2000s

Directed by multi-award winning filmmaker Asghar Farhadi, ‘Beautiful City’ is a cinematic gem not to be missed. Akbar has just turned eighteen. He has been held in a rehabilitation centre for committing murder at the age of sixteen when he was condemned to death. Legally speaking, he had to reach the age of eighteen so that the conviction could be carried out. Now, Akbar is transferred to prison to await the day of his execution. A’la, a friend of Akbar, who himself has undergone imprisonment for burglary, soon after his release tries desperately to gain the consent of Akbar’s plaintiff so as to stop the execution. ‘Beautiful City’ is a simple film about the power of forgiveness.Read More »

In the American corporate media, Castro is always played up as some kind of monster. The corporate media (and a host of draconian laws help) prevent us from hearing what he has to say. This documentary is excellent if anything but to give us a chance to hear what Castro has to say.Read More »

Former left-wing terrorists Clara and Hans have been on the run for 20 years, and have raised a 15-year-old daughter, Jeanne, in hiding. The couple are planning to leave Europe permanently for Brazil, but when their money is stolen, decide to risk returning to Germany in the hope of raising funds from past associates. Instead, they discover their old friends are now respectable members of society who are eager to disavow their past activities. With the family’s security coming under threat, Jeanne begins to crave a more normal life of shopping, hanging out with friends, and a boyfriend…Read More »

Quote:

There are always people who say: you can’t change people by force. Them, they say: it’s not so clear, we know our business and have a lot of time.

The former central preventive prison for political prisoners of the former GDR Ministry of State Security (Stasi) in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen was not an ordinary place of detention. This building, which did not appear on the maps of East Berlin and which still bears traces of Germany’s recent history (Nazism, Soviet occupation, communist dictatorship), has the grim particularity of having as many interrogation rooms as detention cells. Read More »

Synopsis:
In the DMZ separating North and South Korea, two North Korean soldiers have been killed, supposedly by one South Korean soldier. But the 11 bullets found in the bodies, together with the 5 remaining rounds in the assassin’s magazine, amount to 16 cartridges for a gun that should normally hold 15. The investigating Swiss/Swedish team from the neutral countries overseeing the DMZ suspects that another, unknown party was involved – all of which points to some sort of cover up. The truth is much simpler and much more tragic.Read More »

Synopsis:
Sang-hyun, a priest working for a hospital, selflessly volunteers for a secret vaccine development project intended to eradicate a deadly virus. However, the virus eventually takes over the priest. He nearly dies, but makes a miraculous recovery by an accidental transfusion of vampire blood. He realizes his sole reason for living: the pleasures of the flesh.Read More »

Feature-length documentary on Lon Chaney, featuring new interviews (notably with Chaney biographer Michael F. Blake), unseen footage of Chaney, and excerpts from old interviews with Chaney contemporaries who have since passed away.
A TCM original production, included in the DVD boxset “TCM Archives – Lon Chaney Collection”.Read More »

Quote:

After Calderón and Proust, Comédie de l’innocence is another literary adaptation, this time from the little-known Italian surrealist Massimo Bontempelli. Updated from the last fin de siècle to this more recent time of uncertainty, Comédie de l’innocence’s plot is small but perfectly formed. With Aristotelian rigour it moves from the opening conundrum (a child torn between two mothers), through the complication (the confrontation between the mothers and Ariane’s brother Serge), to a satisfying conclusion. Ruiz, who takes a co-credit as scriptwriter with Françoise Dumas, keeps up the tension, however, with laconic and enigmatic dialogue. When Ariane visits the empty flat of Isabella, a nosy neighbour remarks: ‘I really don’t want to know.’ Ariane replies: ‘There is nothing to know.’Read More »

Synopsis:
Joni (Nicholas Saputra) is obsessed with film, and he’s not the only one, as he points out in a pre-credit sequence, in which we hear various Jakarta residents comparing their own lives to the movies that they love. Joni has made the movies his life, even if it’s just as a delivery man, using his motorbike to bring film reels from one theater in the city to the next, so that the canny exhibitors can save money on prints. Joni prides himself on always getting to his destination in time for the reel changes, so the screenings aren’t interrupted. Read More »