Philosophy

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Slavoj Zizek is that rarity, an internationally famous philosopher, and one who has built a career out of telling his audience things they probably don’t want to hear. Embracing a world view that blends Marxism with the teachings of Jacques Lacan, Zizek’s work obsesses on how capitalism affects the way we think and function in our society, and how this is reflected in everything from pop psychology to plumbing. Zizek’s writings have won him a sizable following in the United States, and he’s been described as an “academic rock star” in Europe, where his lectures frequently attract sell-out crowds.Read More »

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Synopsis

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
—Socrates

Examined Life pulls philosophy out of academic journals and classrooms, and puts it back on the streets…

In Examined Life, filmmaker Astra Taylor accompanies some of today’s most influential thinkers on a series of unique excursions through places and spaces that hold particular resonance for them and their ideas.Read More »

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Yukio Mishima’s acclaimed 1956 novel Kinkakuji (The Temple of the Golden Pavilion) was inspired by an actual incident in 1950 when a disturbed monk burned down one of Kyoto’s most beautiful temple buildings. The temple requested that the name be changed to Shukakuji for this adaptation, which opens out the book’s internal monologue, structuring the anguished protagonist’s progress towards final conflagration through flashbacks as the police piece together their investigation. Raizo Ichikawa’s central performance attracts sympathy for this stuttering temple acolyte from a broken family, who sees in the Golden Pavilion a purity of beauty in direct contrast to his own imperfect existence. It’s a purity in danger of being defiled, however, as post-war occupation and reconstruction open the site to tourism, so he resolves to destroy pavilion in order to preserve it. Ichikawa’s fragmented direction draws together this awful logic, leaving the audience dangling exquisitely between understanding and outright horror as flames obliterate a priceless cultural monument. The director’s favourite among his own films.Read More »

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Lisbon Story is more dream than story – and this, I think, defines and justifies it most effectively. There is no clear structure, no consistently cohesive or progressive dialogue. Wim Wenders subtly reveals some form of portrait of the city, but not in the way one might expect. The film is largely made up of sounds, scattered pieces of Lisbon, strange children, a mysterious filmmaker and Wenders’ protagonist, the sound engineer, Philip Winter. In Philip Winter’s efforts to understand his friend Friedrich’s disappearance, in his enchantment with Portuguese band Madredeus, the singer Teresa Salgueiro and his search for the sounds that would accompany Friedrich’s film about Lisbon, Wender’s self-proclaimed “most entertaining film” emerges.Read More »

Wim Wenders muses on love, death and his perennial bugbear, the ‘Crisis of the Image’ in The Palermo Shooting, a metaphysical thriller cum philosophical essay that marks another step on the downwards slope for this once-vital film-maker. Unwisely cast, leadenly written and ultimately farcical in its earnestness, The Palermo Shooting is a glossy travelogue-thriller with metaphysical pretentions, and one of the low points of this year’s Cannes Competition. Unlikely to fare well in the market, the film may also find festivals preferring to tactfully take a rain check.Read More »

Synopsis
This Transient Life tells the story of the siblings Masao and Yuri who live in a huge estate near Lake Biwa north of Kyoto. Masao refuses to go to university and is infatuated with Buddhist sculptures. Iwashita, a student who lodges at the house, and Ogino, a young priest and former classmate of Masao, are both in love with Masao’s beautiful sister Yuri, who rejects all proposals from her parents to marry her off. One day, while being alone in the big house and playing with No-masks, Masao and Yuri end up in a passionate embrace. Thus starts their forbidden relation that soon bears fruit. When Yuri gets pregnant the siblings plot a perfidious plan. Yuri seduces Iwashita only to be discovered by her parents, who then force Iwashita to marry her. Masao leaves for Kyoto to become an apprentice to the famous sculptor of Buddhist statues, Mori Takayasu. He starts a relation with the much younger wife of the impotent sculptor, who secretly enjoys watching them make love. A year later Masao briefly returns to his parents’ house.Read More »

Made as a series of 13 programmes about the influence of Greek culture in our society.

The Owl’s Heritage: Sequence

1. Symposium, or Accepted Ideas
2. Olympics, or Imaginary Greece
3. Democracy, or the City of Dreams
4. Nostalgia, or the Impossible Return
5. Amnesia, or History on the March
6. Mathematics, or the Empire Counts Back
7. Logomachy, or the Dialect of the Tribe
8. Music, or Inner Space
9. Cosmogony, or the Ways of the World
10. Mytholody, or Lies like Truth
11. Mysogyny, or the Snares of Desire
12. Tragedy, or the Illusion of Death
13. Philosophy, or the Triumph of the Owl
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This comedy chronicles the experiences of Juliette, a young woman who undergoes a deep exploration of her sexuality as she is given a series of special lessons in sex and philosophy by the extremely decadent Dolman. During the course of an evening Dolman helps demolish Juliette’s conservative ideology and replaces it with his own libertine perspectives. Juliette becomes an enthusiastic convert in this bicentennial production of the Marquis de Sade’s classic book. ~ WorldCat
This orally erotic drama is inspired by the writings of the Marquis de Sade. It is oral in the sense that all of the sexual action is explicitly discussed, but never seen on screen. At one point Mr. Dolman begins reading chapters from his sexual journal. At another juncture, the uptight mother of a recently deflowered virgin shows up. To show her mother all she’s missed, the daughter involves her in an orgy that has her mother committing sodomy, incest, lesbianism, and adultery simultaneously. ~ Sandra Brennan, RoviRead More »