“Ciske de Rat” belongs to dickensean model “little man’s hard life” and tells a deceptively simple story about a boy in modern Netherlands. Persecution, loneliness, adults’ hostility, fear, mixture of obstinacy and tenderness, and even an imprisonment. Excellent camera movement and delicate portraying of Ciske’s fragile soul put this film out of merely historical context and ensure the place in the Great Cinema History for it.
rarefilmm | The Cave of Forgotten Films Posts
Excellent stop-motion animation film from one of the best Czech filmmakers, Jirí Trnka. It tells the ancient story of Czechoslovakia, how it was founded by Czech, the Forefather, and a series of legendary episodes of heroes, queens and kings, inspired in a book by Alois Jirásek compiling the Czech myths.
Cosmo, an affectless mob bookie who lives in the basement of a retirement home, is promoted to hitman. He learns his new trade from Steve, a seasoned killer. He falls in love with a yoga teacher, Jasmine, and must figure out a way to leave the mob so they can be together.
This portrayal of the reunion of an estranged father and daughter is set against the backdrop of a theatrical production. The father Pierre is the artistic director of a theater, and when his daughter Manon lets him know that she is coming to see him after a year’s absence, Pierre decides to prepare for the meeting. He goes to the theater with his girlfriend Ariane and has the actresses in his troupe act out different aspects of his daughter’s character. Unfortunately, this is not adequate preparation, for when Manon does show up, nothing goes quite as he imagined.
At the beginning of the 18th century, Francis Barclay, a member of the British Admiralty who was captured by Andrew McAllister, sold as a slave and forced into piracy, seeks an ally to invade the fortified pirate island.
Henry Jeckle was always the outsider, a bungling and awkward buffoon, relegated to waiting for his invitation to participate in life that never arrived: until he discovers a medical formula developed by a dead uncle, which claimed to turn ‘a man of timid disposition into a bold, fearless dragon’. Taking a draught of the elixir Henry is transformed into suave, sophisticated and highly desirable Teddy Hyde. Armed with his new persona, Teddy is ready to face the world; but is Henry ready for the consequences?
Satire about life in Cuba. The members of a funeral procession and some truckdrivers who have to take the same route begin to talk about god and the world ending up in discovering that life for both groups has many similarities as well as a lot of differences depending on the point of view.