In the final days of World War II, a German military unit sets out to liquidate the inhabitants of a lunatic asylum. At the last minute, a German officer called Windisch arrives in civilian attire, with altogether different orders. He must find a British spy who is, according to the anonymous letter he has received, hiding amongst the patients.
rarefilmm | The Cave of Forgotten Films Posts
The film shows the history of the Neapolitan popular revolt against the invading Germans during World War II. During the four days in Naples, the revolt turns over in just a few hours. Neapolitans slung on rifles and guns or armed themselves with stones, house-objects, gasoline-bottles, anything and everything, anonymous and silent. Gennarino Capuozzo, a 10-year-old killed on a barricade while he was fighting against the invaders, is remembered as a hero.
In a small French town, Flora has a six-week fling with a soldier. But this is no passionate affair. Her lover, the cartoonish Charles, ignores her advances, insists she watch as he drinks bowl after bowl of the expensive coffee she prepares for him, and berates her if lunch is not made on time. Increasingly depressed, Flora is drawn to nature, and finds she has a much greater affinity for plants than for people.
Péter Tímár, visionary developer of a unique filmmaking perspective in his graphics and effects period, directed this short in the experimental film group of Balázs Béla Studio, in which he investigates human sight through five topics: anatomy, photo-sensitivity, contour, refraction and resonance. The result is a fascinating experimental film packed with cinematic reflections far removed from scientific demonstration and didactic intent.
The film’s artistic premise seeks a plastic equivalent to express the literary content of Gilbet K. Chesterston’s prose. It is a graphic film showing the metamorphosis of a tree, the main character of the film. It is predatory and dangerous to the nature around it. It catches and feeds on birds, which, suspecting nothing, live among it.
What if you took a film in which all the traditional elements—dramatic through line, character development, narrative causality—were reliably in place, and then perfectly undid them all? In this utterly engrossing and iconic work of editorial alchemy, artist Anne McGuire disassembled Robert Wise’s 1971 thriller The Andromeda Strain and put it back together with each of the film’s individual shots in exact reverse structural order. The result is an uncanny experience, creating a destabilized disaster narrative in which every expected property of cinematic storytelling is subverted. Cause-and-effect becomes effect-and-cause as McGuire genetically engineers her source material to uncover an entirely new and strange layer of narrative engagement.
Palestinian women, the often-forgotten victims of the Israeli-Palestinian war, are here given a voice by Jocelyne Saab. The film was commissioned by Antenne 2 (France), but it was censured while still in the editing stage and never shown.