1990s

Three episodes from three Baltic nations, all about lost love. In Estonia a political prisoner is set free. Meanwhile his best friend had stolen his girl and now defends his political cowardice: “Some of us must be left outside the prisons to pursue the political fight.” – In Latvia a Russian soldier has a Latvian girlfriend. Her Latvian friends accept her boyfriend. But his two closest soldier friends beat him up, tear the clothes of his girl and threaten to rape her. The loving couple understands that they cannot continue their relationship. – In Lithuania a priest student and an Estonian stripper fall in deep love. The student’s uncle is an enlightened priest who says: “I bless you whatever road you choose to go.” The couple sleep together and agree to meet at the railway station the next morning and go to Estonia. But when the student comes home his uncle has died… (written by Max Scharnberg)Read More »

The opening sequence of Zero Kelvin scrolls across a bleak, vast Norwegian wilderness that is virtually inhospitable for men and most beasts. This white, magnificent landscape exudes tremendous beauty, but it also represents death for those foolish enough to fight its dominance. What happens to a civilized human being when he spends enough time is this environment? In this tightly constructed character study, director Hans Petter Moland explores the effect of this land on the fragile human psyche.

Gard Eisvold is a restless, poor young writer living in Oslo who decides to get a little more worldly by joining an Arctic fur-trapping expedition. Leaving behind his girlfriend, Eisvold travels to Greenland, where he’s confronted with the dual harshness of the elements and his profane station-captain, played with brilliant malevolence by the great Stellan Skårsgard. The captain doesn’t take kindly to having a violin-playing, poetry-writing college boy around the cabin, and he begins to torture Eisvold in a cunning if none too subtle fashion. Soon, of course, they’re at each other’s throats despite each needing the other’s help to survive the wilderness.
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Sylvie Rousseau, a scientist working on a cancer vaccine, is informed by her brother Paul of the death of their father, Pierre-André, head of the world-leading armaments company Pax Industries. At first, the cause of death was believed to be an accident, but Sylvie learns that her father was instead pushed off a train by his colleague Walser. Seeking vengeance, she becomes a modern-day Electra, austere and energetic, acting in place of her brother, a weak and unwilling Orestes. But nothing goes according to plan.Read More »

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‘Whispering Pages’ may be the most dimly lit film ever made. Set to the strains of Mahler, this 1993 film takes place in a city whose streets are rarely penetrated by sunlight. Look hard enough and you’ll discover the world of Dostoevsky, whose Crime and Punishment is the source of whatever scant plot exists in Whispering Pages.

Sokurov is one of the most painterly filmmakers alive, but he’s seldom interested in conventionally pretty imagery (or conveying the same grandeur sought by his former mentor, Andrei Tarkovsky). Instead, Sokurov’s images often seem flat and hollow, with the movie screen’s two-dimensionality emphasized rather than disguised. Some of the images in the shadowy Whispering Pages — like the wizened bureaucrat who covers his face with his newspaper or the prostitutes who wrestle in the street — might as well have been made from woodcuts.Read More »

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The adventures of an upper-class suburban family abruptly confronted with the younger brother’s discovery of his homosexuality, the elder sister’s suicide attempt and sado-masochist tendencies, and the intrusion of a very free-spirited maid and her husband… And it all started with the arrival in the family of an innocent looking rat…Read More »

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Eating, sleeping, and staying clean…Life’s most basic concerns. Yet they take on a transcendent quality in this visually delicious film, known in French as L’odeur de la Papaye Verte, and in Vietnamese as Mui Du Du Xanh. With only the barest minimum of dialogue, The Scent of Green Papaya tells the 1940’s story of a young orphan girl named Mui, who goes to work as a domestic servant in the troubled household of a Saigon merchant family. Under the mentorship of the family’s elderly housekeeper, Mui is a quick study in becoming adept at her daily duties, which she performs with diligence and grace. Early on, she learns that the family has lost a daughter named Tó, who would have been just about Mui’s age, and over time, the mother’s affection for her grows, and Mui becomes like a daughter herself.Read More »

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A young man who struggles through life by earning some money with his bicycle-taxi in Saigon establishes contact with a group of criminals. They introduce him to the mafia-world of drugs and crime.Read More »

In 1993, a group of students and teachers from a Welsh secondary school visit St Petersburg to learn about Russian art, and to discover themselves in the process. Communication difficulties lead to the students and teachers becoming separated before they reach St Petersburg. Made by S4C in 1993, this was the first time that a Western crew filmed in Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

From IMDB: Seven teenagers and three teachers from a Welsh school visit Russia in a bid to rediscover themselves. On the overnight sleeper service to St Petersburg the students get separated from the teachers, which allows the students ample scope for rediscovery.Read More »

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“Described by director Gregg Araki as “A Beverly Hills 90210 episode on acid” (with no suggestions of what it might be cut with), Nowhere is a companion piece with Araki’s previous meditations on youth gone wild in the 1990s, Totally F***ed Up and The Doom Generation — Araki’s self-described “teen apocalypse trilogy.” Nowhere follows 18-year-old Dark Smith (James Duval) as he goes through a fairly typical day in Los Angeles. Dark needs, but rarely gets, emotional support from his girlfriend Mel (Rachel True). Mel, however, is also involved with a girl named Lucifer (Kathleen Robertson), while Dark moons over hunky Montgomery (Nathan Bexton). Dark’s best friend Cowboy (Guillermo Diaz) has troubles of his own, as his boyfriend and bandmate Bart (Jeremy Jordan) is back on drugs and spending most of his time with his dealer. Mel’s friends include sugar junkie Dingbat (Christina Applegate), doomsday poetess Alyssa (Jordan Ladd), and Egg (Sarah Lassez), who is being unexpectedly wooed by a Famous Teen Idol (Jason Simmons). Egg’s brother Ducky (Scott Caan) has a crush on Alyssa, but she’s keeping company with a biker named Elvis (Thyme Lewis). Alyssa’s assignation with Elvis gets a psychic boost by her twin brother Shad (Ryan Phillippe) and his tryst with Lilith (Heather Graham). Read More »