Tag: 1960s

March 28, 2024 / Animation

The humour and irony-laden art criticism of György Kovásznai’s previous films is further developed in this short. Each of the three episodes acquired a different visual presentation. The first episode makes fun of the cinema (and its overstimulating effect), the second of the theatre (and its hypocrisy) and the third of the classical music (and its snobbism).

March 27, 2024 / Documentary

A leading director of the Czech film renaissance provides a philosophical meditation on life and death, set amidst complex hospital apparatus and the sadness, hope, or resignation of the patients. Existentialist rather than optimist, the approach is one of humanistic atheism, accepting death as part of life. Interviews with doctors and nurses explore their outlook; all speak of death as a fact, without either sentimentality or religiosity. The studied objectivity of the film only imperfectly hides an intense emotionality.

March 27, 2024 / Animation

Scissors dance like a ballet dancer on sheets of paper. She carves the sun, the flower, the fish. The boy needs new toys. Scissors offers colored cubes and patterned balls. And then she cuts out the girl. A naughty boy wants all the toys for himself. The girl is offended and hides. The boy understands that being alone is boring. Then the scissors cut out many more boys and girls. The fun games begin.

March 26, 2024 / Action

Period piece about a Brazil that is no more. This movie is the sequel to “Black God, White Devil”, and takes place 29 years after Antonio das Mortes killed Corisco (the “Blond Devil”), last of the Cangaceiros. In “the old days”, Antonio’s function in life was to exterminate these bandits, on account of his personal grudges against them. His life had been meaningless for the last 29 years, but now, a new challenge awaits him. When a Cangaceiro appears the local Land Baron, an old man, does what seems obvious to him: he calls Antonio das Mortes, killer of Cangaceiros. At first, Antonio is ecstatic. His life has gained new meaning. But soon it becomes obvious that this new Cangaceiro (named Coirana) is no Corisco, but an idealist.

March 26, 2024 / Arthouse

An early film by American film director George Moorse. Kuckucksjahre portrays a clique of “dropouts” in the 1960s. There is Hans, who lives aimlessly into the day until he finds someone he can admire in the successful guy Ardy. Because he suddenly wants to stop doing nothing, however, he is abandoned by his girlfriend Petra. Then there is Sybille, who loves both Hans and Ardy. Ardy, however, falls in love with Astrid, with whom he eventually leaves.

March 4, 2024 / Horror

Excellent adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s provocative short story, still has impact. Unsettling depiction of the banality of evil. Like the short story, the film begins casually with the start of the annual ritual lottery and grows more intense as we slowly realize the lottery’s purpose. Its main character, Tessie Hutchinson, learns too late the dangers of not speaking up, and of blindly following and supporting tradition. Tradition is symbolized by lucky “Old Man Warner”(77 years in the lottery). Like the short story, the film is shocking because of its matter-of-fact tone: the lottery is depicted as just another mundane yearly event. Spare, powerful, and thought-provoking.

March 4, 2024 / Experimental

A bilaterally symmetrical (west to east) fusion of human, biomorphic and mechanical shapes in motion. Has to do with the spontaneous generation of electrical energy. A fairly rare demonstration of the Sabattier effect in motion. Numbered after the film stock of the same name.

March 4, 2024 / Documentary

The daily life in the primary school of Taillères, in the La Brévine valley, is filmed over the course of an entire school year, from 1959 to 1960. Henry Brandt’s film, which won the Vela d’argento in Locarno in 1961, is a unique testimony to pedagogical processes, with a tender observation of the relationship between the young protagonists, their place of birth and the adult world.