Raoul Ruiz

Synopsis
“The filmmakers tell a story on three time planes of two men of different nationalities and fates who are connected by a love of flying. At the beginning of the film, the younger, Chilean-born Max is already 50 when he hears gunfire: soldiers have risen up against Salvador Allende’s attempt to institute democracy. The event awakens memories of another war. Back then, as a military pilot, he had taken off from London to join the fight against the German Luftwaffe. When he returned to the base he almost didn’t realize that the new instructor, a Frenchman named Antoine, is the one who taught him to fly years earlier. Read More »

The narrator, an Arab immigrant of about 35, H., is a projectionist in an old cinema. One day, attracted by the music, he looks through the skylight and is fascinated by what he sees: the dancer in the film seems to be staring straight at him. He falls in love with her, but the vision lasts only a moment and the young woman never appears again. Shortly afterwards, an old man bursts into the cabin claiming to be his uncle. H. wants to prepare a meal for him and grabs a bottle of oil. On the label he finds the image of the dancer. A free adaptation of The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat and The Condemned for Lack of Faith by Tirso de Molina.Read More »

Raoul Ruiz’s rare version of Shakespeare’s “Richard III”.
Richard of Gloucester uses murder and manipulation to claim England’s throne.

“My mise-en-scène focused on the object: it’s about King Richard III and his vertiginous power. More than on a character, I was focusing on a mechanism: the play of power — with a bias, this time approaching caricature — I wanted to develop all of the parodic forms surrounding the representation of power. The result is somewhat akin to Ubu roi.Read More »

Quote:
When the child Manuel wanders into a garden that is off-limits to him, he meets an unidentified fisherman, and another boy – the boy is actually himself several years down the road. Manuel experiences three different versions of his encounters in the garden, revealing that fate can have several twists and turns in one’s life, depending on decisions that are made early on.Read More »

Synopsis
Follows a jealous countess, a wealthy businessman, and a young orphaned boy across Portugal, France, Italy and Brazil where they connect with a variety of mysterious individuals.Read More »

Raúl Ruiz’s baroque mix of revolutionary politics, pop culture and semiotics is loosely based on the play La vida es sueño (Life is a Dream) by Pedro Calderón de la Barca. In this 17th-century classic, a young prince learns that life is but a dream from which we wake when we die, and that dreams may be as real as life.

Ruiz’s Prince is a Chilean revolutionary in hiding who spends his time in a run-down movie theatre watching old Flash Gordon serials while trying to remember a secret code he once memorized using Life is a Dream as a mnemonic device.Read More »

Quote:
Beyond a film, Icebreaker is in 1987 the first media composition, construction of 3 original works made on the Swedish icebreaker Frej, and involving the main means of expression. “Bateau Givre” by Jean Rouch (35′), carries the principles of direct cinema. Rouch discovers in his camera, without the artifice of a commentary, without the help of a third language, the work and the days of the icebreaker and the men who serve it. “Hans Majestäts Statsisbrytaren Frej” by Titte Törnroth (20′), offers a second approach, where the characters, who have acquired a mysterious presence with Rouch, evoke their work, their emotions, in their activities as well as in their moments of relaxation. This film answers the questions left unanswered in the previous one. Raoul Ruiz’s “Tales of Ice” (34′); when the viewer thinks he has gone around a reality that has become familiar, makes it tip over into a profusion of fictions; three stories weave together in this fantastic film where ice plays the central role, where the icebreaker becomes a strange vessel wandering on the edge of the world.Read More »

We are in Santiago, Chile, in a bar. Two old men talking and drinking. It seems that one of them is writing a novel. In bizarre conversation, they speak of themselves as if they were already dead while the would-be novelist, Don Federico, dips match sticks with tweezers into his wine glass. A curious strangeness settles in… where are we, exactly? In the kingdom of the dead? Not quite. At most, in a previous life or in memory. For Don Federico begins to evoke the days of his youth back when he lived in the country.Read More »

Les âmes fortes (2011)
Quote:
At a wake one night in 1945, a group of aged women recall the life of one of their number. Sixty years before, Thérèse was barely 20 years old when she eloped with her boyfriend, Firmin, a blacksmith, to Châtillon, a town in Provence. Here, she makes the acquaintance of the wealthy Madame Numance, who is known for her good deeds. Realising that Thérèse is pregnant and unemployed, Madame Numance insists that she moves into a house on her estate. Whilst Firmin resents the arrangement, Thérèse soon finds that she can exploit the situation, using her benefactor’s naivety and generosity for her own gain..Read More »