synopsis
In this murder mystery, a homicidal maniac goes on a killing spree beginning with his wife. He then kills six of her friends and is preparing to murder a seventh when the intended victim dies naturally. As a substitute, he murders his favorite hooker, leading the police right to him.Read More »
BAROCCO, from director André Téchiné is an entrancing and operatic take on a political thriller that invokes the plot twists and bizarre narrative elements of Alfred Hitchcock’s VERTIGO as it creates a world of crooked politicians, virtuous prostitutes, doppelgangers, and destiny.
On the eve of a local election in Amsterdam, Samson (Gérard Depardieu), a boxer, is paid to create a scandal by saying he had a homosexual affair with one of the candidates. Although Samson is reluctant to get involved, his girlfriend, Laure (Isabelle Adjani), persuades him to agree and use the money to escape the city. As Laure and Samson are attempting to leave the city, a gangster who looks exactly like Samson (played also by Depardieu) emerges from nowhere and murders him. An intricate chase ensues as the assassin tries to find Laure (and the money), the politicians and gangsters try to find the assassin, and Laure attempts to re-create her lost love in the form of the look-alike killer. The characters’ dancelike movement through the shadow world of Amsterdam and the evocative settings (a gleaming storefront brothel and a sinister underworld spa) provide austere backdrops to this metaphorical thriller. The dark side of politics and human nature are uncovered as Laure begins to love the assassin and the government attempts to control it all.Read More »
Description: Based on a true story. The story is set on the sweeping French countryside where Serge Duval, a veterinarian, lives with his wife, Elisabeth and their two young children. One day, their beloved son Olivier vanishes mystically, without a trace. Unable to accept the loss of her favourite child, the mother, Elizabeth, redirects her anguish and guilt at everyone. Little by little the fragile family falls apart. Six years later Olivier suddenly appears again, now as a teenage boy living on the streets of Paris, but is he really their missing son?Read More »
Synopsis:
This is a documentary film by Chris Marker. It employs Marker’s standard rostrum camera technique, filming historic photographs and paintings of whales and the whaling trade. It also contains real-life footage of whaling and harpooning. Marker sides with the hunted mammals in this film and comments negatively on the clinical instrumental relativism of whaling.Read More »
Three women and three erotic tales.
The first episode—featuring frequent Borowczyk muse Marina Pierro—is the longest and, in a way, most substantial: it’s set in Renaissance Rome, with the lusty (and perpetually nude) leading lady sexually involved with famous painters and church benefactors. The second episode is the most notorious and, consequently, gave the film its controversial poster—featuring a rabbit slowly disappearing under the skirt of a teenage girl (played by Gaelle Legrand). The third and final episode, which has a modern-day setting, is the shortest—but also, possibly, the most outrageous: Pascale Christophe is a young married woman who’s abducted on a busy Parisian street by a small-time hood hidden inside a cardboard box!Read More »
Synopsis
The Maoist Chinese, by some miracle, have occupied Paris (and France) overnight. The patience of these stern, work-oriented and quite puritanical communists is finally completely worn down by the quarrelsome, cynical and decadent French, who cannot cooperate properly even when they are willing…Read More »
A love grows from a chance encounter between Chris and Aurore. They are twenty years old and their passion is exclusive. It’s a beautiful love story like you see in the movies… But then Aurore discovers that Chris is a killer. Will she continue to live passionately, an accomplice in spite of herself, or denounce the one she loves in spite of everything?Read More »
PLOT: A short film about a couple who leave their home in New York City and spend the rest of their lives in a boat in the Atlantic Ocean.Read More »
“A grim portrait of disaffection and loneliness, Gaspar Noe’s I Stand Alone is a movie clearly conceived to make a stir. With an armed, frustrated, and hate-filled time bomb at its center, it unabashedly recalls Taxi Driver, offering its own nihilistic spin on Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece of urban anomie and redemption. For a feature debut, it’s unbelievably daring. Noe doesn’t shy away from sprucing up his familiar story with Godard-ian flourishes, including occasional intertitles, a torrent of offscreen narration, and even a warning to the audience to leave before the wrenching finale. A more jarring conceit is the frequent use of abrupt cuts and fast dollies, accompanied by gunshots on the soundtrack. Genuinely startling and somewhat misconceived, the distracting device nonetheless goes some way toward evoking the volatile mindset of the protagonist.Read More »