1981-1990

  • Patrice Chéreau – Hôtel de France (1987)

    Patrice Chéreau1981-1990DramaFrance

    Quote:
    At the age of 20 Michel was going out with Sonia and was the charismatic leader of their group of friends, and the one that everyone thought would “go far”. But Michel did not live up to their expectations. Ten years later, the friends meet up again…
    In 1987, Patrice Chereau had been heading up the Theatre des Amandiers for two years. The previous year he staged a contemporary production of Chekov’s Platonov with his students from the Ecole des comediens de Nanterre-Amandiers. It was them, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Vincent Perez, Marianne Denicourt, Agnes Jaoui, that he brought onto the film set to adapt his own theatrical adaptation for the cinema. It is a great pleasure to see the first steps in front of the camera of these as yet unknown actors in Hotel de France.Read More »

  • Mauro Bolognini – La venexiana AKA The Venetian Woman (1986)

    Mauro Bolognini1981-1990EroticaItalyRomance

    After years of black plague, Venice shines again. Angela and Valeria, two women from noble families, set their heart on a man in the Venetian crowd and decide to seduce him.Read More »

  • Gerd Kroske & Andreas Voigt – Leipzig im Herbst AKA Leipzig in Autumn (1990)

    1981-1990Andreas VoigtDocumentaryGerd KroskeGermanyPolitics

    The most comprehensive documentation of events surrounding the 1989 Monday demonstrations in Leipzig, East Germany. The film team finally got the permission of the state-owned film studio to document these historic events on October 16, 1989 and filmed until the fall of the Berlin Wall. With their heavy 35mm camera equipment, they were the only professional team filming in Leipzig. The film includes interviews with demonstrators, members of the citizens’ rights movement, officials and bystanders in East Germany’s peaceful revolution.Read More »

  • Tracey Moffatt – Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy (1990)

    Tracey Moffatt1981-1990AustraliaExperimentalShort Film

    “Formally, Moffatt’s movie is a beautifully considered, carefully crafted ‘tour’ across various, symbolically loaded areas of space, wherein John Whitteron’s steadily exploratory camerawork forces our gaze to look at certain, otherwise quite banal, objects and activities and to studiedly contemplate them, in all their sadly arrested beauty, in all their absurd tragi-comedy. Stephen Curtis’ set design, a symphony in scale and perspective blends the saturated ambers and lavender purples of Albert Namatjira’s kitschily redolent watercolours with what, again, might, or might not, constitute a stylised rendition of the living-room interior from the 1955 Chauvel classic. And Phillippa Harvey’s sound-edited noise-scape is probably one of the best uses of ambient aural effects in any local film, so much so that the wonderfully textured wailing and weeping, the strange whistles and screams can stay with the viewing ‘auditeur’ for days afterwards.”
    senses of cinemaRead More »

  • Bertrand Tavernier – La vie et rien d’autre AKA Life and Nothing But (1989)

    1981-1990Bertrand TavernierDramaFranceWar

    Quote:
    January, 1920. 350,000 French soldiers remain missing in action. Major Dellaplane tirelessly matches the dead and the wounded with families’ descriptions. Honor and ethics drive him; he hates the idea of “the unknown soldier.” Into his sector, looking for her husband, comes a haughty, politically connected Parisian, Madame Ir├¬øne de Courtil. Brusquely, Dellaplane offers her 1/350,000th of his time, but as their paths cross and she sees his courage and resolve, feelings change. After he finds a surprising connection between her missing husband and a local teacher, Ir├¬øne makes Dellaplane an offer. This man of action hesitates: has he missed his only chance?Read More »

  • Stephen Quay & Timothy Quay – Street of Crocodiles (1986)

    Stephen Quay1981-1990AnimationShort FilmTimothy QuayUSA

    A man closes up a lecture hall; he reaches into a box and snips the string holding a gaunt puppet. Released, the puppet warily explores the darkened rooms about him. Screws twist out of objects and move about. A boy doll catches light with a mirror, shining it around: he spotlights the gaunt explorer. An adult female doll stands with breasts exposed. Mechanical spools and wheels turn. The gaunt man investigates. Four doll men surround him, dress him in colorful clothes, invite him to look inside displays that include drawings of penile skeletons. Female dolls awkwardly rotate their arms from broken shoulders. The gaunt man watches. Bruno Schultz is quoted. (IMDb)Read More »

  • Christoph Lauenstein & Wolfgang Lauenstein – Balance (1989)

    1981-1990AnimationChristoph LauensteinGermanyShort Film

    A group of fishermen on a precariously balanced platform fight over a trunk.Read More »

  • Satyajit Ray – Ganashatru AKA An Enemy of the People (1989)

    1981-1990DramaIndiaPoliticsSatyajit Ray

    Quote:
    In Satyajit Ray’s absorbing contemporary adaptation of a play by Henrik Ibsen, a good-hearted doctor discovers that the serious illness befalling the citizens of his small Bengali town may be due to a contamination of the holy water at the local temple. His findings are met not with public gratitude but with rancor, as well as opposition from local authorities, who are afraid the news will keep visitors away. Stately in style but with a fiery debate at its heart, An Enemy of the People gets at the tension between religion and science in everyday Indian life.Read More »

  • Luc Moullet – La Comédie du travail AKA The Comedy of Work (1987)

    1981-1990ComedyFranceLuc Moullet

    Actually the comedy of unemployment, which is defined as possibly the worst, or maybe the best, thing that ever happened to this film’s group of protagonists: a middle-aged loan officer, his successful wife, a champion of professional joblessness (and mountain-climbing enthusiast), and the employment agency professional who falls passionately in love with him. This film’s honest work involves potatoes, ditch-diggers, a wheelbarrow, doomed love, jam in bed, and gunfire involving dueling employment agencies. Winner of the Prix Jean Vigo at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival.Read More »

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