1980s

  • Peter Brook – The Mahabharata (1989)

    1981-1990BelgiumEpicPeter BrookTV

    Synopsis:
    In ancient India the five Pandava brothers, Yudhishthira, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva, are cousins of the sons of king Dhritharashtra, known as the Kaurava. The five are the sons of the wives of king Pandu, who seceded in favor of his blind brother after he was cursed. The men are raised together, but from the beginning there are difficulties. They are prone to fight and when Arjuna becomes a great archer, the Kaurava are both jealous and afraid. Is it the kingdom the Pandava are after? Yudhishthira, the eldest of the Pandava, strives after it as he is told by the deity Krishna that he will become king. The hatred and jealousy of the Kaurava grows even stronger when the Pandava turn a barren wasteland Dhritharashtra gave them into a great court. This can’t go on forever. Inevitably a war will follow, a war that will shake the foundations of the Earth.Read More »

  • Atef El-Taieb – Al Hob Fawk Hadabet Al Haram AKA Love on the Pyramids Plateau (1986)

    Atef El-Taieb1981-1990DramaEgypt

    Voted among the Greatest Egyptian Films at the 1996 Cairo Film Festival

    It shows the incredulity of exaggerated hardships a young man has to go through to get married in Egypt, with lower than average incomes, and inability to find a decent job in an ever more competitive world. Basic needs like shelter are even hard to sustain.
    The young man and the girl cannot pay the bill, going through a myriad network of all sorts of shady people to help them, to no avail.
    In the end, only the walls of the ancient pyramids provide shelter for the homeless lovers.Read More »

  • Tom Bowes – The Kitchen Presents Two Moon July (1986)

    1981-1990ExperimentalTom BowesUSAVideo Art

    Quote:
    This video is an ensemble piece that contains a collection of experimental performance art pieces by various performers. The entire video takes place in The Kitchen, an enormous artist’s loft in the midst of New York City. All the performance pieces are what could be considered Avant-garde in nature, though that term has fallen out of use today in order to make way for the more pedestrian and commonplace whitewash term of alternative; however, when this video was created, the style and feel of each of these pieces was more intentionally risk-filled and groundbreaking than what we see today as is the nature with the ideals of the avant-garde–I don’t think the term alternative had been coined and/or abused as yet, people were still saying New Wave or Punk or using terms even more inaccurate and less flattering. Don’t get me wrong, these differing pieces are new and experimental concepts in art but all are carefully rehearsed and well scripted, there is some, but very little improvisation on the whole. Read More »

  • Raymonde Carasco – Rupture (1989)

    1981-1990ArthouseFranceMysteryRaymonde Carasco

    Joa (Bulle Ogier), an archaeologist from Mexico, comes to Paris in search of her sister Anna (Mireille Perrier), of whom she is suddenly without news. Anna, a theater actress, was in the title role in Sade’s “Justine” when she disappeared. The investigation leading Joa to the people who have known her sister, turns into an initiatory quest. Her journey, her stroll through a subterranean marginal Paris, leads also to the emergence of a new woman.Read More »

  • Jirí Menzel – Postriziny AKA Cutting it Short (1981)

    1981-1990ComedyCzech RepublicJirí Menzel

    Synopsis wrote:
    Short Cut is a comedy revealed more in the acting and witty dialogue than in the simple premise of the story itself: how the Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal was born. Actually, the story is, in many ways, the writer’s conception.Read More »

  • Yonfan – Yi luan qing mi AKA Double Fixation (1987)

    1981-1990Hong KongRomanceThrillerYonfan

    Quote:
    In this homage to Alfred Hitchcock, a femme fatale and a photographer embark on a romantic adventure surrounding a mysterious marble.Read More »

  • Peter Greenaway – The Sea in Their Blood AKA The Coastline (1983) (HD)

    1981-1990DocumentaryPeter GreenawayUnited Kingdom

    Synopsis:
    A film made for the Central Office of Information concerning Britain’s coastline, with music by Michael Nyman.Read More »

  • Menelik Shabazz – Time and Judgement (1988)

    Documentary1981-1990Menelik ShabazzUnited Kingdom

    This genre-bending sci-fi documentary from pioneering filmmaker Menelik Shabazz spans four hundred years to tell the story of the African liberation movement. Chronicling the tribulations and triumphs of people of African descent in and out of Africa, with a special focus on the struggles of the last century, TIME AND JUDGEMENT features extensive footage of movements in the Caribbean, Africa, America, and Europe and offers critical political analysis of leaders such as Maurice Bishop of Grenada; Walter Rodney of Guyana; Jesse Jackson, Kwame Ture (a.k.a. Stokley Carmichael), and Louis Farrakhan of the United States; Samora Machel of Mozambique; Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana; Haile Selassie of Ethiopia; Bob Marley and Marcus Garvey of Jamaica; and others. Through a blending of theater, poetry, music, and painting, the film establishes a connection between biblical prophecy and the times we are living in, leading to a final confrontation between the forces of greed and love.Read More »

  • Michael Apted – Gorky Park (1983)

    1981-1990DramaMichael AptedThrillerUSA

    Quote:
    Gorky Park, in both the original novel by Martin Cruz Smith and the movie adaptation scripted by the legendary Dennis Potter (Pennies from Heaven and The Singing Detective), introduced one of the most intriguing fictional detectives of the last half century: Chief Investigator Arkady Renko of the Moscow police force in the former Soviet Union. Like all great detectives, Renko is committed to truth and justice, but he has to pursue them in a system that owes its very existence to secrecy, lies and concealment. This fundamental conflict runs through all of Renko’s cases, along with a conflict-ridden family history, including a famous general of a father who disapproved of his son’s choice to pursue a career in law enforcement.Read More »

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