The patriarch Knut Borg (Victor Sjöström) lives an ascetic Christian life together with his family on his homestead, Knutsgården. His son Johannes is studying to become a priest, but when his fiancée dies Johannes loses his mind and thinks he is the Saviour. Intense drama about mental illness, faith and doubt, which became an international success and got unexpected political relevance when the Danish playwrighter, who wrote the play Ordet is based upon, got murdered by the Nazis one week after the opening night.
Month: March 2022
The life story of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, born Lothar Berflede. Miss Charlotte survived the Nazi reign and the repression of the Communists as a transvestite and helped start the German gay liberation movement. Documentary with some dramatized scenes. Two actors play the young and middle aged Charlotte and she plays herself in the later years.
A brilliant ensemble cast tests the limits of love, malice and madness in this gripping psychological thriller about getting even with a vengeance! Emotionally scarred by years of her tyrannical father’s mental cruelty and her ineffectual mother’s weakness, Lily seems destined to relive old patterns of abuse when she falls passionately in love with Tim, a seductive schemer who misses no opportunity to humiliate her. Even her best friend Kilo is powerless to help Lily see Tim for the scumbag he is. But one night, when her boyfriend’s brutality goes too far, Lily’s brittle facade of “love” is shattered, and she vows to exact the ultimate revenge against the two men who have made her life a living hell.
Evidently shot over a decade, this documentary portrait of Lithuanian-born filmmaker-poet Jonas Mekas examines his life and career as a director (The Brig, Guns of the Trees), film critic, film historian, magazine editor, teacher (NYU), film distributor (Film-Makers’ Cooperative), and founder of Manhattan’s leading avant-garde film showcase (Anthology Film Archives). Mekas had a significant influence on the New York avant-garde, as indicated in interview segments with Yoko Ono, Andy Warhol, Martin Scorsese, Allen Ginsberg, and others. Past films made by Mekas are seen in clips. German filmmaker Peter Sempel has chosen to assemble this profile in an oblique and elliptical manner not inappropriate for his unique subject.
Alex Cox (REPO MAN) directed this stylized adaptation of Jorge Luis Borges labyrinthine detective story about a totalitarian city of the future plagued by a rash of bizarre crimes. Peter Boyle stars as Lonnrot, a decidedly even headed detective prone to philosophizing and Christopher Eccleston is his nemesis, Red Scarlach, whom Lonnrot believes could be behind these ritualistic crimes. Set in a surreal landscape that provokes Lonnrot’s philosophical musings and leads him through mystical cabals and conspiracies within conspiracies, DEATH AND THE COMPASS is a remarkable adaptation of Borges’ story, and a fascinating, often exhilarating film.
After attending the funeral of a close friend, Katherine Eure decides that life is too fleeting to not be grabbed directly by the horns. Hailing a cab, she embarks on a trip to visit several locations that were important in her life – a trip that leads from Pasadena all the way to Canada. However, this excursion is a bit unexpected to the cabbie, who believed he was just picking up a routine fare! Based on a true story, Cab to Canada is a touching and uplifting tale of friendship, discovery and the extraordinary journey of life.
In 1941, as part of an effort to remain strictly neutral, the Dublin government made a deal with both Berlin and London whereby any soldier, sailor or pilot captured on Irish soil, whether of German or Allied forces, would be interned for the duration of the war. What the Irish failed to tell was that they would intern everybody in the same camp. It is here that Canadian pilot Miles Keogh and German pilot Rudolph Von Stegenbeck meet after a fight in which both their planes were downed. Outside the camp, both fall in love with the same woman, an independent Irishwoman who refuses to take sides in their private little war.
Associations sets language against itself by using the ambiguities inherent in the English language. Images from magazines and color supplements accompany a voice-over reading from the book ‘Word Associations and Linguistic Theory’ by academic linguistic Herbert H. Clark. Combining a wry sense of humor with word/visual games and puns, Smith explores the boundaries of cinematic montage by combining elements together and against each other in order to destroy and create multiple meanings at the same time.