1970s

Fionnula Flanagan and Peter Lempert comprise the cast of the American Film Institute-subsidized short subject In the Region of Ice. Ms. Flanagan plays a sharp-tongued but compassionate nun, while Lempert is cast as a sullen, emotionally disturbed boy. The title refers to the “thawing” process that occurs when the nun attempts to break through Lempert’s wall of silence. In the Region of Ice won the “best short subject” Academy Award for 1976. Director Peter Werner went on to helm such superior made-for-TV features as Aunt Mary (1979), Barn Burning (1980), The Alamo: 13 Days to Glory (1986) and LBJ: The Early Years (1988).— AllMovieRead More »

Baker’s apprentice Chris is sacked from his job for being late. Unwilling to give up the flat that goes with the job, he and his friends resort to squatting. Liv, a Swedish girl moves in and is soon followed by Léon the car mechanic and Rosette, a girl from the bakery. (imdb)Read More »

Romance, rape, tension, repression and death: these are the quintessential themes explored in this dialogue-free Japanese black-and-white movie. A Buddhist priest rescues a homeless girl and brings her into his temple’s household. Soon she becomes an essential part of the place. One night she is raped by a young man who then becomes her lover. The priest happens on them one night as they make love before the temple shrine, and he becomes erotically obsessed.Read More »

Synopsis
Based in part on the life of the rakugo artist Beikyo Katsura the 2nd (1860-1904), Song of the Devil is a story about the pursuit for ultimate artistry. This film is based on the novel by Yoshikazu Fujimoto, a screenwriter-turned-novelist who was an apprentice to Yuzo Kawashima. The leading roles of Bakyo and Rokyu are performed by actual rakugo artists.

Bakyo is a talented but unsuccessful rakugo artist. The very successful Rokyu wants to take Bakyo under his wings, but Bakyo refuses, claiming that Rokyu’s rakugo is compromised by the elements of kabuki. But Bakyo changes his mind and determines to learn (or steal) Rokyu’s craft and makes it his own.Read More »

Plot synopsis
At midnight, on a deserted Athenian street, a beautiful woman named Eleni Chalkia is fatally stabbed by a stranger, who immediately disappears into the shadows. The murderer is Ioannis Zachos (Manos Logiadis), a young man lacking in both mental and sexual stability, who lives out his erotic fantasies through purifying violence. He often fantasizes about killing beautiful women, in this way compensating for his deficient manhood and satisfying his passion for power. When he is arrested, he immediately confesses his crimes, which is a relief to the police, who have been accused of gross ineptitude by the press. During the trial that follows, the relentless question, “who is ultimately guilty? Man or society?” is again raised. Ioannis Zachos is not sentenced to time in prison because of his disturbed personality, but instead must spend the rest of his life in an institution for the criminally insane.Read More »

After his remarkable documentary about mountain farmers, We Who Dwell in the Mountains Cannot Be Blamed for Being There (1974), Zurich-born filmmaker Fredi M. Murer came down to the city to film the gray suburbs and their anguished inhabitants embedded in what he called a “fictional documentary” written in collaboration with a number of scriptwriters (including writer Adolf Muschg). Set in a black and white world with an air of the fantastic, the story revolves around a young couple confronted with a mysterious epidemic the government is trying to cover up. A portrait of an urban Switzerland utterly disconnected from its roots, Grauzone (1979) is one of the most powerful works about the Swiss society of control that prefigures the social movements that had their heyday in Zurich in 1980 (“Züri Brännt”).Read More »

In 24/70 Western, recognition of the image being filmed (an anti-war poster picturing the My Lai massacre entitled And Babies) is withheld, through close-up filming of the surface of the image, never stepping back to reveal the whole. The method in this film (as in 20/68 Schatzi) acts to subvert the quick responses of viewers to such loaded imagery. In all of Kren’s films, the images are variously covered and uncovered, hidden and revealed, never taken for granted. – David Levi Strauss

A former aristocrat Ippolit Vorobyaninov leads a miserable life in Soviet Russia. His mother-in-law reveals a secret to him – she hid family diamonds in one of the twelve chairs they once had. Vorobyaninov in cooperation with a young con artist Ostap Bender start a long search for the diamonds.Read More »

A retired professor has returned to his estate to live with his beautiful young wife, Yelena. The estate originally belonged to his first wife, now deceased; her mother and brother still live there and manage the farm. For many years the brother (Uncle Vanya) has sent the farm’s proceeds to the professor, while receiving only a small salary himself. Sonya, the professor’s daughter, who is about the same age as his new wife, also lives on the estate. The professor is pompous, vain, and irritable. He calls the doctor (Astrov) to treat his gout, only to send him away without seeing him. Astrov is an experienced physician who performs his job conscientiously, but has lost all idealism and spends much of his time drinking. The presence of Yelena introduces a bit of sexual tension into the household. Astrov and Uncle Vanya both fall in love with Yelena; she spurns them both. Meanwhile, Sonya is in love with Astrov, who fails even to notice her. Finally, when the professor announces he wants to sell the estate, Vanya, whose admiration for the man died with his sister, tries to kill him.Read More »