Two lifelong friends find themselves at an impasse when one abruptly ends their relationship, with alarming consequences for both of them.

The.Banshees.Of.Inisherin.2022.576p.BluRay.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

General
Container:	Matroska
Runtime:	1h 53mn
Size:	2.74 GiB
DXVA:	Compatible
Minimum settings:	Met
Video
Codec:	x264
Resolution:	1024x428
Aspect ratio:	2.40:1
Frame rate:	23.976 fps
Bit rate:	2 998 kb/s
Audio
English 5.1ch AC-3 @ 448 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/86A2354AD99011F/The.Banshees.Of.Inisherin.2022.576p.BluRay.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Martin McDonagh – The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

A war photographer on assignment in Kurdistan is traumatized by the death of his best friend. He is then nursed back to health by his girlfriend’s grandfather, who may or may not be a notorious war criminal from the Spanish Civil War.

Quote:
When I looked up a bit of information on Triage after watching it, I was genuinely surprised to discover that it’s not a true story. I suppose it’s the touch of an actual war correspondent that gives it that real life cache, as the author of the novel it’s based upon is a veteran in that arena. While it had a degree of Hollywood polish and shine, it felt tremendously possible, which made it easy to relate to as a viewer, despite my having spent the entirety of my own life lazy and safe and nowhere near anything approximating war.

Going into the film, I thought it would be about experiences in the field, and despite its necessary but slow start, I was pleasantly surprised when the focus turned instead to the psychology of survivors, and the idea of forgiveness in the wake of tragedy. It added a depth to a film that otherwise would have gotten lost amongst the many others in the genre.

I tend to forget what a fantastically talented actor Colin Farrell is until I see him in action again. He has an ease with his characters that I particularly appreciate, and I was glad that he didn’t push this one over the top, because it would have been all too easy to do. This hearkens back to the directing, and while overall Triage wasn’t a standout in that aspect, I think that Danis Tanovic did a commendable job restraining a subject matter that is often overdone and exaggerated.

Triage.2009.576p.BDRip.x264.AC3-zitoune69.mkv

General
Container:	Matroska
Runtime:	1h 39mn
Size:	2.07 GiB
DXVA:	Compatible
Minimum settings:	Met
Video
Codec:	x264
Resolution:	1024x436
Aspect ratio:	2.35:1
Frame rate:	24.000 fps
Bit rate:	2 521 kb/s
Audio
English 5.1ch AC-3 @ 448 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/BB158CCF39B99CE/Triage.2009.576p.BDRip.x264.AC3-zitoune69.mkv

https://tezfiles.com/file/9ef6019186435/Triage.2009.576p.BDRip.x264.AC3-zitoune69.mp4

Language(s):English, Arabic, Spanish, Swahili, French
Subtitles:None

The post Danis Tanovic – Triage (2009) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

August Strindberg felt that the entire world had gone crazy. The “norms” of class hierarchies and gender roles were starting to shatter, and he saw chaos pouring into that vacuum. His 1888 play “Miss Julie” is the prime example, although it’s evident in all of his other disturbing, great modern works. “Miss Julie” plays in almost real-time, taking place in one setting over the course of a single evening, Midsummer Night’s Eve, the one long night of the year when the classes blend together, when rich dance and drink with poor, when the boundaries have blurred. There are only three characters in the play, and it opens with Jean, an upwardly-striving valet remarking to his pal and sort-of girlfriend, the kitchen maid, that “Miss Julie is crazy!” Miss Julie is the daughter of the count in whose manor they both work.
Strindberg was a nervous man, whose plays read like frenziedly-written journal entries of despair and anxiety (crying out, like Dr. Venkman in “Ghostbusters,” “Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!”) Legendary acting teacher Stella Adler lectured extensively on Strindberg (and other playwrights), and these lectures have been published in a wonderful volume, “Stella Adler on Ibsen, Strindberg, and Chekhov.” Adler spoke of the difference between Ibsen and Strindberg, helpful to keep in mind when examining Strindberg: “In Ibsen, the single person is rebellious. In Strindberg, you can’t really rebel. In Ibsen, you don’t break the social form. In Strindberg, the social pattern of life is broken. The revolt is a strong, nervous one. It doesn’t come through as ideas but as temperament – violent. Inner conflict with Ibsen leads to ideas; with Strindberg it leads to chaos.”

When Liv Ullmann’s “Miss Julie” works best, it shows us that total emotional and social chaos, chaos that destroys not only the individual characters in the play, but the entire society in which they live. “Miss Julie” is a rather strange experience, with its consistently static medium shots of the three actors, as they roar their lines at one another. But it has an undeniable power. For Strindberg to work, one must feel the context of his time, and understand Miss Julie’s immediate ruination by “falling” for the valet (the script is filled with images of rising and falling).

Ullmann’s adaptation of Strindberg’s script stays very close to the original; the main change being that it now takes place on an estate in Ireland. Ullmann opens up the action only slightly, with the reveling Midsummer Night’s Eve crowds always offstage, heard but never seen. There are a couple of scenes in Jean’s bedroom, and one outdoor scene when Jean and Miss Julie take a walk. Other than that, the action stays in the kitchen, suggesting how much Miss Julie is “lowering” herself by hanging out there. The claustrophobia of the kitchen is overwhelming in the film, and the shots of Miss Julie wandering through the manor by herself, her posture broken and stiff, her dress falling off her shoulder, give us a welcome (and yet rivetingly disturbing) change of scene.

The three characters are played by Jessica Chastain, Colin Farrell and Samantha Morton, and each actor has to deliver some of the most challenging monologues ever written, with no cinematic tricks. Many of the monologues are delivered wholesale, in one shot, with barely a cut-away to the listener. It requires A-game acting, shots like that, and watching these actors work is the main pleasure of “Miss Julie.” Ullmann doesn’t worry too much about making the action cinematic, and the constant monologuing can get a little trying. The entire play is conversation, bantering at first, growing in desperation, until finally the chaos roars in like a tsunami. As Miss Julie breaks down, Chastain is, quite frankly, extraordinary. She gathers her considerable powers and pours them into a role that is different from anything else she has ever done. It’s a powerhouse performance, without any self-congratulatory or self-indulgent giveaways. Her agony is so palpable that one wonders how she will survive her own performance. Feeling that way is essential for “Miss Julie” to work, and from Chastain’s unforgettable first entrance, sidling into the kitchen, looking like a wreck, the crack in her psyche is already clearly visible on her face.

Farrell is terrific as Jean, playing around with Miss Julie at first, following her seemingly heedless orders to kiss her shoe, despite what it might look like to others, and despite the fact that he is in a relationship with Kathleen. He warns her at one point that by flirting with him, she is playing with fire. He’s not to be trifled with. He is a man trapped in his social station, although he is representative of the movement between the classes, a valet who has traveled the world with his Master, knows about good wines (although he steals a bottle on occasion), speaks other languages, and has an ease in the world that Miss Julie lacks. And yet when the Master rings the bell for him, his loyalty sways automatically towards the man he serves. He is in deep conflict, and the fact that Miss Julie falls so hard for him shows that she is just as “low” as he is. His lust turns to contempt in a devastating heartbeat. Farrell manages all of this gracefully and sensitively, as though he were born to play the role. It’s a great fit.

And Samantha Morton as Kathleen, the maid, is horrified and betrayed by Miss Julie’s inappropriate bantering going on in her kitchen with her man. Unlike the other two characters, Kathleen knows her place, and respects those “above” her. The movement between the classes, representative by Jean and Miss Julie’s one-night fling, fills her with disgust and apprehension. She’s Strindberg’s stand-in. Morton is magnificent. Some of her best moments are reaction shots. As Miss Julie babbles to her about how she and Jean are going to set up a hotel on Lake Como, and maybe Kathleen can work in the kitchen there, and marry a nice man eventually, Morton’s face shows the deep horror of not only what she is seeing, but the clear madness in Chastain’s performance. “Do you really believe all that, Miss Julie?” she breathes. “Miss Julie” is filled with small moments like that, small behavioral moments that are rich and strange, trembling with possibility and terror.

Miss Julie was raised with massive financial advantages, but she was also raised in total chaos. There is madness in her family line. Her mother taught her to hate men. That is the crux of Miss Julie’s problem, and that is the destabilizing effect that Jean, the good-looking valet, has on her. When she “falls” for him, she means it. But the second they sleep together, Jean turns on her. She’s a whore to him now. After Jean and Miss Julie sleep together, Chastain sits in his bed, stiff and traumatized, wiping the blood from between her legs, with plucking frozen fingers, the panic trembling off of her posture. (“Miss Julie” also, famously, has her period, mentioned in the first scene by Kathleen, who uses it as a possible explanation for why Miss Julie’s behavior has been so “queer” in the couple of days prior.) With all of the monologuing in the film, Chastain’s body language in that scene, and directly afterwards, as she walks away from Jean’s room, in pain and entirely altered, tells the story clearer than any words could do.

Ullmann fills the score with mournful Schubert and Bach, familiar pieces of music that become thematic, as opposed to mere pretty background. The scenes of Miss Julie by herself, trapped in her red bedroom with her caged finch, or staggering drunk up the main stairway of the manor, a ruined woman, running from the madness of what she has done, are made even more powerful by that urgent insistent underscoring.

Reaction to the film will depend on how one feels about seeing three people stand around delivering lines at one another. But the acting is so good it creates its own mood, outside of anything cinematic that Ullmann could have chosen to add to it; it creates its own atmosphere of claustrophobia, hysteria, and self-loathing. Ullmann, a brilliant actress herself, hands the script over to her actors. It is theirs.
Review by Sheila O’Malley

https://nitro.download/view/59F8EA0B37E365F/Miss.Julie.2014.720p.WEB-DL.x264.AC3-EVO.mkv

https://ddownload.com/24liwxnqfx46/Miss.Julie.2014.720p.WEB-DL.x264.AC3-EVO.mkv

Language(s):Swedish
Subtitles:English hardsubbed

The post Liv Ullmann – Miss Julie (2014) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
The film, a thoroughly enjoyable ‘odd duck’, with a typical quasi-political artistic stance on the follies of war. Highly entertaining and, at times, touching.

Quote:
WHEN Joan Littlewood’s London improvisation, “Oh! What a Lovely War,” opened on Broadway five years ago, it had a cast of 18 men and women dressed as Pierrots and Columbines. In the pit was an orchestra that managed to recreate the nostalgic musical sounds of World War I and to comment on them—sometimes simultaneously.

The show itself, described as “a musical entertainment,” was a jolly satire on the madness of the First World War, done mostly in period songs and sketches in which the Pierrots and Columbines slipped in and out of almost invisible disguises as emperors, generals, nurses, music hall stars, Tommies, wives, nurses and spectators, some appalled, some bored.

It was the sort of highly stylized theatrical presentation for which, I believe, there is no comfortable screen equivalent, unless you photograph it more or less as it is, as you might for television.

Richard Attenborough, the British actor and producer who makes his directorial debut with this movie adaptation, has gone in essentially the opposite direction. He has chosen to make a big, elaborate, sometimes realistic film whose elephantine physical proportions and often brilliant all-star cast simply overwhelm the material with a surfeit of good intentions.

“Oh! What a Lovely War,” which opens today at the Paris Theater, was shown twice last night at Alice Tully Hall as the concluding presentation of the seventh New York Film Festival.

Most of the show’s original material seems to be in the film, but it has all been so enlarged, stretched-out and over-orchestrated (both musically and pictorially) that the ultimate effect is dramatically anesthetizing. Attenborough attempts to bridge the gulf between spare, stage fantasy and movie realism by opening the film in what looks to be the ballroom of a lovely, skeletal cloud palace where Europe’s crowned heads and their chief advisers have gathered on the eve of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.

They make small talk, gossip, proclaim their peaceful intentions and prepare, as the film’s recurring master of ceremonies (Joe Melia) tells us, for the “ever popular war games—songs, battles and a few jokes.” With the outbreak of war, the cameras glide into a realistic British seaside resort and a glistening, white amusement pier, a gingerbread delight, where Englishmen and their families line up to receive their tickets to World War I, which is spelled out in light bulbs over the entrance.

Thereafter, “Oh! What a Lovely War” cuts back and forth these symbolic settings, which always represent the environment of fantasy (staff officers headquarters, recruiting centers, English country houses), and very real locations, such as battlefields and field hospitals, which are usually the settings for the recognition of despair.

Some of the sketches, vignettes and songs are absolutely superb, especially early in the film before a certain monotony sets in. Chief among these is a music hall number in which Maggie Smith minces to center stage and sings a raucous, deliberately naughty recruiting song, “I’ll Make a Man of You.” In this short interlude, the film achieves the precarious balance it seeks between satire, nostalgia and ghastly humor. As the men scramble to the stage to enlist, there is a quick close-up of Miss Smith, who has suddenly turned into the War Whore — her eye shadow grotesque, the skin across her face as taut and hard as pink leather.

Also fine are a blackout sketch featuring Dirk Bogarde and Suzannah York, a couple of bored British aristocrats who discuss the hardships on the homefront, and the vignettes that thread throughout with Laurence Olivier, John Mills and Michael Redgrave as staff officers who might have been conceived by Punch, but whose lines are often recorded history.

The movie also achieves a moment of real sentiment as it recounts the famous Christmas Day truce when British and German soldiers threw down their guns to exchange schnapps and cigarettes in the no-man’s land between their trenches. But this sequence is eventually overdone, sunk by the movie’s realism, which also diminishes the effect of the sad, lovely, nostalgic songs.

There are dozens of songs in the film—patriotic things like “Belguim Put the Kibosh on the Kaiser,” sentimental ones like “Keep the Home Fires Burning,” and marvelous parody lyrics to hymns like “The Church’s One Foundation.” However, if they are not over-orchestrated, they are over-sung by a huge men’s chorus to the point where they all sound alike.

Some people may seek parallels between the events satirized in the film and more contemporary confrontations. “Oh! What a Lovely War” is a musical entertainment that has grown too big for its puttees, but its point of view remains focused on a dim, far-off era that now seems almost as remote as the time of the Wars of the Roses.

https://nitro.download/view/7AE8097FD94DC8C/Oh_What_A_Lovely_War.avi
https://nitro.download/view/A56757C892F7539/Oh_What_A_Lovely_War.idx
https://nitro.download/view/018E5293CBC12B6/Oh_What_A_Lovely_War.rar
https://nitro.download/view/FBF675C41DCC7AC/Oh_What_A_Lovely_War_Extras.rar

Language(s):English + Commentary
Subtitles:English, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish (idx)

The post Richard Attenborough – Oh! What a Lovely War [+Extras] (1969) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Woody Allen wrote and directed this London-set feature, a modern noir with black comic trimmings. Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor play working class brothers who dream of better things than their respective mechanic and restaurant jobs. Hard-drinking Terry (Farrell) has a weakness for gambling, while brother Ian (McGregor) hankers for the finer things when he starts dating a very ambitious actress (Hayley Atwell). Fate deals a hand when their rich American uncle (Tom Wilkinson) slinks into London with a murderous proposition. Named for the boat the lads buy during a rare flush moment–a symbol of the morally compromising power of money and the inevitability, perhaps, of fate–CASSANDRA’S DREAM is another of Allen’s loving looks at moneyed urbanites and their penchant for living out Greek tragedy, a la MATCH POINT and CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS. This time around, it’s a bit darker, but with Farrell and McGregor in the leads, there’s plenty of star power. The lads are clearly having a ball acting under Allen’s direction, and they’re allowed to develop a charming, rapid-fire fraternal rapport that carries the film–along with Wilkinson’s old-school gravitas and Atwell’s luminous charisma. Phillip Glass composed the score.

https://nitro.download/view/FEC318A1A05E74E/Cassandras.Dream.2007.BRRip.XviD.AC3.D-Z0N3.avi

Language:English

The post Woody Allen – Cassandra’s Dream (2007) first appeared on Cinema of the World.