Masumura has been one of the most intersting directors for many of us Japanese cinema buffs. His “Blind Beasts” is a real classic and a disturbing film, almost an archetype of movies dealing with dark sexual passions, abductions and growing affection to an abuser.

Masumura’s much less known film “The Music” also deals with dark passions, but from a more pathological point of view. Our main character is Reiko, who has problems enjoying sex with her lover and who is also not able to hear music when it’s played on the radio. A psychiatrists tries to cure her and finds out a lot about her past. Reiko’s passions, fears and experiences are presented in drastic, exciting pictures and metaphors (a big, scary pair of scissors appears again and again ready to cut off legs and maybe other important part from the body titles), combined with a very haunting score. The characters act wild and breathless, you can almost smell their feelings.
Even more interesting: The film is based on a novel by the famous writer Mishima Yukio, who wrote a lot of exciting books but who is also well known for his ritual act of public suicide in 1970 – 40 years ago.

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Totorochi<Read More »

Extremly beautiful avant-garde film by Philippe Garrel, one of his silent ones. Nico, Zouzou and (almost a cameo) Jean Seberg are portraited by the camera with mistical intimacy. Is the last of the seventh garrel’s films with nico, and the last aparition of Seberg on a screen before her death.Read More »

funny imdb comment:

Quote:
A weird and dreamy minimalist underground art movie, Le Berceau de Cristal offers no joy whatsoever to mainstream film buffs – but doomed romantics, drug takers and fans of director Philippe Garrel may find it hypnotic and profoundly moving. An androgynous poet/dreamer (played by Nico – Velvet Underground singer, Eurotrash icon and Garrel’s other half) sits and writes and meditates on the aching void that is her life. Hieratic and semi-mythical beings show up to haunt her dreams. Dominique Sanda as a fleshy Pre-Raphaelite earth goddess. Anita Pallenberg as an impishly grinning, emaciated drug diva – shooting up live on camera. An early icon of ‘heroin chic.’Read More »

stefflbw wrote:
Synopsis:
Set in the boarding school milieu, the film depicts the meeting of shy Gregor and mysterious Billie. Billie has a son, her husband is in jail. Arthur, Gregor’s friend, is a serial Lothario, forever unfaithful to his girlfriend Pia. Both Arthur and Billie have had a similar mystical experience related to someone’s death. While Gregor believes that an elective affinity between two people preordains their lives, Arthur does not even subscribe to romantic feelings between the sexes.
Arthur is a failure at school and becomes mixed up with criminal elements, Gregor goes on to attend university, and remains in pursuit of Billie who passes in and out of his life on several occasions.Read More »

SYNOPSIS
(…) Set in the 18h century when the Inquistion was still in force. A small town is one day visited by a priest who is there on a secret mission. He is a member of the Inquisition sent to investigate the activities of a local miller. The miller and his son are the descendants of an old family whose ancestral home burned down a century ago, but was rebuilt from scratch. The miller inherited much of his knowledge about the land, water, and a building’s stability from generations of family experience. His reputation for finding water and predicting when a structure might collapse have come to the attention of the Inquisition -surely he must be in league with the Devil. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie GuideRead More »

“Dave Kehr” wrote:

Abel Ferrara’s ”Blackout,” a film featuring sex, drugs and Claudia Schiffer, caused a stampede when it was shown at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. That it is only now receiving a New York theatrical premiere says a lot about what the film promises, and what the film delivers. (It will be shown at the Anthology Film Archives in the East Village for the next two weeks, as the climax of a series of Mr. Ferrara’s films.)

Mr. Ferrara is a Bronx-born filmmaker whose fascination with urban excess and questions of Roman Catholic faith sometimes makes him seem like Martin Scorsese’s self-destructive, insistently undisciplined younger brother. These are qualities that make Mr. Ferrara’s work enormously respected in Europe, where he is taken to be one of the primary interpreters of the contemporary American scene, and virtually unknown in the United States, where it can seem arty, self-indulgent and wholly unreal.Read More »

As far as I know, this short film is Nagisa Oshima’s directorial debut. It seems to be in the form of a trailer for a film that doesn’t exist. It parodies the mainstream Japanese film genres of the time and is a rare glimpse at Oshima’s more playful side.Read More »

BAROCCO, from director André Téchiné is an entrancing and operatic take on a political thriller that invokes the plot twists and bizarre narrative elements of Alfred Hitchcock’s VERTIGO as it creates a world of crooked politicians, virtuous prostitutes, doppelgangers, and destiny.

On the eve of a local election in Amsterdam, Samson (Gérard Depardieu), a boxer, is paid to create a scandal by saying he had a homosexual affair with one of the candidates. Although Samson is reluctant to get involved, his girlfriend, Laure (Isabelle Adjani), persuades him to agree and use the money to escape the city. As Laure and Samson are attempting to leave the city, a gangster who looks exactly like Samson (played also by Depardieu) emerges from nowhere and murders him. An intricate chase ensues as the assassin tries to find Laure (and the money), the politicians and gangsters try to find the assassin, and Laure attempts to re-create her lost love in the form of the look-alike killer. The characters’ dancelike movement through the shadow world of Amsterdam and the evocative settings (a gleaming storefront brothel and a sinister underworld spa) provide austere backdrops to this metaphorical thriller. The dark side of politics and human nature are uncovered as Laure begins to love the assassin and the government attempts to control it all.Read More »

A Documentary in 10 parts covering the filmmaking of Kurosawa around the theme of making the perfect movie or as he says: A Beautyful Movie.

Kurosawa on filmmaking.

Chapter 1 – The seed of a film
Chapter 2 – Screenplays
Chapter 3 – Storyboards
Chapter 4 – Filming
Chapter 5 – Lighting
Chapter 6 – Production design
Chapter 7 – Costumes
Chapter 8 – Editing
Chapter 9 – Music
Chapter 10 – Directing
Read More »