A horsewoman in search of a steed. Gracieuse, a farmer’s daughter, is disgusted at the way the horses she trained to the top levels of jumping are taken away from her. She meets the legendary trainer Franz Mann, who now manages a rich landowner’s estate, and with his help starts over in the world of dressage. But just as she feels she has finally found the right horse, she realizes that talent counts for nothing when facing the personal and high financial stakes of the game.Read More »
T – WO – MEN
Germany, 1972, sound, colour, 90 mins, 16mm. Sound by Anthony Moore. With Geeske Hof-Helmers and Dore O.
Werner Nekes: a short comment on the aesthetic organisation of T-wo-men: The orthography of the title refers to the ‘horizontal readability’ of film. The tiniest film information is an amalgamation of two individual images in the mind of the recipient. Cader A joins up with Cader B to achieve the thaumatropic effect, to a form a ‘cine’, the smallest transmission element of cinematic information. Read More »
Quote:
“A long setting of a basement window to the street. Slower and stopping down the street brothers in Hamburg (where Nekes lives). A stand of the belly of a girl on her legs and her dress. Then, vagina and penis, as they are complementary. The 60-minute film is silent. The canvas, as in previous Nekes movies, to the canvas of the painter. It does not look in an imaginary space, one sees an area that is divided divided, with each cut and replaced by a new canvas. In particular, an impression: strong, cool calculation. It stands there like a block. Immovable. The picture is so much that it is beyond the linguistically appropriate formulation. One must see that.” – Werner KließRead More »
Synopsis:
Seven long-time friends get together for a dinner. When they decide to share with each other the content of every text message, email and phone call they receive, many secrets start to unveil and the equilibrium trembles.Read More »
Quote:
Sallitt has written repeatedly that his favorite director is Howard Hawks. All the Ships at Sea shows the influence of Hawks. The story telling is vigorous, the characters are rich, and the logically constructed story development is character-centered, showing vivid interactions between the principal performers. Both sisters are get-up-and-go types in the Hawks tradition. The older sister spends the entire film, taking every action she can to help the younger sister, who is in trouble. She also tries to help other people, in the course of the film. The younger sister is less functional, being in the grip of a religious cult. But the film stresses the younger sister’s willingness to take personal action in accordance with her religious convictions. She is not passive or a victim; she is a person who stands up for what she thinks is right.Read More »
Often described as “the Spanish A Clockwork Orange”, this controversial shocker is set in a violent near-future world. Honest citizens live in terror as gangs of leather clad, whip-wielding sadists roam the nighttime streets. Meanwhile, in a top-secret laboratory, strange mind control experiments are being conducted. Against this background a beautiful nurse tries to ease the pain of those condemned to die. But who really is this angel of mercy and what is the purpose of her mission?Read More »
When a wealthy man dies, his avaricious relatives look forward to inheriting all his money. However, he leaves a provision in his will that they all must spend a week together in his castle before they will be able to inherit anything. At the castle (which is cut off from the outside world), the relatives soon begin to be killed off one by one, each strangled with an Indian scarf. The estate’s executor, a lawyer, sets out to find the killer before everyone–including himself–is murdered.Read More »
The Taisho era was a time of turbulence in Japan. From new marks of modernity to full-blown riots, a sense of revolution filled the air. The Dam Dam Group is a small anarchist organization lead by Daijiro, a silver tongued “Benshi”, a performer who provides narratives for silent films, playing multiple roles. In other words, he was a master at the art of deception, a handy talent when it came to ‘doing jobs’ for his group. His revolutionary ideals attracted many to his squadron, but among them was a young girl who was oblivious to his group’s activities. Her name was Shino.Read More »
“No One Heard the Scream” is another terrific Spanish horror film from the troubled director Eloy de la Iglesia. The film stars two of his strongest performers, Carmen Sevilla (from de la Iglesia’s “The Glass Ceiling”) and Vincente Parra (from de la Iglesia’s “Cannibal Man”), and so with these two tried-and-true leads it is hard for this film to fail. While it is not as overtly frightening as the other two aforementioned films, “No One Heard the Scream” definitely has its moments. Sevilla plays a professional mistress who bids farewell to her older lover when she meets the handsome man next door (Parra); unfortunately for Sevilla, Parra has just murdered his wife.Read More »