Based on the true story of a band of gypsies in occupied Poland during World War II and their struggle againt the Nazi invaders. Half a million gypsies died as they fled in a vain attempt to escape. The film follows the story of Dymitr, a Polish gypsy violinist, as he tries to lead his family and friends to safety in Hungary. A tragic and moving film with a wonderful authentic soundtrack of Gypsy music.Read More »
One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, Don’t Blink is a documentary about Robert Frank, the legendary photographer and filmmaker behind the seminal book The Americans and landmark films like Pull My Daisy (with Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg) and C***sucker Blues (with the Rolling Stones). Directed by his longtime editor Laura Israel, the film is an exuberant and fascinating journey into the images and words of an iconoclastic artist, a Swiss-born man who reinvented himself the American way, and is still standing on ground of his own making at the age of 90. The soundtrack features Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Rolling Stones, White Stripes, Yo La Tengo, Tom Waits, and more.Read More »
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NEW YEAR SACRIFICE is based on the short story by the prolific Chinese author Lu Xun and was recently named one of the top 100 Chinese films of all time by Asia Weekly. In a mountain hamlet in eastern China, a poor woman faces trial after trial. Sold into marriage as a child, she is left a young widow and enslaved by her mother-in-law, who sells her to a poor peasant. Her second marriage turns out to be happy until fate takes away her husband and son. Now seen as a bearer of bad luck, she becomes a social outcast. When the New Year comes, can this poor woman find any hope in this society?Read More »
Five thirty-something men in as many separate segments struggle to grapple with the relentless absurdity of their respective existences.Read More »
Equally successful was Yoshimura’s 1955 The Beauty and the Dragon (Bijo to Kairyu), a period-film in which the famous Kabuki play Narukami was brought throughly up to date. Somewhat in the manner of Henry V, the film opens with a reconstruction of a classical performance of the play, accurately recreating a historical presentation in the proper style; it then moves, as a film, into a more cinematic interpretation. As in the Olivier movie, the acting style shifts from stage technique to cinema technique, and Yoshimura’s aim, like Olivier’s, was not a total reconstruction of the past but the use of a historically literal presentation as means toward something more modern in conception.Read More »
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A powerful experience which delves into territories of madness and transcendence, The Garden is a statement about director Derek Jarman’s anger over the AIDS crisis. Produced by James Mackay (Blue, The Kingdom of Shadows), it is an intellectual, thought-provoking, and visually imagination experience that fans of the filmmaker won’t want to miss. A must-see gem.Read More »
A young boy is locked into his apartment when his mother goes out and must care for his baby brother and cope with various domestic catastrophes while his grandmother and a neighbor try to locate his mother or the key to the apartment.Read More »
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Kato (Ittoku Kishibe) is a small time TV producer. He has a wife Masako (Naoko Otani), and a young son Taro. Kato also has a friend Yamazaki (Akira Emoto) who he knew since college. Yamazaki has a girl friend Riko (Eri Ishida) who lives with her younger sister Yuko (Hitomi Takahashi) who’s an actress. Yamazaki is a lyric writer/womanizer and he starts to have an affair with Masako, but he’s still going out with Riko. Riko really isn’t too enamored with Yamazaki or to any man as for that matter. She has some deep rooted distrust for men in general. One day, Katoh comes home when Masako and Yamazaki is having an affair. Masako is in a skimpy negligee and claims that Yamazaki “just happened to drop by in the morning after getting drunk”. Read More »
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Two of Hong Kong’s most adored screen goddesses lend their girlish charm to Last Romance, re-released 29 years after it became a rare commercial hit in the career of art-house director Yonfan.
While its fashion and social setting are somewhat dated, the 1988 film still packs a punch with its deeply poignant tale of friendship and love that is repeatedly derailed by materialistic greed and lamentable life decisions.Read More »