One of the five episodes of Bedtime stories for children by Harun FarockiRead More »
Arthouse
-
Harun Farocki – Einschlafgeschichten (Eisenbahn) AKA Bedtime stories (Railways) (1977)
1971-1980ArthouseGermanyHarun FarockiShort Film -
Ilya Khrzhanovskiy & Jekaterina Oertel – DAU. Nora Mother AKA DAU. Nora Mama (2020)
2011-2020ArthouseDramaIlya KhrzhanovskiyJekaterina OertelRussiaOnce just a girl from the provinces, Nora is now married to a successful scientist and lives together with her family within the confines of a secret and privileged Moscow institute. Nora is visited by her mother for the first time since her wedding. Her mother closely observes the atmosphere within the couple’s home, trying to work out whether her daughter is happy. During the course of their intimate conversations the complexity of their contradictory relationship is revealed.Read More »
-
Gakuryû Ishii – Yume no ginga AKA Labyrinth of Dreams (1997)
1991-2000ArthouseGakuryû IshiiJapanMysterySymopsis:
‘Tomiko is a conductor in a rural bus driven by the handsome Niitaka. Tomiko had received a letter from her best friend Tsuyako, a conductor in another bus company, just after Tsuyako was killed in a bus accident. Tsuyako wrote that she felt that her fiance and driver, Niitaka, planned to kill her. Tomiko therefore plans to take revenge on Niitaka. However Tomiko falls in love with Niitaka, even though she also suspects him of being the Tokyo bus driver serial killer, who killed his female conductors after tiring of them.’
– Will GilbertRead More » -
Danièle Huillet & Jean-Marie Straub – Les yeux ne veulent pas en tout temps se fermer, ou Peut-être qu’un jour Rome se permettra de choisir à son tour AKA Eyes Do Not Want to Close at All Times or Perhaps One Day Rome Will Permit Herself to Choose in Her Turn AKA Othon (1970)
1961-1970ArthouseDanièle HuilletFranceJean-Marie StraubPoliticsQuote:
Straub-Huillet’s first color film, Othon (Les yeux ne veulent pas en tout temps se fermer, ou Peut-être qu’un jour Rome se permettra de choisir à son tour) adapts a lesser-known Corneille tragedy from 1664, which in turn was based on an episode of imperial court intrigue chronicled in Tacitus’s Histories. The costuming is classical, and the toga-clad, nonprofessional cast performs the drama’s original French text amid the ruins of Rome’s Palatine Hill while the noise of contemporary urban life hums in the background. Their lines are executed with a terrific flatness and frequently through heavy accents; the language in Othon becomes not merely an expression but a thing itself, an element whose plainness here alerts us to qualities of the work that might otherwise be subordinated. “If at every moment one can keep one’s eyes and ears open to all of this,” Straub wrote, “it’s possible to even find the film thrilling and note that everything here is information—even the purely sensual reality of the space which the actors leave empty at the end of each act.Read More » -
Alan Greenberg – Land of Look Behind [+commentary] (1982)
1981-1990Alan GreenbergArthouseDocumentaryUSAQuote:
There has never been a documentary like “Land of Look Behind”. Relatively unknown due to poor distribution and New York Film Festival skullduggery, this breathtaking film presents a unique epic vision with quasi-dramatic elements and cinematographic wizardry. The non-reggae original soundtrack is outstanding, as is the reggae music of Bob Marley and Gregory Isaacs. The great documentary filmmaker Werner Herzog has called “Look Behind” the non-fiction film that has influenced him most over the last fifteen years. Indeed, this film’s peers are the best of Herzog, Bunuel’s “Land Without Bread”, Flaherty’s “Nanook” and Leacock-Pennebaker’s “Louisiana Story”. With thoughtful viewing, one will see this moving documentary actually end with a lovely little dream sequence. No American has come close to making a film this ingenious in the last thirty yearsRead More » -
Yusup Razykov – Voiz AKA The Orator (1998)
1991-2000ArthouseDramaUzbekistanYusup RazykovIskander, a gentle Uzbek man, is convinced by a Russian friend to give an impromptu speech praising the Communist Revolution. Impressed by his eloquence, the Soviets make Iskander a spokesman – a precarious position in a turbulent time.Read More »
-
Dan Sallitt – Polly Perverse Strikes Again! (1986)
1981-1990ArthouseDan SallittUSAQuote:
The movie is produced by EZTV, a production company and exhibition venue founded in Los Angeles in 1979 by John Dorr and other people (including Michael J. Masucci, who plays the cinema manager in Polly Perverse). How did you come in contact with them? How did your project fit into their structure?Read More » -
Aki Kaurismäki – Juha (1999)
1991-2000Aki KaurismäkiArthouseFinlandSilentQuote:
When I heard that Aki Kaurismaki was making a silent black-and-white feature, I expected something arch and postmodernist. Yet in spite of a few flashes of mordant humor, some wonderfully spare sound effects, and a few minimalist lighting schemes that suggest 50s Hollywood, this 1999 film is a moving pastiche whose strength is its sincerity and authenticity. A fallen-woman story set in the present, featuring a farm couple and an evil playboy from the city who lures the wife away, it conveys the sort of purity and innocence associated with silent cinema storytelling, including a love of nature and animals, a taste for stark melodrama, and an emotional directness in the acting–evocative at various times of Griffith in the teens and Murnau in the 20s.Read More » -
Jean Epstein – Le tempestaire (1947)
1941-1950ArthouseFranceJean EpsteinShort FilmQuote:
Despite her protestations and concerns over ominous signs, a young woman’s lover leaves for the sea to fish for sardines, but while he is out a terrible storm strikes. However, she finds out about Le Tempestaire, or Tempest Master, who has the power to speak to the wind and subdue it.Read More »