• Robert Beavers – The Hedge Theater (2002)

    2001-2010ExperimentalRobert BeaversShort FilmUSA

    Beavers shot The Hedge Theatre in Rome in the 1980s. It is an intimate film inspired by the Baroque architecture and stone carvings of Francesco Borromini and St. Martin and the Beggar, a painting by the Sienese painter Il Sassetta. Beavers’ montage contrasts the sensuous softness of winter light with the lush green growth brought by spring rains. Each shot and each source of sound is steeped in meaning and placed within the film’s structure with exacting skill to build a poetic relationship between image and sound. (Susan Oxtoby, Toronto International Film Festival)Read More »

  • Tasos Psarras – Karavan Sarai (1986)

    Drama1981-1990GreeceTasos Psarras

    Plot:
    Shortly before the end of the Civil War, in 1948, the villages along the border are evacuated to facilitate the National Army’s movements as well as to hamper those of the rebels. A forty-year-old villager, Margaritis (Thymios Karakatsanis), is forced, as are many others, to abandon his home and head for Thessaloniki with his two children. He settles into one of the city buildings, the Caravanserai, which has been designated for just this purpose. Here the refugees live under appalling conditions and resort to unnatural, dishonest behavior and cunning deeds. Margaritis tries not to get involved in all the unspeakable atrocities unfolding before him, at quite some psychological cost.Read More »

  • Götz Spielmann – Revanche (2008)

    Arthouse2001-2010AustriaCrimeGötz Spielmann

    Criterion wrote:

    Revanche begins with a reflection of trees in a lake at twilight. They’re seen upside down—an image of nature reversed—yet the earth is eerily calm. This almost otherworldly illusion arouses a viewer’s awareness of perspective, which is then disturbed by the splash of an object tossed into the middle of the lake. Widening ripples shatter the impression of stillness, and a genuine sense of mystery sets in. Such an intimation of the supernatural typifies Austrian writer-director Götz Spielmann’s unique vision in this film.Read More »

  • Ben Rivers & Anocha Suwichakornpong – Krabi, 2562 (2019)

    2011-2020Anocha SuwichakornpongBen RiversDocumentaryThailand

    Krabi, 2562 explores the landscape and stories within the community of Krabi, Southern Thailand. A major tourist destination in Thailand, the filmmakers want to capture the town in this specific moment where the pre-historic, the more recent past and the contemporary world collide, sometimes uneasily.Read More »

  • Seijun Suzuki – Kazoku no sentaku AKA A Family’s Choice (1983)

    1981-1990JapanMysterySeijun SuzukiTV

    A single mother’s ex-husband refuses to pay for their son’s schooling. While working in hospice care, a dying patient offers to kill her ex-husband psychically so their son will collect life insurance. When her ex-husband turns up dead, she becomes the prime suspect.Read More »

  • Kinji Fukasaku – Jingi naki tatakai: Kanketsu-hen AKA The Yakuza Papers 5: Final Episode (1974)

    1971-1980CrimeJapanKinji FukasakuThriller

    Synopsis:
    In the wake of The Bomb, ex-soldier Shozo Hirono (Bunta Sugawara) joins a Hiroshima yakuza gang — the Japanese equivalent of the Mafia — and then the shootings, slashings, betrayals, and scheming begin. Premiering a year after The Godfather, The Yakuza Papers also broke box-office records and spawned sequels, but, in contrast, took a ruthlessly de-romanticized view of the underworld. Based on an actual gang boss’ memoirs, The Yakuza Papers plunges the audience into a gritty, brutal, violent newsreel of a three-decade struggle for power of Shakespearean complexity, a nihilistic epic unlike any other.Read More »

  • György Révész – Utazás a koponyám körül AKA Trip Around My Cranium (1970)

    1961-1970ComedyFantasyGyörgy RévészHungary

    Quote:
    A thoroughly original, delightful comedy with serious undertones, this film is based upon the writings of a famous Hungarian journalist, Frigyes Karinthy. Karinthy, who, in his later years, suddenly became afflicted with a brain tumor, wrote a humorous novel about his thoughts during his illness. A Journey Around My Skull is not only a description of the illness and the great medical adventure of the writer, a strange, constantly unbalanced manner of life, but blends in several characteristics of Karinthy’s earlier works. The writer (played by Latinovits, who won the Best Actor Award at the recent San Sebastian Film Festival for his role here) is placed in pre-war Budapest, during the 1930s, and, while seated in his favorite cafe one day, he hears the roaring of trains. Read More »

  • Shangjun Cai – Ren shan ren hai AKA People Mountain People Sea (2011)

    2011-2020ArthouseAsianChinaShangjun Cai

    Synopsis : Lao Tie knows in his heart that he must help find his younger brother’s killer, despite his own problems. He has only recently returned home penniless to the remote mountain community after years away working in the city. Although the police identified the murderer as ex-con Xiao Qiang from a neighbouring village, they were not able to stop him from escaping. Lao Tie decides to hunt down his brother’s killer. He begins a journey that will unleash his long-suppressed inner pain and rage.Read More »

  • Walter Reisch – Men Are Not Gods (1936)

    1931-1940DramaUSAWalter Reisch

    Very interesting cast in this 1936 British film that predates A DOUBLE LIFE by nearly a decade.

    Miriam Hopkins plays a secretary who alters a scathing review of an actor in OTHELLO at his wife’s (Gertrude Lawrence) behest. The wife turns out to be correct and the actor (Sebastian Shaw) goes on to become the rage of London’s West End.

    Hopkins then becomes obsessed with the actor and starts going to all the performances of the play. Shaw then become smitten with Hopkins and we get a parallel story of jealousy and rage finally played out on the stage as Shaw’s Othello tries to kill Lawrence’s Desdemona. All very intriguing and very well played with bits of humor here and there.Read More »

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