1980s

Saraba Itoshiki Daichi (Farewell to the Land) takes up the question of what happens when the balance of an extended family in rural Japan is upset. The main character blames himself for the deaths of his two sons in a boating accident and leaves his wife and parents behind. He takes on a mistress, to the shame of his family, and he pops stimulants to keep up with his work schedule as a truck driver. Growing increasingly irritable and irrational, he goes through various conflicts with his brother, his colleagues, his boss, and his wife. The film ends in an act of violence for which no explanation is given.Read More »

Synopsis:
A young woman is forced to marry an older man who runs a roadhouse saloon. She is constantly being raped by her husband, a drunken loutish brute. She harbors a young man wanted by the police in a murder case, and soon the fugitive and the young wife have a torrid affair as she continues to hide him from the authorities.Read More »

THE TERMINAL GAME is a British short thriller in which a man attempts to shut down a futuristic computer programme.Read More »

Synopsis
One of the overlooked films of the 1980s, perhaps because it is such a downbeat tale of an amoral family. Sean Penn plays a kid whose small-time criminal impulses are stoked to a new level when he falls in with his father (Christopher Walken), a vicious career criminal for whom no problem is so large that it can’t be solved by a murder. At first exhilarated by the attention from his father (and the jobs he gives him to do), he gradually catches on to just what a bad guy Dad really is. But when he tries to extricate himself, he discovers that Dad now has him squarely in his sights. Penn is terrific in a role of emotional complexity, while Walken, king of the creeps, is positively frightening as this soft-spoken but highly lethal patriarch. Read More »

Pal Erdoss’s ”Princess” is an ironically titled film if ever there was one; its heroine is addressed as ”princess” only once during the course of the story, and then by a weak-kneed, apologetic boyfriend who has failed to protect her from rape. Jutka (Erika Ozsda) is anything but the privileged creature of the title. A tough, lonely teen-age girl who has come to Budapest to work in a textile mill, Jutka becomes the focus of Mr. Erdoss’s examination of courtship rituals, teen-age mores and motherhood.Read More »

One of those movies that reminds you of “Alien” and “The Thing” (not the original). The story is simple yet convincing and the special effects were good for its time. There is a little humor though not much. Most of the time it ranges from serious to dead serious. A group of underwater explorers uncover an old Russian submarine called appropriately enough “Leviathan” which translates from an ancient term meaning “sea monster” in the bible. They search the sub and find nothing of interest except a flask of vodka. However, one crew members becomes ill from drinking it and others join him. It appears that something has overtaken the unlucky Leviathan crew and they are next. It was all in all a clever film if not anti-climactic. Worth seeing surely.Read More »

Quote:
Fifty-two clips of Charles Bukowski ranting and musing comprise Barbet Shroeder’s Charles Bukowski Tapes. It was, until now, a rarity that circulated amongst die-hard Bukowski fans, since the release of Shroeder’s Bukowski-scripted feature, Barfly. This collection of monologues, ranging in topic from Bukowski’s beef with God, to biographical tales of his life as an abused child, to his views on writing as a disciplinary craft, cover the gamut of Bukowski-typical topics, which can also be glimpsed in other Bukowski documentaries, such as Born Into This. But The Charles Bukowski Tapes are set apart by their sheer volume of candid author footage, in which Bukowski has drunkenly abandoned all camera-shyness to reveal, and revel in, his damage. Read More »

Luiz Antônio, a sociologist, had his political rights suppressed, during the Brazilian military dictatorship. Also, his wife Ruth had been tortured and killed. So he decides to hide in his niece Natércia and her husband Felipe’s country house for a while. But she invites the intellectual Marcela and broker Ricardo for a weekend together. Luiz’s world is upset and the existential problems of all get entangled, with unexpected results.Read More »

In the apartment of Benjamin Baltimore, cinema poster designer, we discover the universe of the early 80’s in Paris.Read More »