A portrait of a filmmaker confessing his remorse at the scandalous manner in which he gathered material for his voyeuristic film, Spying. here an eerie interpersonal relationship is developed between the filmmaker and his camera which culminates in violence…Read More »
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The first “Elegy” by Alexander Sokurov appeared in 1984. The legendary fame of the great Russian singer Fiodor Shaliapin, the fame that was still alive in his homeland, resisted to the official tendency of reproaching him for emigrating from Russia. When Sokurov, whose first films seemed to be buried forever in the closed film archives and whose every new work was stopped in the very beginning, made his “Elegy” — without financing, supported only by the enthusiasm of his team, — the Leningrad Documentary Films Productions tried to legalize the film, but with no success. The answer of the highest cinema officials was: “Shaliapin is not forgiven.” It was the time when Shaliapin had not yet got the “imperial” pardon.Read More »
An auto-documentary about a disenfranchised Everyman and his struggle to re-integrate himself into society. He fails and turns to crime.Read More »
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The Bear and the Fox, or What Friends Are for:
‘The bear, played by Philippe Noiret, is the conductor of a music hall orchestra, a kind hearted soul, always ready to help the next person if need arises. The fox, played by Jean Rochefort, is a trumpeter in the bear’s orchestra and his friend since childhood. After an evening’s performance a young woman enters their common dressing room, draws a revolver and starts shooting at the fox. She cries out that he has ruined her sister but is far too nervous to aim straight and causes no real harm. After she has run away, the fox gets into hiding, asking the bear to find the woman he swears he has never seen before. He makes a list of all his lovers, and it is a very long list indeed.
The (strictly monogamous) bear travels through all of France in the quest of the woman whose life the fox has ruined, in the hope that the murderous sister can be captured and the fox can go on with his life. He meets all kind of womenfolk and learns a lot about his friend who is a far more dubious and amoral person than he had thought previously. Read More »
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On Queensland’s Gold Coast in the early 1980s, when a disgraced former cop, Michael Stacey writes a book exposing police corruption, does an investigation resulting in 2 murders, exposes a religious cult and watches the army begin a military coup.Read More »
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so, what we have here is a bunch of journalists gathering up at night in some kind of secret meeting where they share their best stories, for the purpose of selling them to the first issue of a new magazine….so, somehow the action takes places all during one night…and the magazine is going to be a paper, but the stories come in video footage…go figureRead More »
Shuji Terayama adapted his 1981 film, The Fruits of Passion, from the eponymous Pauline Reage’s sequel to her well regarded book, The Story of O. However, ‘adapted’ is used very loosely in this instance, as Terayama uses the opportunity to completely reshape the structure of the novel, and use only it’s themes and characters to create a story that is uniquely his. According to the credits, the text of the narration and O’s dialogue itself was taken directly from the short novel, but everything else is pure Terayama.Read More »
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A war photographer returns home to Montréal to discover that his two partners have left him to be together. Alone in the city, he photographs what he sees, trying to heal both his war memories and a broken heart.Read More »
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Akira Kurosawa’s lauded feudal epic presents the tale of a petty thief (Tatsuya Nakadai) who is recruited to impersonate Shingen (also Nakadai), an aging warlord, in order to avoid attacks by competing clans. When Shingen dies, his generals reluctantly agree to have the impostor take over as the powerful ruler. He soon begins to appreciate life as Shingen, but his commitment to the role is tested when he must lead his troops into battle against the forces of a rival warlord.Read More »