1990s

Synopsis (courtesy of the two IMDB comments):
Very cinematic Russian tale of alienation and lost identity
I saw this film on a local government television station in Australia called SBS which played it at midnight. There’s something very beautiful about this film which despite being set amidst the cold, harsh landscape of a desolate Russian territory it features the vitally honest, wan, lost eyes of the lead actor (whose name I can’t recall regrettably) whose vivid sense of alienation was extremely memorable. Its a B&W film about a military guard who finds himself lost amidst his fellow guards’ corruption and his own painful sense of duty versus his sense of goodness. Read More »

Background/Synopsis wrote:
This is the story of a young black man who is verbally harassed by an older woman on a streetcar while the other passengers remain silent. But the schwarzfahrer shall eventually have his revenge.Read More »

Quote:
A Maori tribesman named Toa discovers bunch of white soldiers in 18th century uniforms and Maori warriors who have just slaughtered each other. One white soldier is still alive, and Toa wants to finish him off for revenge. He is warned however by a little bird in a tree he calls his “spirit bird” (that would be “Waldvogel” in German, but Toa and the bird only speak Maori). Toa’s spear and a wooden statue go up in flames, the rock he wants to smash the soldier’s head with crumbles to dust. Toa listens to the bird’s warning and nurses the soldier back to health. Both men are completely naked all the time, they fool around, occasionally the soldier shouts English phrases at Toa. Finally the soldier manages to seduce Toa which he had been trying for some time. Then they separate, the soldier discovers the little spirit bird strangled to death in a trap, a premonition for the film’s cruel end.Read More »

When Krishnan, a poor Indian laborer, is caught stealing a landowner’s coconuts to feed his family, he becomes a poster boy for various political parties all jockeying for position in local elections. When the party in power frames him for an unsolved murder in order to gain support, Krishnan faces the death penalty. Enter the “throne of death,” the electric chair. The film’s satire intensifies as the rival Communist party takes up Krishnan’s cause, not to win his freedom, but to secure for Krishnan the noble privilege of being the first to experience the glorious, peaceful death afforded by the new American invention.Read More »

Synopsis
In the hippie era, the motto used to be “never trust anyone over 30.” In this geriatric romance, the motto might be amended to read “never trust anyone under 60.” Still sprightly and interested in life though they are in their 70s, the two lovers in this film are confined in an unsympathetic “rest home” by their relatives and are only able to meet rarely in a camper loaned to them by some black immigrant workers. When the staff at the home get wind of their affair, they take vigorous action to try and “calm them down” simply to reassert their deadening control over them. Eventually the two of them end their romance, but the woman escapes the rest home and finds freedom in the company of the immigrants.
~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie GuideRead More »

A woman, a child, a man and another child, the noise of bombs falling and of planes passing by, in a urban landscape destroyed by war.
A man dies before he had time to write on the back of La liberté guidant le peuple de Delacroix: that could be the plot, just the enigma consisting of a missing word. A question opened before death, resolved by a child, the shadow and spirit of Gavroche.Read More »

A surrealistic film in which a strangely assorted group of people come together in the Russian Arctic at the height of the revolution and World War One.

“At once perplexing and joyous, Maddin has crafted a film that, for all the confusion inherent in the tale, unfolds on its own unique terms.” [Austin Chronicle]Read More »

PLOT OUTLINE :
A non-linear surrealistic horror film documenting a man’s broken descent into isolation, body mutilation, paedophilia and murder.Read More »

A hilarious romp that turns topsy-turvy the old Hollywood standards of female sexuality and pleasure, Three Examples of Myself… brings together three fantasies of how women would run things if they were on the throne of power. Remixing fluffy musical numbers with a definite feminist twist, director Biller creates a rebellious coquette for the 90’s–a kind of Sandra Dee meets Madonna–as she rules a harem in the Arabian Nights, rules over a hiveful of submissive drones, and even finds sexual liberation in the disco era. With a scoreful of delightful musical fantasies, the film delivers a magical twist to the notions of visual pleasure. With lyrics like “She is fertile, she is nice–She gives us good advice. She is everything we need!”, you simply can’t go wrong. — New York Asian American Film FestivalRead More »