Director: Agustí Vila Country: Spain Runtime: 1 hour, 35 minutes
A wildly dysfunctional family begins to drown in their multiple neuroses
in this offbeat drama from Spanish filmmaker Agusti Vila. Luis (Marcos
Franz) is the teenage son of Miguel and Alicia, a couple whose marriage
is on its last legs. Luis obsessively brings home stray dogs and cats,
who show him the attention and affection he doesn't get from his
parents. Miguel and Alicia aren't getting much love from one another,
either, and once their marriage finally collapses, he takes up with
their maid while Alicia has an affair with one of Luis's friends from
school. Meanwhile, Miguel's father and mother are both slipping into
senility and think suicide might be the answer to their problems, and
Luis's aunt Rachel believes in the old adage "Spare the rod and spoil
the child" - so much so that it's putting her daughter in danger. ~ Mark
Deming, Allrovi
Director: Raphaël Nadjari
Country: France | Israel
Runtime; 96min
In contemporary Jerusalem, a small Jewish family leads an ordinary life
until following a car accident, the father mysteriously disappears. They
all deal with his absence and the difficulties of everyday life as best
they can. While the adults take refuge in silence or traditions, the
two children, Menachem and David, seek their own way to find their
father...
Written by NMH
Director: Miklós Jancsó Country: Hungary Runtime: 86
Managed to get onto the second party of the Mátyás [*Matthias] era, the
peak of his power for a king's reign, and through this for Hungary's
hey-day short one and a half of his decades concentrates. In the centre
Mátyás [*Matthias] king (László Gálffi) his marriage, the troubles of
the succession, the life of the Renaissance yard and the relations of
inside are at a standstill, i mean mostly the happenings of the privacy,
which manage national significance and political weight in a ruler's
case however,.
------------
In Miklós Jancsó's film the three separable eras of Mátyás [*Matthias]
king's life come up: youthful Mátyás king's fights for the throne; aged
Mátyás king and the succession to the throne; and the fate of the royal
crown and the royal heir after Mátyás king's death.
Philo Bregstein tells us this film looks at Pasolini's life and art to
explain why he died. The film traces Pasolini's life chronologically -
family roots, hiding during World War II, teaching, moving to Rome,
being arrested and acquitted many times, publishing poems, getting into
film, being provocative, and being murdered. Interviews with Alberto
Moravia, Laura Betti, Maria Antonietta Macciocch, and Bernard Bertolucci
are inter-cut with readings of Pasolini's poems and with clips from
four films - primarily the Gospel According to St. Matthew - to
illustrate his changing ideas and points of view. Bregstein makes a case
for Pasolini's being lynched.
imbd review by Michael_Elliott (Louisville, KY)
Strange documentary from the Netherlands, which talks of the life,
poetry and films of the controversial Pier Paolo Pasolini who was
brutally murdered in 1975. The official cause of death is that the
director took a 17-year-old boy for a walk, made sexual advances
towards him and then the boy killed him. The conspiracy theory on
display here is that the government and Christians had something to do
with the murder due to the director's Salo and some poems he wrote
towards the end of his life. For the most part this documentary is a
complete bore that really doesn't come to life until the final ten
minutes when the murder is looked at. The best piece of evidence given
are the photos of Pasolini's body, which was beaten to a pulp and then
driven over by a car. This is the evidence, which claims the boy didn't
do the killings even though those being interviewed admit that Pasolini
was the sexually aggressive type. The documentary never talks to anyone
on the opposite side so we never really get any clear answers to what
really happened. The stuff discussing his poems and films isn't very
well done and doesn't really shine a light on anything because all the
film really does is remind us that he was a homosexual every ten
minutes.
Director: Philipp Stölzl Country: Germany Runtime: 1 hour, 40 minutes
In 1772, we find the young German poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe flunking
out of law school and getting drunk with his friends. He's a free spirit
trapped in a stringent world where class is everything. All Goethe
wants to do is write poems and get them published. But his stern father
sends him away to a small town where he is accepted to work at a
provincial law firm. There he befriends fellow law student Wilhelm
Jerusalem. Goethe also meets, and falls in love with, the beautiful
Lotte Buff. She in turn falls for the hopelessly romantic Goethe but,
unbeknownst to him, is promised to marry Albert Kestner, Goethe's
superior at the law firm. It all adds up to anguished love, as his
friend Jerusalem also suffers a failed love affair with a married woman.
Goethe transforms their travails into a grand masterpiece, the novel
The Sorrows of Young Werther.
Director: Hilda Hidalgo
Country: Costa Rica | Colombia
Runtime: 95 min
Based on Gabriel García Márquez's novel, this is the unsettling story of
13-year-old noble Sierva and the dog bite that changes her life
forever. Abandoned, displaced, in the midst of a sexual awakening and
finally exorcised, Sierva finds an unlikely ally in a young priest and
together they discover passion.
Written by
Pusan International Film Festival
Punk's Not Dead (2011) Directors: Vladimir Blazevski Country: Republic of Macedonia
Runtime: 1 hour 40 minutes
Macedonia's official submission to the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 84th Academy Awards 2012.
Punk's
not dead is a remarkable black-comedy by Vladimir Blazevski. It is
about a reunion of old punk band. Mirsa is a punk who is trying to put
up with the struggles of everyday life in Skopje. One day he was offered
to play for some multicultural-happening in Debar. Actually, all he
ever wants is to play again with his punk band, so he accepts the offer.
The next step is to find all former members of the band and make them
play again... His ex-girlfriend is coming back to him and she is helping
him to find the former members of the band. Punk's not dead gives good
message - we should keep on trying to make our dreams come true.
Directors: Oleg Novkovic Country: Serbia Runtime: 1 hour 55 minutes
In the Serbian drama “White White World: The Miner’s Opera” (“Beli Beli
Svet”), the characters sing, but never dance. Formulated as a modern day
Greek tragedy set in the decrepit southeastern mining town Bor, the
movie follows a close group of alienated locals through misguided love
affairs and other brash misdeeds. But the songs feature no choreography
or other stylish methods of breaking the harsh, downtrodden tableaux.
It’s a surprisingly effective strategy. With his sophomore effort,
director Oleg Novkovic uses musical expression to frame inner monologues
that would never work in spoken form. As a result, a story exclusively
populated by damaged people engaged in morally ambiguous, often depraved
behavior manages to evoke sympathy for all of them. At its center is
King, a retired boxer now running the neighborhood bar. Years earlier,
he had an affair with erstwhile seductress Ruzica, an act that led her
to kill her husband and wind up behind bars. The movie begins shortly
before Ruzica’s release from jail, when the still-swinging King engages
in a similarly ill-fated liaison with Ruzica’s rebellious 18-year-old
daughter, Rosa. After a few drinks, two engage in fast, passionless sex,
and King rushes out the door without a word…
Directed by: Mong-Hong Chung Country: Taiwan Runtime: 105 min
Ten year-old Xiang faces a lonely future after his father dies. Just
when he thinks he's going to spend his life in the orphanage, his
estranged mother shows up. And his life changes forever... A loveless
mother, a hateful stepfather, a chilly home. Where's Xiang heading to*
He finds comfort in drawing and his work reveals his longing for care
and affection. Life is full of hope again when he meets the old school
janitor who doesn't show his kindness easily and a portly man who has
crazy ideas and is haunted with nightmares of his brother. A scary truth
is about to be unmasked. Will Xiang be able to depict his own image in
the fourth portrait?
Director: Werner Herzog
Country: Canada | USA | France
Runtime: 90 min
Werner Herzog gains exclusive access to film inside the Chauvet caves of
Southern France, capturing the oldest known pictorial creations of
humankind in their astonishing natural setting.
In 1994, a group of scientists discovered a cave in Southern France
perfectly preserved for over 20,000 years and containing the earliest
known human paintings. Knowing the cultural significance that the
Chauvet Cave holds, the French government immediately cut-off all access
to it, save a few archaeologists and paleontologists. But documentary
filmmaker, Werner Herzog, has been given limited access, and now we get
to go inside examining beautiful artwork created by our ancient
ancestors around 32,000 years ago. He asks questions to various
historians and scientists about what these humans would have been like
and trying to build a bridge from the past to the present.
Midnight in Paris Directed by: Woody Allen Country: Spain, USA
Runtime:
Gil and Inez travel to Paris as a tag-along vacation on her parents'
business trip. Gil is a successful Hollywood writer but is struggling on
his first novel. He falls in love with the city and thinks they should
move there after they get married, but Inez does not share his romantic
notions of the city or the idea that the 1920s was the golden age. When
Inez goes off dancing with her friends, Gil takes a walk at midnight and
discovers what could be the ultimate source of inspiration for writing.
Gil's daily walks at midnight in Paris could take him closer to the
heart of the city but further from the woman he's about to marry.
Woody Allen's love affair with France, which goes back decades, finds
its finality with "Midnight in Paris," the latest of Allen's Parisian
brochures, which recently opened at the Cannes Film Festival on
Wednesday. The good news is that Allen seems to be paying attention in a
way he hasn't always done in recent films, and has found a way to
channel his often-caustic misanthropy, half-comic fear of death and
anti-American bitterness into agreeable comic whimsy. The nominal point
of "Midnight in Paris" is that we've all got to make the best of life in
our own time while longing for a past that probably never existed. If
anything, Allen seems to be rebuking himself, ever so mildly, for his
compulsive romanticism, his obsession with the past and his
disconnection from contemporary American life. Allen has baked us a
sweet, airy Parisian dessert with just a sense of sentimental substance
in the finish. One of his better films in his latter years. IMDB Review
In the summer of 2006, film directors Dominik Graf, Christian Petzold
and Christoph Hochhäusler began corresponding with each other on the
subjects of film aesthetics, the Berlin School, Germany and the film
genre (their correspondence was published in German film magazine
Revolver). Two years later they decided to continue this theoretical
discussion with a joint film project: three individual stories revolving
around the same “fait divers”: the escape of a convicted criminal from
police custody. Graf’s DON’T FOLLOW ME AROUND tells the story of a
police psychologist who meets old acquaintances while investigating a
case. In Petzold’s BEATS BEING DEAD a young man doing alternative
national service experiences a love story without a future. And in
Christoph Hochhäusler’s ONE MINUTES OF DARKNESS an indefatigable
policeman hunting the escaped prisoner begins to doubt false
certainties. Three films, three styles, three exciting approaches,
variations, analyses.
Dreileben 1:Beats Being Dead Directors: Christian Petzold Country: Germany Runtime: 1 hour 26 minutes
''Beats Being Dead'' is the first part of the DREILEBEN trilogy.
A
big hospital on the outskirts of a small city in the middle of the
Thuringian Forest. Here Johannes carries out his alternative national
service. The head physician, a family friend, has recruited him.
Johannes gets to know Ana. During the night of their first embrace, a
sex offender escapes from the hospital. His flight and the police’s
hectic search accompany the story of Johannes and Ana – a love story
transcending boundaries, without a future.
Dreileben 2: Don't Follow Me Around Directors: Dominik Graf Country: Germany Runtime: 1 hour 28 minutes
In the trilogy’s second chapter, Jo, a big-city police psychologist,
arrives in Dreileben to aid in the ongoing investigation, whereupon she
finds herself greeted cooly by the local authorities but welcomed with
open arms by Vera, a college friend who lives nearby with her husband, a
pretentious author. As the girlfriends reminisce about bygone days and
discover they were both once in love with the same man, director Dominik
Graf deftly juxtaposes their personal drama against the search for a
killer, a police corruption scandal, and a possible case of interspecies
transmutation—all underlining the trilogy’s recurring themes of false
appearances and deeply hidden truths.
Dreileben 3: One Minute of Darkness Directors: Christoph Hochhäusler Country: Germany Runtime: 1 hour 29 minutes
The Dreileben trilogy comes to a nail-biting close with director
Christoph Hochhäusler’s expert thriller, which also brings escaped felon
Molosch—a peripheral character in the first two parts—into sharp focus.
Hot on the killer’s trail, grizzled police inspector Marcus tries to
put himself inside the mind of the criminal, even as he begins to wonder
if the condemned man really is guilty as charged. Meanwhile, as Molosch
flees deeper into Dreileben’s possibly enchanted forest, he has an
unexpectedly tender encounter with a young runaway girl—scenes that echo
the Frankenstein story and transform One Minute of Darkness into a
dark, memorably strange fairy tale.
A young refugee and his mother flee ethnic cleansing in the Georgian
region of Abkhazia, leaving his father behind. After arriving in the
Georgina capital of Tbilisi, the young boy encounters difficulties with
his mother, and begins a lonely journey back to Abkahzia to find his
father.
Reviews
A 12-year-old
Georgian boy embarks on a dangerous mission to find his father behind
enemy lines in the breakaway Republic of Abkhazia in Georgian helmer
George Ovashvili's moving feature debut, "The Other Bank." Showcasing
impressive perfs from nonpro thesps, especially young Tedo Bekhauri as
the lead, "Bank" wisely invests in unobtrusive naturalism and powerful
but unsentimental storytelling that should ensure further fest play.
That said, the pic doesn't quite pack an emotive enough punch to woo (or
wow) auds much beyond Georgian and Russian arthouses. Variety * "Gripping
and visually impaling in the land of lost". Stranded in a
war-torn-worn-down Tsibili in the aftermath of the conflicts between
Abkhazia and Georgia in the early 90′s, 12-year-old Tedo and a slightly
reluctant mother find themselves living as refugees, trying to make ends
meet. As Tedo’s glue sniffing friends are arrested for petty crimes and
the mother favor scummy lovers over her son, the young boy embarks on a
journey back to Abkhazia to find the father left behind. The Other
Bank much reminisces of Greek director Angelopoulos film Landscape in
the Mist where the children also leaves what they call home on a quest
to find a missing father. They both encounter various kinds of people
who treat them in various ways, some times quite unexpected. What makes
The Other Bank interesting in particular is that it is set in such a
remote location, showcasing a reality characterized by poverty,
uncertainty and everything else that war brings with. The boy moves
through desolate landscapes and cross borders where passing may rob you
of your life. Politics strongly pervades pic, but philosophical
aspects which goes hand in hand with a few visually impaling scenes and a
grand acting by the [amateur] lead performer turns this into a certain
winner. A must see. Mubi.com * Stranded in a
war-torn-worn-down Tsibili in the aftermath of the conflicts between
Abkhazia and Georgia in the early 90′s, 12-year-old Tedo and a slightly
reluctant mother find themselves living as refugees, trying to make ends
meet. As Tedo's glue sniffing friends are arrested for petty crimes and
the mother prefer scummy lovers over him, the young boy embarks on a
journey back to Abkhazia to find the father left behind. The Other
Bank much reminisces of Greek director Angelopoulos film Landscape in
the Mist, where the children also leave what they call home on a quest
to find a missing father. They both encounter various kinds of people
who treat them in various ways, some times quite unexpected. What makes
The Other Bank interesting in particular is that it is set in such a
remote location, showcasing a reality (and the scenes it takes place in)
characterized by poverty, uncertainty and everything else that war
brings with. The boy moves through desolate landscapes and cross borders
where passing may rob you of your life. Politics strongly pervades
pic, but philosophical aspects hand in hand with a few visually impaling
scenes and a grand acting by the lead performer turns it into a
definite winner.
Director: Chao Wang
Country: China
Runtime: 92 min
A woman, He Sizhu, and her lover, Chen Mo, are in a car accident. When
she wakes up at the hospital where her husband is a surgeon, she has
forgotten everything. Her lover has become a stranger, but he wants her
back.
Director: Mika Kaurismäki Country: Finland Runtime: 1 hour 25 minutes
Two brothers take decidedly different paths when they attempt to seek
their fortune. One is a responsible married man who opens up a print
shop, working arduously to make a living. The other brother is a hippie
who has a young girlfriend. When he stays with his brother, he has an
affair with his sister-in-law while his brother sleeps with his
girlfriend. The two brother attempt to patch things up after the hippie
moves out.
1889. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche witnessed the whipping of a
horse while traveling in Turin, Italy. He tossed his arms around the
horse's neck to protect it then collapsed to the ground. In less than
one month, Nietzsche would be diagnosed with a serious mental illness
that would make him bed-ridden and speechless for the next eleven years
until his death. But whatever did happen to the horse? This film, which
is Tarr's last, follows up this question in a fictionalized story of
what occurred. The man who whipped the horse is a rural farmer who makes
his living taking on carting jobs into the city with his horse-drawn
cart. The horse is old and in very poor health, but does its best to
obey its master's commands. The farmer and his daughter must come to the
understanding that it will be unable to go on sustaining their
livelihoods. The dying of the horse is the foundation of this tragic
tale. Written by Anonymous
There is definitely something boyish about ten-year-old Laure. She has
recently moved to a new area with her parents and her little sister,
Jeanne. It’s summertime and all the other neighbourhood children are
playing outside – only Laure is alone, for she knows nobody of her own
age. But then, one day, she meets Lisa, a girl who is exactly the same
age. Laure allows her new acquaintance to believe that she is a boy.
Laure becomes Mikaël, and, no sooner has she brought about this
‘transformation’ than she begins playing with all the other
neighbourhood children. As time passes, Laure’s relationship to Lisa
becomes increasingly close, making the ambiguity of her situation ever
more complicated.
Céline Sciamma is a proponent of a new generation
of filmmakers in France. In an interview with “Cineuropa” in August 2007
she comments: “I became a cinephile as a result of young French cinema
of the 90s: Desplechin, Lvovsky, Rochant. But I like Gus Van Sant and
Larry Clark a lot too for their work on adolescence, not to forget David
Lynch.”
Maryse and her husband are desperate to sell a backhoe sitting abandoned
in their suburban yard. Her brother, Benoit, is trapped in endless
adolescence, sharing their childhood home with their invalid father.
Benoit is enamoured with a single mom named Nathalie, and he's hoping to
finally grow up by living with her... but Nathalie's son does not
approve. A serious accident at the factory where Maryse works, a strange
series of coincidences, and the arrival of a Man claiming to come from
the future launch Maryse and Benoit on a life-changing road trip.
Following up his acclaimed feature film Continental, a film without
guns, filmmaker Stephane Lafleur once again brings us an ensemble of
compelling characters, in a story where the ordinary and the fantastic
collide. Written by Anonymous from imdb
Director: Lars von Trier
Country: Denmark
Runtime:
The film begins with an intro sequence, with a number of
semi-abstract images of the main characters as well as images from
space, showing the end of the world. Melancholia is divided into two
parts, the first being a family drama about the girl Justine (Kirsten Dunst), who is alienated from her family at her own wedding.
Part two is an apocalyptic drama
about Justine and her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who has to
deal with the possible end of the world, as a previously unknown
Counter-Earth planet, called Melancholia, is on collision course with
Earth.
In
part one, the young couple Justine and Michael (Alexander Skarsgård)
are getting married at a castle, but the party is far from successful,
as Justine’s divorced parents (John Hurt
and Charlotte Rampling) are openly fighting at the dinner. Justine
herself is both alienated from her sister, her new husband, her boss (Stellan Skarsgård) and her parents.
She drifts away from the party, and becomes increasingly depressed and
desperate during the night. At several occasions, she looks at a
specific star, which seems to shine brighter than normal. Claire’s
husband John (Kiefer Sutherland) says it is the star Antares, and later
in the movie the star disappears. At the end of the party, Michael leaves Justine, implying that their marriage is called off.
In part two, Justine has become severely depressed, and visits Claire
and John, who lives in the same castle with their son Leo (Cameron
Spurr). To begin with, Justine is unable to do normal everyday things
like taking a bath or eat, but becomes more self confident over time.
It has been revealed that the reason for Antares’ disappearance was due
to the planet Melancholia, which had previously been hidden behind the
sun, had moved in front of the star and blocked it from view.
At the same time, Melancholia has become visible in the sky. John, being
very keen on astronomy, is excited about the planet, and looks forward
to the so-called fly-by, as Earth and Melancholia are supposed to pass
by each other.
Claire is very fearful about the planet, and believes it is the end
of the world. On the night of the fly-by, it seems that John was right,
as Melancholia passes by Earth, and nothing happens. In the following
days, however, it turns out that Melancholia is coming back around. As
John finds out, he commits suicide by taking pills.
His dead body is found by Claire, who decides to keep it a secret. She
then talks to Justine, who is extremely cynical about the impending
doom. However, she tries to comfort Leo by building a crude shelter out
of wooden sticks. The film ends with Justine, Claire and Leo sitting
inside the shelter, as Melancholia collides with Earth.
DIRECTORS STATEMENT
It was like waking from a dream: my producer showed me a suggestion
for a poster. “What is that?” I ask. ”It’s a film you’ve made!” she
replies. ”I hope not,” I stammer. Trailers are shown ... stills ... it
looks like shit. I’m shaken.
Don’t get me wrong ... I’ve worked on the film for two years. With
great pleasure. But perhaps I’ve deceived myself. Let myself be tempted.
Not that anyone has done anything wrong ... on the contrary, everybody
has worked loyally and with talent toward the goal defined by me alone.
But when my producer presents me with the cold facts, a shiver runs down
my spine.
This is cream on cream. A woman’s film! I feel ready to reject the film like a wrongly transplanted organ.
But what was it I wanted? With a state of mind as my starting point, I
desired to dive headlong into the abyss of German romanticism. Wagner
in spades. That much I know. But is that not just another way of
expressing defeat? Defeat to the lowest of cinematic common
denominators? Romance is abused in all sorts of endlessly dull ways in
mainstream products.
And then, I must admit, I have had happy love relationships with romantic cinema ... to name the obvious: Visconti!
German romance that leaves you breathless. But in Visconti, there was
always something to elevate matters beyond the trivial ... elevate it
to masterpieces!
I am confused now and feel guilty. What have I done?
Is it ’exit Trier?’ I cling to the hope that there may be a bone
splinter amid all the cream that may, after all, crack a fragile tooth
... I close my eyes and hope!
Director: Agustí Vila
