In the final days of the American Civil War, an emigre Hungarian military officer attempts to map the situation of the enemy. Many veterans of the 1848 War of Independence in Hungary fought on the northern side. Experienced Fiala, Boldogh who struggles with homesickness and the reckless Vereczky all experience their enforced emigration in different ways and news of impending peace elicits different reactions from them all. Gábor Bódy’s film is a thoroughly experimental work, constantly surprising and disorienting the viewer, posing serious questions, with a unique style of expression and perspective.
rarefilmm | The Cave of Forgotten Films Posts
Csöre is a 7-year-old orphan girl living in unbearable circumstances in rural Hungary during the 1920s. The poverty-stricken Dudás couple only take in the little ‘waif’ in return for the placement fee they receive from the orphanage, while the wealthy Szennyes family use her as a domestic servant. Fate is equally hard on her in both places. It would appear that there is no end to the humiliations the innocent child has to bear. László Ranódy adapts for film the classic novel by Zsigmond Móricz, with shattering effect.
Canadian documentary filmmakers Janis Lundman and Adrienne Mitchell, over the course of a year, gathered footage of five very different 16-year-old girls, who each offered her own views on a range of topics relevant to adolescents. Collecting the girls’ most intimate viewpoints on relationships, substance abuse, their families and their aspirations, Lundman and Mitchell offer a poignant look at the hopes and fears of young women at the brink of adulthood.
The Chinese Typewriter is about education and language, and the way a society is shaped by them. It exemplifies the politically committed film that defies the strict rubric of avant-garde. Daniel Barnett seems less interested in challenging traditional form than in exploding his own occidental vision. He transforms cyclonic cutting among a character-filled Chinese printing shop, a school, and street life into a visual poem that extracts the country’s fierce mechanistic energy while leaving the fragrant residue of humanity.
Is Emma a voyeur vampire who can turn into a bat? Apparently, and she leaves many smiling faces on her victims after going down on them during a full moon. When they’re not having sex with their suspects, two cops investigate the murders.
The toys in the playroom of the Jones household magically come to life when their owners aren’t looking. On Christmas Eve, as the toys eagerly await the arrival of a new toy, Rugby the tiger plots to make sure he remains the favorite toy.
In this one-man show starring Rich Little, Ebeneezer Scrooge (played by Rich as W.C. Fields) hates Christmas, and it’s up to the Ghosts of Christmas Past (played by Rich as Humphrey Bogart), Present (played by Rich as Columbo) and Future (played by Rich as Inspector Clouseau) to convince him otherwise.
Billy Jackson is not having a good Christmas. He got a basketball and just can’t make a jump shot. His Uncle David is coming to town to open a Valu-Mall, which will put his dad’s store out of business. When he tells his little sister Sarah that there is no Santa, she makes a wish that it would be Christmas every day. Now he must relive it over and over again.