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“Intimate Parts” is an ironic melodrama about middle-class Muscovites. Each of them has a personal secret, hidden from others – the “intimate part”. The main character, a scandalous photographer Ivan, juxtaposes himself to others. He is convinced that people are born to be happy; and happiness is freedom to stay true to one’s self. The real question is: how safe is it to let your inner self out?Read More »

PLOT:
A woman catches her husband cheating and in a fit rage brings a knife into his bedroom, slips under the covers and tries to castrate him. He awakes and thwarts her impetuous plot but still wracked with anger she then visits her teenage son’s room and dismembers him instead.

The above plays out over mere minutes but to say any more about the events that unfold would only dilute its impact. Safe to say, things only get worse and more bizarre as the film’s protagonists are pushed to delirious extremes. It’s not exactly a restaging of the Oedipal Complex (though some of its elements are evident) but it does borrow a lot from Greek tragedy, though it’s a bit more extreme than what you would find in the Classics.
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A Man Escaped opens with the indelible image of a pair of restless hands belonging to a French resistance officer named Lieutenant Fontaine (Francois Leterrier). His face is inscrutable and impassive, concealing his calculated attempt to flee from the escorted prison transport vehicle. He reaches for the door handle, retreats, then reaches again. At a momentary distraction of a crossing railcar, he seizes the opportunity, but is immediately recaptured, and is severely beaten by the German guards for the attempt. Imprisoned and condemned to die, Fontaine finds the courage and determination to escape his certain fate. Based on a true account by Andre Devigny, A Man Escaped is a visually minimalist, emotionally austere film about friendship, hope and perseverance. Read More »

From allmovie:

One might consider this violent adaptation of the classical Greek tragedy as Sophocles with a South American twist. Set amidst the rebel wars (representing the Theban plagues) of contemporary Colombia, Mayor Edipo (Oedipus) must mediate a peace deal between conflicting guerrilla groups and the army. It is raining when he leaves. His journey is interrupted when he gets into a shoot out on a lonely bridge. Returning fire, Edipo somehow escapes. As soon as he gets to town he hears that a prominent leader, Layo was brutally slain. No one knows who shot him. Meanwhile a blind seer wanders town making dire prophecies concerning Edipo’s future. It is he who tells the mayor that Layo was murdered by a family member. Edipo’s fate is sealed when he gets involved with the beautiful and much older Yocasta, a woman who last had sex thirty years before with her husband Layo. She got pregnant and bore a son… Tragedy ensues.
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SYNOPSIS: Ethan (Joe Swanberg) is a director who aims to make meaningful art films, but is struggling with a creative slump and disengagement with his work. His girlfriend Claire (Kate Lyn Sheil), is an actress whose career is beginning to take off. She has accepted the lead part in a werewolf movie being directed by talented young horror filmmaker Ben (Ti West). Ethan’s depression leads to jealousy over both Claire’s success and her increasingly close relationship with Ben.Read More »

A photographer tired of the jaded milieu of an early advertising age under socialism romances a young ballerina. The Triple Bridge, fountains and rooftops of the Slovenian capital, Ljubljana, and the ski resorts of the Slovenian Alps are the dreamy 1960s backdrops for this great love story. Disarmingly believable as the inexperienced naif, Snežana Nikšić, as the ballerina, steals the show.

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Jean-Marie Straub: But all the same there is something very different. For example, there’s a Yugoslav filmmaker I like very much, whose called Matjaž Klopčič. He makes films which are … I don’t know, somewhere between Cocteau and Mallarme. Well, he did one, at first, which was called A Story that Doesn’t Exist, and then a second, called On Paper Wings (1967). The first was a total failure, but all the same he was able to do the second straight away, and I think he’s just finished shooting a third. You can’t say his films are suitable for a mass audience – you can’t say they’d be successful. Although the first film was unsuccessful he was able to do his second without making any concessions to the myth of the mass public which doesn’t exist. This sort of thing can’t happen in Western Europe.

Source: There’s Nothing More International Than a Pack of Pimps – A Conversation between Pierre Clémenti, Miklos Janscó, Glauber Rocha and Jean-Marie Straub convened by Simon Hartog in Rome, February 1970.Read More »

Trains travel through the night without stopping. The clatter of the carriages quickly disappears, along with the wail of the locomotive. The people at the station are all asleep. But why are they so exhausted ? And what are they waiting for?Read More »

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Tabataba tells the story of a small Malagasy village during the independence uprising which took place in 1947 in the south of the country. For several months, part of the Malagasy population revolted against the French colonial army in a bloody struggle. The repression in villages that followed was terrible, leading to fires, arrests and torture. Women, children and the elderly were the indirect victims of the conflict and suffered particularly from famine and illness. One leader of the MDRM Malagasy Party, which campaigns for the independence of the country, arrives in a village. Solo (François Botozandry), the main character, is still too young to fight but he sees his brother and most of the men in his clan join up. His grandmother, Bakanga (Soavelo), knows what will happen, but Solo still hopes his elder brother will return a hero. After months of rumours, he sees instead the French army arrive to crush the rebellion.Read More »

A beautiful but hopeless fight against circumstance and the death of an American dream in a by-passed Welsh town. Three kids, forced to make up their own rules, are seduced by the possibility of something better. For what other choice is there when reality lets you down?

Set in the present day in Banwen, a two-bit town in the wilds of Wales’ industrial south, House of America, centres around the Lewis family – Sid, Boyo and Gwenny – whose father Clem has apparently run away to America. Left in charge of their eccentric and mysterious mother – Mam – the kids yearn to escape to the States to visit their father, but the chance of them doing so is remote as there are no jobs for them in the small town.
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