Category: Arthouse

December 15, 2021 / Arthouse

Once a year, an aristocratic Austrian family holds a traditional feast at which masters and servants trade places. A troupe of actors (including cult cabaret artist Ingrid Caven) are hired to entertain the guests, performing fragments from the “cultural scrap heap”: GONE WITH THE WIND, Madame Bovary, Tennessee Williams, Swan Lake. The decadent proceedings take on a dangerous edge when the actors incite the servants to revolt against their masters-but is the Revolution also part of the act?

December 14, 2021 / Arthouse

Goto is an island which, through a series of natural disasters, was cut off from the rest of the world in the late 1800s. Its inhabitants toil in stone quarries and relax in the state-run brothels. There in no art, no science, no prosperity, but everyone is happy to swear allegiance to their sadistic ruler, Goto III. At a public execution, Goto’s wife, Glossia saves the life of a condemned man, Grozo, whom Goto pardons and adopts as his personal fly killer. From the day that Grozo takes up his new office, the island of Goto will never be the same again…

December 13, 2021 / Arthouse
December 9, 2021 / Arthouse

A landmark in African cinema, Souleymane Cissé’s film is set in the Malian empire of the 13th century and depicts the quest of a young son across the West African landscape to confront his father, a tyrannical magician. Although the film’s mythic narrative and arresting visual style lend it universal appeal, Yeelen’s use of Bambara, Fulani, and Dogon languages and its representation of power struggles across generations have been interpreted as a commentary on Malian politics of the postcolonial era.

December 6, 2021 / Arthouse

Two women, Karen (theatre director) and Lena, visit an island, a Swedish resort, where Lena’s ex-husband, Martin (choreographer), lives in comparative seclusion with a mentally disturbed ballet dancer named Carl. Carl is brother by guilt rather than blood, for Martin is somehow responsible for his breakdown.

November 27, 2021 / Arthouse
November 27, 2021 / Arthouse

This innovative and darkly humorous Korean outing features neither pigs nor wells. The film was written by four writers, each of whom was in charge of developing one character apiece. After each basic plot was created, the director allowed the actors to improvise. The four characters are an unsuccessful novelist who hates himself, his icy girlfriend, her salesman husband, and a pretty ticket taker at the local cinema who secretly loves the writer.

November 25, 2021 / Arthouse