Shot in the summer of 1980, this film from longtime directorial partners Straub and Huillet investigates the changing relationship between people, the land, and society in France and Egypt.
WATCH MOVIE Trop tôt/Trop tard (1982) AKA Too Early/Too Late
For many years, filmmaker Michel Drach wanted to tell the story of his childhood during WWII and his family’s escape from the occupying Nazis. The film explores his bittersweet memories, inter-cutting between his quest to make the film and the past.
A background of rising fascism in Venice in 1930s. A music-student, Matthias, mixes with the town’s bourgeoisie and falls in love with a mature teacher, Carla, the mother of his friend Renato, and then with his young colleague, Elena. The themes include blackmail, betrayal, seduction, and eventually murder.
WATCH MOVIE Ritratto di borghesia in nero (1978) AKA Nest of Vipers
Bunny O’Hare is an elderly woman living in New Mexico who is trying to keep herself afloat financially while supporting her two grown children, both of whom have fallen into bad straits. Thanks to a mistake by her bank, Bunny is evicted from her home, which is quickly torn down, but not before one Bill Green can repossess her commode. Bunny is left with nowhere to go, and Bill allows Bunny to tag along in his trailer after he leaves. Bunny soon learns that Bill was once a bank robber who is still on the run from the law, and she persuades him to show her the ropes so she can steal her nest egg back from the bank.
After a technicality results in the release of a man being tried for the rape and murder of a young woman, her father murders the man. Admitting his guilt and refusing to use temporary insanity, the father places his attorney in a virtual no-win situation. In an extreme effort, the attorney decides to call the judge who released the murderer originally and to challenge the entire legal system that would permit such a travesty.
Weary of her very public life in Paris, an aging courtesan takes her orphaned niece from her convent home and relocates to Monte Carlo to begin a new life. Determined to bury the past, the courtesan Madame Bluet becomes the respectable Countess de Secret, and her niece Mistral, Mademoiselle Phantome. Soon, the secretive Countess and the beautiful Mlle. Phantome are the talk of Monte Carlo. Mistral finds herself surrounded by admirers – some with less than honorable intentions, while her aunt plots a long-awaited revenge. Will Mistral’s chance for happiness be destroyed when her aunt’s plot and past are revealed?
A prominent New York attorney defends his estranged wife’s lover, who’s been charged with the murder of a model in Greenwich Village.
