2001-2010

  • Edgar Reitz – Heimat 3 – Chronik einer Zeitenwende AKA Heimat 3: A Chronicle of Endings and Beginnings (2004)

    2001-2010DramaEdgar ReitzGermany

    This is not only a sequel to the “Second Heimat”, but also a chronicle of a very decisive decade for Germany (1989 to 200). The main couple of the mini-series released in 1992, Hermann Simon and Clarissa Lichtbau (played by the same actors), reunite after almost exactly 29 years. Their last night of love in November 1970 closed the previous series. Now, on November 9th, 1989, when the Berlin Wall falls, Hermann and Clarissa meet each other again by mere chance. Surrounded by celebrations, the former lovers bring each other up to date, and reestablish a relationship. Hermann has become a well known maestro and Clarissa, a respected singer, but both lead solitary lives. Clarissa takes Hermann back to his birthplace, Schabbach where he can revisit his brothers, Ernst and Anton (the same actors from Heimat 1), who stayed on there, and extended family and friends.Read More »

  • Toshiki Satô – Shojo sôshitsu AKA Lost virgin: Yamitsuki enjo kôsai (2002)

    2001-2010DramaEroticaJapanToshiki Satô

    Spread over three time periods (Summer 10 Years Ago/Summer 5 Years Ago/This Summer), Lost Virgin tells the tale of good-time girl Chisato (Sasaki), hungry for new experiences yet ultimately in search of emotional fulfillment.Read More »

  • Wai-keung Lau – Wai See Lee ji lam huet yan aka The Wesleys Mysterious File (2002)

    2001-2010ActionHong KongSci-FiWai-Keung Lau

    Plot / Synopsis
    Wesley, is responsible for handling all the incidents that relate to extraterrestrial life on Earth. One day, Wesley meets Fong (Rosamund Kwan) when he is looking at a blue human bone in an antique shop. Fong is an alien from the Blue Blood Planet, she left her home 600 years ago to look for the Blue Blood Bible. Wesley tries to stop Fong going away, the Double X Unit lead by Wai and So is ordered to handle the case. At the same time, Kill and Rape arrive Earth from Blue Blood Planet. They come here to take Fong back to the Blue Blood Planet.Read More »

  • Bill Plympton – Eat (2001)

    2001-2010AnimationBill PlymptonShort FilmUSA

    A restaurant opens for the night. The diners include: A man dining alone, who orders a plate of spaghetti that becomes his dining companion. A couple; the woman talks endlessly (and unintelligibly), as her head mutates into a variety of shapes. Her ravenous companion refuses to pay, and the restaurant reclaims its food. A family with two children; they play, rather elaborately, with their food.Read More »

  • Sang-soo Hong – Bam gua nat AKA Night and Day (2008)

    Sang-soo Hong2001-2010ArthouseDramaSouth Korea

    Quote:
    ‘We can’t easily tell night from day during the summers here,” observes one character early on in Hong Sang-soo’s Paris-set Night and Day—a nearly throwaway line that circumscribes the sense of physical and spiritual dislocation felt by the film’s protagonist. Like most of the director’s leading men, Kim Sung-nam (Kim Yeong-ho) is a hangdog, self-absorbed, soju-guzzling Hong alter ego—a fortyish Korean artist who flees to the City of Lights after an episode of recreational drug use leads him to believe he is under police investigation. There, he rents a room in a crowded boarding house and resolves to lay low until he can safely return home to his wife, Sung-in (Hwang Su-jeong), or else find a way to bring her to France. But resolutions aside, it isn’t long before Sung-nam finds himself navigating Hong’s trademark gauntlet of awkward seductions, casual betrayals, and ghosts of girlfriends past.Read More »

  • Kazuyoshi Kumakiri – Sora no ana AKA Hole in the Sky (2001)

    2001-2010AsianDramaJapanKazuyoshi Kumakiri

    Quote:
    Following up on his acclaimed debut feature, Kichiku Dai Enkai — an intense portrait of a band of 1970s radicals who descend into morass of fratricidal blood lust — Kazuyoshi Kumakiri shifts gears completely by offering this understated romantic drama. Ichio (Takeshi Kitano regular Susumu Terajima) runs a rundown eatery on a Hokkaido highway. One day, a couple gets into a spat resulting in the guy — an overly tanned self-satisfied clod — hopping in his red sports car and driving off without her. The woman, Taeko (Rinko Kikuchi), returns to order a meal. When she tries to dash without paying, Ichio nabs her but lets her off with a warning. Ichio soon finds himself similarly stranded when his horseracing-mad father — and owner of the restaurant — swipes Ichio’s car for a crazed gambling road trip with his buddies. Later that night while camping out, Taeko inadvertently burns down one of the restaurant’s sheds. This time around, Ichio puts Taeko to work. Soon, in spite of themselves, a relationship is born.
    ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie GuideRead More »

  • Zhangke Jia – Wuyong AKA Useless (2007)

    2001-2010ChinaDocumentaryZhangke Jia

    Observations of three varied corners of China’s garment industry: workers in a large-scale production line factory; a designer who rallies against the mass-machine-production of clothes and has created the eponymous hand-made collection called ‘Useless’ (Wuyong) for Paris Fashion Week; and finally the simple life of increasingly out-of-work tailors in small town Fengdang.Read More »

  • Werner Schroeter – Deux AKA Two (2002)

    Werner Schroeter2001-2010ArthouseDramaFrance

    Quote:
    A young woman named Magdalena (Isabelle Huppert) retrieves a postcard that had been cast into the wind by her biological mother (Bulle Ogier) from a seaside town in Portugal and discovers that she has a twin sister named Maria. From this seemingly introspective opening premise on identity, connection, and history, Deux diverges into unexpectedly abstract, non-intersecting trajectories that involve a schoolgirl attraction with a fellow classmate, a mother’s wartime romance, a serial killer who leaves a tell-tale rose on the bodies of his victims, a lonely woman who adopts a fox as a household pet. Composed of asequential and dissociated vignettes, the film evokes the baroque tableaux of Sergei Paradjanov, the formalism of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and fractured surrealism of Luis Buñuel infused with quasi-religious iconography and Actionism of Otto Mühl (most notably, in the image of disemboweled figures such as ornamental cherubs).Read More »

  • Oskar Roehler – Jud Süss – Film ohne Gewissen AKA Jew Suss: Rise and Fall (2010)

    2001-2010DramaGermanyOskar RoehlerThriller

    Quote:
    Rise and fall of actor Ferdinand Marian, who takes the chance and stars in the anti-semitic movie Jud Süß.Read More »

Back to top button