Plot summary:
Key themes that provide an important backdrop for the film are the Great Depression, a sense of political and social unrest with the related issue of the powerful vs. the weak, and a sense that the country is entering an age of science that will bring great wonders to all. Lang (Macy), a drill press operator in a huge, ominous factory, cares for his blind sister (LuPone) and the two of them dream of a way to a better life with his water engine. The film is about hopes and dreams against the reality of the Depression and powerful forces.Read More »
1990s
-
Steven Schachter – The Water Engine (1992)
1991-2000DramaSteven SchachterUSA -
Takeshi Kitano – Kizzu ritân AKA Kids Return (1996)
1991-2000AsianDramaJapanTakeshi Kitano
Two buddies visit the schoolyard of the high school they used to attend, and remember their young and dumb days. They used to be the bullies in the school, until they find their own ways of life; one as a boxer, and the other as a member of the yakuza.Read More »
-
Jan Jakub Kolski – Historia kina w Popielawach AKA History of Cinema in Popielawy (1998)
1991-2000DramaFantasyJan Jakub KolskiPoland

Jan Jakub Kolski has earned himself a strange reputation. His mystical and folklorish films stand apart from the general flow of Central European cinema. Critics have found him to have more in common with the “magic realism” of South American prose than with his fellow Central European film directors.Read More »
-
Nobuhiko Ôbayashi – MAKING OF DREAMS: Kurosawa Akira and Ôbayashi Nobuhiko- Eiga no Taiwa (1990)
1981-1990DocumentaryJapanNobuhiko Obayashi -
Egon Günther – Wenn du groß bist, lieber Adam AKA When You’re Older, Dear Adam (1990)
Comedy1981-1990Egon GüntherFantasyGermany
Adam receives a flashlight with special powers: every liar it shines on flies into the air. Production was cancelled in 1965 due to the film’s political content. Only in 1989/90 could the director reconstruct the film, where missing sounds and images are replaced with script inserts.Read More »
-
Michael Almereyda – Another Girl, Another Planet (1992)
1991-2000ArthouseDramaMichael AlmereydaUSA

Quote:
As Another Girl, Another Planet’s hapless protagonist Bill (Barry Sherman) thinks back on relationships with girlfriends past, the Pixelvision might be read as the haziness of his memory drifting away from romantic love. As the characters break out into poetic litanies about pain and desire (“I wasn’t used to being happy. It was somehow exhausting,”) music becomes the tool to express their feelings. As one relationship crumbles apart, Nick Cave and the Bad Seed’s ferocious “The Mercy Seat” drives hard through the scene as Bill fiddles with lit matches. During a tender kiss between boy and girl, “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” opines in the background.Read More » -
Maroun Bagdadi – La fille de l’air AKA The Girl in the Air (1992)
1991-2000DramaFranceMaroun BagdadiThriller

Synopsis:
Brigitte lives with her boyfriend, Daniel, who is on the run having escaped from prison for a series of armed robbery offences. Brigitte is a few months’ from giving birth when the couple’s home is raided by the police. At the time, Daniel is involved in a violent robbery which goes wrong – a policeman is killed and he is arrested. Both Daniel and Brigitte end up in prison, although Brigitte’s sentence is reduced to a few months. Daniel however must remain in prison for 18 years. Realising that this will destroy her husband, Brigitte resolves to rescue him in a daring prison escape involving a helicopter…Read More » -
John Boorman – The General (1998)
1991-2000DramaJohn BoormanThrillerUnited Kingdom
The General begins with the death of Martin Cahill–celebrated Dublin gangster who stole millions during the 1980s–then literally reverses the approach and assault of his IRA assassin, flashing back in time,back through Cahill’s colorful, criminal quest for his kind of ideal community. Boorman says his Cahill is a throwback to those Celtic chieftains of old who ruled by thievery and violence; as an anachronism, this charming, brutal bear of a man (perfectly incarnated by Brendan Gleeson) is undeniably reprehensible, but he stands in deliberate contrast to the institutionalized hypocrisy and corruption of church, state, and IRA alike.Read More »
-
Attila Janisch – Árnyék a havon AKA Shadow on the Snow (1992)
1991-2000Attila JanischDramaHungary

Quote:
Story of a sin that looks like an accident in the beginning but in reality it’s an irrevocable and deadly act. Story of a relationship in which lies and love chains daughter to father, sinner to innocent. Story of a man whose fate suddenly starts to turn another way – and buries everything it finds beneath itself.“You never think about sin, but then you are standing in front of it and it touches you.” (Attila Janisch)Read More »

