Directed by Cannes-award winner Sándor Reisenbüchler, Holdmese is a psychedelic animated short that mixes pulp sci-fi, Tibetan mysticism and Slavic folklore. Two scientists propose that the moon is an ancient, derelict spaceship, and go on a journey through deep space to discover its origins. The influence of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 is clear, but Reisenbüchler’s collage technique is distinctively- and irreverently- his own. Holdmese stands as a brilliant forgotten work of Communist animation.
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An almost psychedelically luminous invocation of the Battle of Borodino set to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture (1880). As Reisenbüchler put it: the film deals with “self-destruction in the power struggle for the conquest of empires”.
If you can read a face like a book, then here it is a book of poetry. Loose brushstrokes sketch a series of portraits of two faces, one male and one female, whilst the verse on the soundtrack tells the tale of both one and a thousand relationships. Alison de Vere was responsible for both the text and images, and the film was released in the same year she worked as a designer on the animated Beatles feature, Yellow Submarine.
This promotional film for the 1925 “Cinema and photo exhibition Berlin” presents a fireworks display of film and photo techniques, filmic apparatuses and quotations. Once again Guido Seeber displayed his expert use of camera and montage.
The last film of Andrzej Munk, who died in a car crash during the filming. A former guard in the women’s section of Auschwitz encounters a passenger on a cruise ship who was one of her prisoners. This sets off a series of flashbacks concerning those terrible days, and the struggle of wills that took place between prisoner and guard.
As a renowned author, Mahmoud feels pressure to compose his next great novel, but he is suffering from writer’s block. He harkens back to a happier time when he was a shy, awkward 11-year-old on his family’s lush estate in Tehran. He recalls his 14-year-old cousin, a tomboy who is nonetheless a ravishing beauty. She revels in the power that she has over him. That adolescent girl of long ago—or the memory of her—becomes the muse that inspires him.
This highly symbolic Iranian drama (shot in black-and-white) revolves around the most important figure in a remote rural village. That figure is the village’s sole cow, owned by Mashdi Hassan. The beginning of the film makes clear just how vital the cow is to the life of the village and how much Mashdi and his neighbors cherish it. When the cow is threatened and then killed by members of a nearby clan, Mashdi becomes so distraught that he is gradually transformed into a cow himself. One highlight of this film is the glimpse it offers into a style of rural life which has gone unchanged for thousands of years.
Leila is a kind-hearted and loving woman whose marriage to Reza starts off happily. But when she learns that she is infertile, her life changes rapidly. Devastated by the news, Leila finds herself under growing pressure from Reza’s mother to let him take a second wife to bear his children, and what follows is a profound psychological study of a woman swept away on a complex emotional journey. Led by two wonderful performances by Leila Hatami (Leila) and Jamileh Sheikhi as Reza’s manipulative mother, this is a powerful and thought-provoking drama that doesn’t disappoint.