, ARAKIMENTARI goes beyond the biographical documentary to the realm of artistic portrait.Read More »