1990s

IMDB:
The life of Arthur, a professor living in Paris, changes when Frank comes to live on the same floor of the building where he is residing.Read More »

Synopsis:
In mid-nineteenth-century northern France, a coal mining town’s workers are exploited by the mine’s owner. One day, they decide to go on strike, and the authorities repress them.Read More »

IMDb Description: A painfully shy noodle-shop owner and a prostitute have a chance encounter when destiny arrives in the form of a car accident.

Variety Review:
In terms of raw power, the new Singaporean film “Mee Pok Man” can be described as “Taxi Driver” without the latter’s cathartic violence and Scorsese’s visual pizzazz. Eric Khoo makes an impressive directorial debut in a rather depressing tale of two alienated youths whose lives fatefully intertwine. Though damaged by a last reel that is unnecessarily long and a bit indulgent, pic deserves berths in festivals and perhaps even limited theatrical release if only for its novelty, being a rare export from Singapore.

The lead performers, Joe Ng as the slow-witted man and Goh as the world-weary prostitute, are decently credible if not totally engrossing. Still, pic’s overall impact is disturbing, showcasing a new director who is seriously intent on documenting the malaise of contemporary life in Singapore.Read More »

A bust of Stalin is cut open on an operating table, leading to an elaborate animated depiction of Czech history from 1948 (the Communist takeover) to 1989 (the Velvet Revolution). Some knowledge of the subject is essential in order to understand the film, which is entirely visual. Read More »

A human body gradually reconstructs itself as its various component parts crowd themselves into a small room and eventually, after much experimentation, sort out which part goes where.Read More »

Quote:
Oriental Elegy (1996). Visually impressionistic, atmospherically dense, and narratively opaque, Oriental Elegy is the surreal journey of a displaced spirit (Aleksandr Sokurov) as he wanders in the interminable darkness through the temporal landscape of a quaint and isolated feudal-era fishing village. Guided by a series of faintly illuminated rooms, the wandering spirit comes upon ancient souls who take on physical forms as they recount their personal stories of daily existence, loss, and tragedy in the peasant community. Intrigued by his initial visit to a curiously distracted elderly woman, the spirit returns to her home in order to ask a fundamental question – “What is happiness?” – an existential query that is innocently answered with innate humility and accepted unknowingness. Through abstractly textured imagery and indelibly hypnotic dreamscapes, Sokurov composes a metaphoric, sensual, and evocative tone poem on a soul’s search for enlightenment and the essential survival of human consciousness.Read More »

Synopsis
The unlikely relationship between a pregnant high school student and a brooding electronics repairman lies at the center of this droll comedy from writer-director Hal Hartley. Intelligent but unconventional, Maria (Adrienne Shelly) has more to worry about than her pregnancy, as her expectant state drives away her boyfriend and triggers a fatal heart attack in her father. Meanwhile, Matthew (Martin Donovan) has his own problems: an abusive father, a heightened sense of morality that prevents him from taking semi-lucrative television repair jobs, and a suicidal streak that causes him to carry around a potentially deadly grenade. The meeting of these troubled minds at first promises to be beneficial for both, but sours as they are forced to interact with each other’s dysfunctional families. As in all of Hartley’s pictures, the narrative is filtered through an amusingly detached sensibility that some may consider an acquired taste.
~ Judd Blaise, All Movie GuideRead More »

It is carnival time in Munich and participants are overindulging in alcohol and sensual pleasures. “Follow us into madness” beckons Lys who is drunk on life, but the sensitive Henry does not follow him. Lys has betrayed his fiance, as Henry once betrayed his lost love Anna. In memory of Anna and his cruel Dickensian childhood, Henry challenges Lys to a duel to try to appease his guilt.Read More »

Quote:
In Mike Leigh’s poignant, deceptively modest follow-up to his international triumph SECRETS & LIES, former college roommates Hannah (Katrin Cartlidge) and Annie (Lynda Steadman) meet again for the first time in six years. The reunion takes them back and forth in a journey through time as they reflect on who they were, who they’ve become, and the complicated history that they share together. With a mix of tender humor and piercing human insight, Leigh offers an intimate, quietly affecting portrait of a friendship weathering the ups, downs, and surprises that life brings.Read More »