1981-1990

  • Felix de Rooy – Desiree (1984)

    1981-1990ArthouseCaribbean CinemaDramaFelix de RooyNetherlands

    Set in Brooklyn, New York this Dutch film is based on a true story that appeared on a New York newspaper in 1980. Desirée lives in the past. A series of flashbacks expose us to her psychologically troubled childhood very much affected by a promiscous mother. Her present life evolves around three people: her employer Mrs. Resnick, Freddy, her lover and Father Siego, leader of the church “The True Confessors”. Desirée’s relationship with each one of these characters is at the origin of her falling apart. Freddy is an insecure black man who finishes their love affair with a sad note, Father Siego is the leader of a rigid narrow-minded religious sect and Mrs Resnick is a racist, prejudiced white woman who feels black people are inferior and incapable of living their own live. Rejected by all because of her pregnancy, Desirée blames her child as the source of evil. She is then possessed by evil and wants to exorcise it. The only way is to get rid of her daughter…Read More »

  • John Boorman – The Emerald Forest (1985)

    1981-1990ActionDramaJohn BoormanUnited Kingdom

    Synopsis by Hal Erickson
    The Emerald Forest is based on a true story, as related by Los Angeles Times correspondent Leonard Greenwood. Powers Boothe stars as Bill Markham, a US engineer working on a dam project in the Amazonian jungles. Bill’s young son, Tomme (played by director John Boorman’s son Charley Boorman) is kidnapped in the rain forest by a tribe called “The Invisible People” because of their skills at camouflage – a group that has reportedly never experienced contact with Caucasians. Read More »

  • Beth B. & Scott B – Vortex + Black Box (1979 – 1982)

    1981-1990ArthouseBeth BDramaScott BUSA

    Scott B and Beth B, successful makers of short, experimental films made The Vortex an attempt at a “camp” film with a pessimistic “noirish” atmosphere. The detective Lunch (Lydia Lunch, a popular underground musician and poet) investigates a band of corporate businessman who seek government defense contracts through real “corporate wars” and the manipulation of politicians. Though a bit confusing, this film does have an excellent performance by Lunch, as the detective. – AllMovieGudeRead More »

  • Ann Hui – Woo Yuet dik goo si AKA The Story of Woo Viet (1981)

    1981-1990Ann HuiCrimeDramaHong Kong

    Quote:
    Hong Kong, 1980. The Vietnam War has been over for five years and the ethnic cleansing of Chinese has begun. As the “boat people”, refugees of Vietnam, flood out of the country, Hong Kong becomes know as “port of first asylum”. Among these boats is Wu Yiet (Chow Yun-Fat), a former South Vietnamese soldier still recovering from the ravages of war. For him, Hong Kong is the first step for life in the United States, and he soon falls for fellow immigrant Sum Ching (Cherie Chung). Yet the promise of a new beginning doesn’t come easy: the refugee camps have been infiltrated by murderous Viet Cong agents, and an act of violence forces Wu Yiet on the run and deeper into a vortex of crime and brutality. Read More »

  • Michele Soavi – Deliria aka StageFright: Aquarius (1987)

    1981-1990HorrorItalyMichele Soavi

    Plot Synopsis by Robert Firsching
    Horror film actor Michele Soavi’s directorial debut was this stylish giallo thriller about an escaped lunatic terrorizing the cast of a stage musical who get locked in a theater after dark. David Brandon, Barbara Cupisti, and perennial victim Giovanni Lombardo Radice (aka “John Morghen”) lead the cast, most of whom spend their time sniping at each other with amusingly typical backstage cruelty. The murder scenes are the film’s primary attraction, artfully handled by Soavi in setpieces such as a blue-lighted stage strewn with feather-covered bodies. Read More »

  • David Mamet – House of Games (1987)

    1981-1990CrimeDavid MametThrillerUSA

    Synopsis:
    A famous psychologist, Margaret Ford, decides to try to help one of her patients get out of a gambling debt. She visits the bar where Mike, to whom the debt is owed, runs poker games. He convinces her to help him in a game: her assignment is to look for “tells”, or give-away body language. What seems easy to her becomes much more complex.Read More »

  • Paul Vecchiali – Trous de mémoire (1985)

    1981-1990ArthouseFrancePaul Vecchiali

    Improvisation by Paul Vecchiali and Françoise Lebrun – On Paul’s initiative, Françoise and Paul met after a long separation, on the pretext to search in commun for a lost memory, a song. It soons appears that Paul’s objective is to win her back.

    Quote:
    Quand j’écrivais le scénario de En haut des marches, je me suis trouvé en panne à un moment du récit. Impossible de discerner ce qui me bloquait. En sortant d’Auditel, qui comptait une dizaine de salles de montage où travaillaient, entre autres, Jacques Demy et Éric Rohmer, j’ai croisé Françoise Lebrun, connue elle aussi au Studio Parnasse.Read More »

  • Shinsuke Ogawa – Nippon-koku Furuyashiki-mura aka A Japanese Village (1982)

    Documentary1981-1990JapanShinsuke Ogawa

    Synopsis:
    This is Ogawa Productions’ first major film from their Yamagata period. They had already started photography on Magino Village-A Tale but they were drawn to this village deep in the high country above Magino when a particularly cold bout of weather threatened crops. Inevitably, their attention strayed from the impact of weather and geography on the harvest to the “life history” of Furuyashiki Village. On the one hand, Ogawa returns to his roots by playing with the conventions of the science film. At the same time, he discovers a local, peripheral space in which to think about the nation and the state of village Japan. From this “distant perspective” in the very heart of the Japanese mountains, Ogawa discovers a village still dealing with the trauma of global warfare and struggling for survival as their children flee for the cities.Read More »

  • Svetlana Proskurina – Sluchaynyy vals AKA Accidental Waltz (1990)

    1981-1990ArthouseDramaSvetlana ProskurinaUSSR

    Tatyana Prokofievna is an ageing woman with a diva’s behavior, but her life is uneventful, ordinary and dull. To escape the everyday slumber she seeks companionship of young men. She provides shelter and becomes involved in their problems. Her ex-boyfriend has married a younger woman. Tatyana is forced to keep her loneliness hidden because of her role as hostess.

    Won grand prix “Golden Leopard” at the Locarno International Film Festival, 1990Read More »

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