Intense, dreamlike, and poetic, The Angelic Conversation is one of the most artistic of Derek Jarman’s films. With his painter’s eye, Jarman conjured, in a beautiful palette of light, colour and texture, an evocative and radical visualisation of Shakespeare’s love poems.

Of the 154 sonnets written by Shakespeare, most were written to an unnamed young man, commonly referred to as the Fair Youth. Here, Judi Dench’s emotive readings of 14 sonnets are coupled with ethereal sequences; figures on seashores, by streams and in colourful gardens. The disruption of these magical scenes with images of barren and threatening landscapes echoes perfectly the celebration and torment of love explored in the sonnets.

Shot on Super-8 before being transferred to 35mm film, the unique technical approach results in a striking aesthetic, with Coil’s languorous soundtrack completing the intoxicating effect.

The.Angelic.Conversation.1985.720p.BluRay.x264.FLAC.2.0-dps.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 20 min
Size: 	5.07 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	984x720 
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https://nitro.download/view/7E0BF2E7B721965/The.Angelic.Conversation.1985.720p.BluRay.x264.FLAC.2.0-dps.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Derek Jarman – The Angelic Conversation (1985) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Starring Dame Maggie Smith, Dame Judi Dench, Dame Joan Plowright, Cher, Lily Tomlin, Paolo Seganti.

From IMDB:
Semi-autobiographical tale from the early life of director Franco Zeffirelli looks at the illegitimate son (Charlie Lucas as a child, Baird Wallace as the teen) of an Italian businessman. The boy’s mother has died, and he is raised by an Englishwoman (Joan Plowright) in pre-WWII Fascist Italy. Living to each other in Florence, and presided over by an ambassador’s widow (Maggie Smith), a group of Englishwomen live a sheltered existence which they believe is guaranteed personal protection in a tea reception given by Il Duce. However, as war breaks out, the women are interned. Occasionally in this English colony is a wealthy American (Cher), who visits among her travels and marriages to wealthy older men. She respects the “Scorpioni”, as they are known, and secretly arranges for their stay in a hotel. The ambassador’s widow finds her vulgar and tries to ignore her, but when the United States enters the war, the American too is taken into custody. Only then does she discover that her Italian lover (Paolo Seganti) has tricked her into signing over all her money and modern art collection to him, and is now arranging her execution. This obliges all to join forces. Lily Tomlin also appears as an American archaeologist working at a dig in the city.

Tea.with.Mussolini.1999.DVD.x264-mrthe.mkv

General
Container:	Matroska
Runtime:	1h 52mn
Size:	1.58 GiB
DXVA:	Compatible
Minimum settings:	Met
Video
Codec:	x264
Resolution:	710x552 ~> 1021x552
Aspect ratio:	1.85:1
Frame rate:	25.000 fps
Bit rate:	1 516 Kbps
Audio
English 5.1ch AC-3 @ 448 Kbps

https://nitro.download/view/A18FFEBDF5E21DF/Tea.with.Mussolini.1999.DVD.x264-mrthe.mkv

Language(s):English, Italian
Subtitles: None

The post Franco Zeffirelli – Tea with Mussolini (1999) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

The mysterious death of an enigmatic young man newly arrived in the suburb of Wetherby releases the long-repressed, dark passions of some of its residents.

Quote:
A man kills himself among strangers. They never knew who he was, and they do not know why he chose to die. A man dying among strangers is like a tree falling unobserved in the forest. Death, especially suicide, requires resonance from those who knew the living person, before it can be assigned its proper meaning.

That is why “Wetherby” is such a haunting film, because it dares to suggest that the death of the stranger is important to everyone it touches – because it forces them to decide how alive they really are.

The movie begins with a woman who is living a sort of dead life. Her name is Jean Travers, she is played by Vanessa Redgrave, she was once in love with a young man who went off to fight the war and was killed. He was not killed gloriously, but stupidly, while getting involved in someone else’s drunken quarrel, but he was dead all the same. As the movie opens, Jean has been teaching school in the small town of Wetherby, where her life is on hold. She doesn’t walk around in a state of depression, she does have friends, she is a good teacher, but she is not engaged in life because she put all of her passion into the boy who died so many years ago.

One night she throws a small dinner party. Everyone drinks wine and sits around late, talking. One of the men at the table, John Morgan, sits mute all evening and finally makes a short speech about pain and love and honesty, that sounds as if every word were written with his own bitter tears. The next day, John Morgan comes back to Jean’s house, sits down for a cup of tea, and kills himself. A funny thing comes out in the investigation: John Morgan was not known to any of the other people at the dinner party. Apparently he invited himself.

The film moves from this beginning into an examination of the people who were touched by the death. In addition to Jean, there are the Pilboroughs (Ian Holm and Judi Dench), the local constable (Tom Wilkinson), and a young woman who knew the dead man (Suzanna Hamilton). Some small suspense develops for a while when it appears that Jean spent some time upstairs with John Morgan during the evening of her party – but that, and many other things, seem to be dead ends.

The movie flashes back into events in Jean’s youth, and she is played as a young girl by Joely Richardson, Redgrave’s daughter. There is an innocence and tenderness in those early scenes, as young Jean and her boyfriend kiss and neck and make promises, and as Jean gradually realizes that she is looking forward to marriage but he is much more excited by the prospect of putting on a uniform and going overseas. He goes overseas, and in some ways this movie is about the fact that Jean has become a middle-aged woman still waiting for him to come back.

“Wetherby” was written and directed by David Hare, who also wrote the current film “Plenty.” Both films are about women who were never able to fully live their lives after what happened to them during the war. I admire both films, but I found “Wetherby” more moving, because the heroine of “Plenty” was essentially a disturbed woman using her war memories as a crutch, and Jean Travers is a whole and healthy woman who only needs to give herself the permission to live. I left the movie thinking that was the lesson she learned from John Morgan. Hoping so, anyway.

Roger Ebert

wetherby.1985.720p.bluray.x264-veto.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1h 42mn
Size: 	4.37 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1280x720 
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	4 569 Kbps
BPP: 	0.207
Audio
#1:  	English 2.0ch DTS @ 1 509 Kbps

https://nitro.download/view/BB1ACE0BB812B5C/wetherby.1985.720p.bluray.x264-veto.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/E56CC14257BFFBD/wetherby.1985.720p.bluray.x264-veto.eng.srt
https://nitro.download/view/9C9AB96B5CB1C8A/wetherby.1985.720p.bluray.x264-veto.ptbr.srt

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English, Portuguese

The post David Hare – Wetherby (1985) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Based on the novel by Aidan Higgins

In the late 1930s, three reclusive middle-aged spinster sisters live on their run down family estate in Ireland. Otto Beck, a perpetual graduate student from Bavaria with a habit of making pompous declamations, rents the back lodge to work on his esoteric thesis. Imogen Langrishe, the least repressed of the sisters, begins an affair with Otto. Imogen takes the love affair seriously, but Otto just enjoys the cheap lodging and the comfort of Imogen.

Stars Judi Dench, Jeremy Irons, and Annette Crosbie

BBC2 Play of the Week S02E01 Langrishe, Go Down [536p] (20 Sep 1978) [DVDRip x264].mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 51 min
Size: 	2.40 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	704x536 
Aspect ratio:  	4:3
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	2 849 kb/s
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https://nitro.download/view/528E8C31EBED6EC/BBC2_Play_of_the_Week_S02E01_Langrishe,_Go_Down__536p__(20_Sep_1978)__DVDRip_x264_.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:None

The post David Hugh Jones – BBC2 Play of the Week: Langrishe, Go Down (1978) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

“Nothing but drink and sex – drink and sex – one long, never-ending effort to
escape from reality”. That just about sums up the characters who inhabit
La Vie en Rose, a nightclub viewed one month after the end of the
Second World War, which only closes when everyone falls over. Judging by
its bohemian clientele, one imagines that the club, run by Dame Judi
Dench’s hard-nosed but beneath the surface sensitive Christine, must
have been in Soho.

Rodney Ackland’s almost lost play was re-discovered by Sam Walters at
the Orange Tree in Richmond. This production by Anthony Page was first
seen on the BBC in 1991 and then partly recast it transferred to the
National Theatre four years later. In addition to Dame Judi, the big
star is Bill Nighy playing Hugh, an impecunious, gay writer and mummy’s
boy who has never managed to live up to his early success but still
believes that he has a future, ideally in the film world where megabucks
are to be made.

While these two are the central characters in an autobiographical look
at post-war life, there are many other colourful figures to enjoy in
this two-hour drama. Francesca Annis is particularly good as upper-class
Liz. This middle-aged beauty is torn between Ronald Pickup as
respectable Austrian Siegfried and a much younger airman; Charles Gray
impresses as a poisonous film producer, Maurice Hussey; and William
Osborne is perfect as Cyril Clatworthy, his deliciously camp
assistant/slave.

From the younger generation, Nathaniel Parker plays a beautiful North
American flyer with artistic leanings, Anthony Calf is an English
officer who brings with him reports of concentration camp nightmares and
there is a tiny cameo from Ray Winstone playing a policeman.

The relationships are almost all strained to the limits, with every kind
of sexual pairing represented. The drink flows like water and this
ensures that La Vie, as seen in this play, is rarely far from explosive.

The second half takes place on the night of the post-war election that
brought Labour to power and then three weeks afterwards, as the club is
closing and British life is on the point of changing forever. This is
clearly the time to move onwards from the horrors of the concentration
camps, and the heady decadence that wartime existence permitted those
living in London.

Towards the end, Christine says, “I’m sick and tired of all this
emotionalism” and to be honest, it does get rather wearing. Absolute
Hell is a snapshot of one small layer of society during what has now
become a historical era. It works best as a showcase for a number of
fine actors to show off their skills, in almost every case as examples
of damaged, dissolute but well-to-do drunks.

1.68GB | 2h 00m | 692×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/24073BEC6F7362E/Absolute_Hell__Performance__(Anthony_Page_1991).mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Anthony Page – Performance: Absolute Hell (1991) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Andrew Crocker-Harris is an aging classics master at a British public school with only a few days left in his career but who is suddenly forced to confront his own life’s failures. Starring Judi Dench, Michael Kitchen, John Woodvine, Ian Holm. Directed by Michael A. Simpson. Originally broadcast December 31, 1985.

1.19GB | 1 h 14 min | 762×572 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/D1B062338BC1F20/The.Browning.Version.1985.DVDRip.x264-HANDJOB.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

The post Michael A. Simpson – The Browning Version (1985) first appeared on Cinema of the World.