Serge Merlin

  • Andrzej Wajda – Samson (1961)

    Andrzej Wajda1961-1970DramaPolandWar

    Nominated for the Golden Lion in 1961 at the venice Film festival

    “Samson” is the story of a Jew, Jakub Gold (Serge Merlin), at the polytechnic university in Warsaw imprisoned and sentenced to 10 years for accidentally killing his friend in German- occupied Poland. In prison he makes several contacts that will factor later in the movie. The prisoners are released when Warsaw is bombed. Jakub is sent to the Warsaw ghetto where the Jews are “doomed to death for the crime of existence” and is assigned to picking up corpses from the streets and helping to provide them with a Jewish burial. Along the way he picks up his own mother. After one such burial Jakub and another man escape from the ghetto. After he escapes he desires to go back into the ghetto to share the fate of his kinsmen. Read More »

  • Alejandro Jodorowsky – Tusk (1980)

    Drama1971-1980Alejandro JodorowskyArthouseFrance

    An English girl and an Indian elephant, born on the same day, share a common destiny.

    Tusk review contributed by Steve Puchalski at Shock Cinema

    Even though my print of this ultra-obscure Jodorowsky pic was in French with NO subtitles, you really don’t need a translation in order to get the gist of this self-termed “fable panique.” Set in turn of the century India, Jodorowsky drops most of his crazed mystical/religious/hallucinogenic stylings in order to tell a relatively straightforward story of a little girl, Elise, and a little elephant, Tusk, both of whom are born at the same time, and how their lives interconnect over the years (yawn). It begins on a good note, with Jodorowsky intercutting an elephant and a woman, each giving birth.Read More »

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