Drama

  • Jean-Claude Biette – Loin de Manhattan (1982)

    1981-1990ComedyDramaFranceJean-Claude Biette

    Writer-director Jean-Claude Biette’s 1982 French comedy drama Loin de Manhattan is intriguing and densely scripted, with playful performances and teasing results. It stars Jean-Christophe Bouvet, Sonia Saviange, Howard Vernon, and Laura Betti. In Biette’s complex screenplay, Christian (Jean-Christophe Bouvet), the employee of a Paris art gallery, gets the help of his friend Ingrid (Sonia Saviange) to try to solve the mystery of why famous painter René Dimanche (Howard Vernon) did not produce a single painting in eight years.Read More »

  • Werner Schroeter – Nuit de chien AKA This Night (2008)

    2001-2010DramaGermanyWerner Schroeter

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Quote:
    Werner Schroeter is one of the German new wave’s prophets without honour. He was too confrontationally weird to take his place alongside Fassbinder, Wenders and Herzog in the international distribution sweepstakes and the disturbingly freaked-out Nuit de Chien goes a long way to suggesting why.

    The film posits Pascal Greggory as a man fleeing a nameless fascist dictatorship currently in the throes of a power struggle. Fleeing the nation, he can’t seem to find his wife and in searching for her winds up in brothels, alleys and avenues of power. As in the best magic realism, the country is a place of surreal dislocation, with people doing appalling things apparently against their personal dispositions and making peace with insane circumstances.Read More »

  • Philippe Lesage – Les démons AKA The Demons (2015)

    2011-2020CanadaDramaPhilippe Lesage

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    A young boy begins to experience the adult world as he enters adolescence.

    A daring, exquisite study of agitated child psychology that marks Quebecois filmmaker Philippe Lesage as a name to watch.

    Fevered imagination and nightmarish reality brush shoulders to disconcerting effect in “The Demons,” Quebecois filmmaker Philippe Lesage’s extraordinary examination of childhood fears festering in broad suburban daylight. Putting his documentary training to disciplined use as he teases out the largely internalized insecurities — sexual, social and practical — of his 10-year-old protagonist.Read More »

  • Ivo van Hove & La Comédie-Française – Les Damnés AKA The Damned (2016)

    2011-2020DramaFranceIvo van HoveLa Comédie-FrançaisePerformance

    Ivo van Hove’s first staging with the Troupe marks the entry into the repertoire of the scenario of The Damned. In two decades, the artistic director of the Toneelgroep in Amsterdam, whose field of exploration encompasses the world of theatre, film and opera, has explored a vast repertoire of works, from Sophocles and Shakespeare to Molière, Koltès, Cassavetes or Arthur Miller. The intention in this production is not to adapt the cult film, directed byVisconti, but “to return to the screenplay in order to stage it for theatre”. What Ivo van Hove retains from this sharply drawn chronicle of a family of industrialists during the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 in Germany is the ideological depravity of a company willing to makes the most poisonous alliances to benefit its own economic interests. “In my view, it is the celebration of evil”, says the director, whose work “always combines strong theatricality with the exploration of complex psychological zones and refined emotions”. Read More »

  • Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt – Havana Motor Club (2015)

    2011-2020Bent-Jorgen PerlmuttCubaDocumentaryDrama

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Reforms have offered opportunity in Cuba but the children of the Revolution are unsure of the best route forward. For a half-dozen drag racers, this means last-minute changes to their beloved American muscle cars, as they prepare for the first sanctioned race in Cuba since 1960. Punctuated by a lively Cuban soundtrack, Havana Motor Club offers a fascinating glimpse at the resilience and ingenuity of the competitive spirit.Read More »

  • Jean Negulesco – Alice in Movieland (1940)

    1931-1940DramaJean NegulescoShort FilmUSA

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Synopsis:
    In a U.S. town that could be anywhere, 18-year-old Alice Purdee wins a free trip to Hollywood. With the assistance of a cheerful porter, she takes the night train and dreams about her arrival. Instead of instant success, she meets disappointment after disappointment, and she needs the unexpected encouragement of her grandmother and an aging, former star whom she meets at a talent night. Finally she gets a call to be an extra, and she’s so hopeful that the regulars decide to make a fool of her. Is this the end of Alice’s dream? Not if the porter has anything to say about it.
    — IMDb.Read More »

  • Glauber Rocha – Der Leone Have Sept Cabeças AKA The Lion Has Seven Heads (1970)

    1961-1970ArthouseBrazilDramaGlauber Rocha

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    ın a African country, the people decides to take arms for the revolution, but the white, defended by mercenaries and commanded by a American agent, will defend the interests of capitalists and of Marlene, “the owner of the country”.Read More »

  • Louis Feuillade – Pierrot, Pierrette (1924)

    1921-1930DramaFranceLouis FeuilladeSilent

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Pierrot et Pierrette, brother and sister, live in a caravan with their grandfather, the former ringmaster of a circus. To earn a living, they sing in the streets, and their lives are happy. But a charitable lady interferes, determined to put grandfather in an old folks’ home and the children in an orphanage. Pierrot and Pierrette run away, and fall into the hands of a travelling vendor who wants to use them for burglaries.Read More »

  • Jean Renoir – La chienne AKA The Bitch (1931)

    1931-1940DramaFranceJean Renoir

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Maurice (Michel Simon) is a married cashier who meets Lulu (Janie Marèze), a streetwalker. Their chance meeting results in Maurice falling in love with Lulu. She, however, is in love with her boyfriend-pimp, Dédé (Georges Flamant). Together, Dédé and Lulu plot ways to get Maurice to give cash to Lulu, mostly at the urging of Dédé.Read More »

Back to top button