A wry and comic look at the shifting of power in sexual relationships, Francois Ozon’s film is adapted from a play written but never staged by the celebrated German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder. When the smooth-talking Leopold , a successful businessman of 50, seduces 20-year-old Franz, the youngster falls under his spell and moves in with him. But, Leopold soon reveals his true colours and Franz contemplates returning to his girlfriend – until Leopold seduces her too. The arrival of Leopold’s former lover Vera, a male to female transsexual, only complicates matters further.
Category: Drama
The solemn, intent faces of the Japanese schoolboys playing video games in Jun Ichikawa’s “No Life King” bespeak a new type of modern horror. Addicted to their favorite new game (from which the film takes its title), these children have become seriously estranged from the real world. The film’s constant emphasis is on the ways in which this has been allowed to happen, and on how emblematic it is of larger attitudes in a technological society. When a young boy trying to converse with his mother must compete with a home computer for her attention, it’s not hard to see why the boy has retreated into his own computer-dominated world.
The Days follows the life of Dong and Chun, married artists who have recently graduated from the Beijing Art Institute. Living meagerly in the hope of making enough money off their works, it soon becomes obvious to everyone but themselves that the marriage has begun to die.
A metaphysical mystery based on the novel by Leonardo Sciascia, Todo modo is the most curious and puzzling of Petri’s films and offers a not-so-veiled critique of Christian Democratic political power. Italy’s most successful politicians go on a monastic retreat at the convent of Don Gaetano to contemplate their notable careers and secretly devise a new power structure. After a series of mysterious crimes, the consortium becomes divided and, ultimately, depleted. The film’s unabashed leftist politics are given vivid articulation through the work of noted production designer Dante Ferretti.
A famous actor leaves the theater without reason to live at his friend’s tugboat. The people from his surroundings find out more about his move and come to the riverbank, trying to live freely themselves. The question is who found what.
The fight for power in an isolated Iranian village. Two families have been enemies for so long they cannot even remember why. The only hope for peace between the feuding families is lost when an arranged marriage agreement is broken. Some days later, the groom, Karamat, returns with a brand new minibus. But a fierce competition for passengers break out when the bride, Mehrbanou, decides to do the same…
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey tells the story of a rickety bridge that has spanned a deep gorge for ages. When the bridge suddenly collapses–plunging five people to their deaths–the tragedy causes a wave of superstition to engulf the villagers as they believe they are destined for continued misfortune. Only a priest can find the connections to divine intervention that will quell the townspeople’s fears.
In the early 1990s, five leading Arab film directors were asked to create a short work that expressed their thoughts and feelings about the first Gulf War and its impact on Arab people, culture and intellectual thought. The Gulf War, What Next? is the revealing and rewarding feature-length collection of these five impressive short works.