An English singer travels around the Greek countryside. He meets a strange creature, part man part fox, and together they start looking for Danilo Treles, a legendary musician from Andalusia. Tornes’ craziest film wears its heart on its sleeve, starting with the title, which could conceivably allude to a Spanish surname but even the director himself could not deny the direct reference to the Greek language (Treles translates into madness).
Category: Arthouse
Neighbourhood children play a game: one of the kids dances in the centre of the circle while the others shower him or her with compliments. A little girl, Inga, who lives with her single mother, is friendly and honest. She usually receives a lot of compliments and is therefore considered a beauty. Everything changes when a new boy moves into the neighbourhood. Being rude, he does not fit in and soon earns himself the nickname Mute. He does not like Inga’s freckles and calls her ugly. Mute’s words hurt Inga deeply and she sets out to look for attraction.
The pop-star leads from Hou’s first feature, Cute Girl, are reunited in the director’s follow-up, a brisk work of bubble-gum romance that begins to experiment with the rules of the genre. This time, Taiwanese singing sensation Feng Fei-fei plays Hsing-hui, a trendy photographer visiting a seaside village in Penghu with her successful boss/fiancé. When she happens upon a flute-playing medic blinded in an ambulance crash (Kenny Bee), sparks fly, songs are sung, and she’s left with the tough decision of who to say “I do” to. Despite the eye-rolling premise, Hou infuses the film with enough formal ingenuity (long takes, telephoto lenses, on-location shooting) that a case can be made for its auteurial significance.
During the First World War, a Canadian soldier, devastated by the recent death of his fiancee, arrives at the frozen Russian city of Archangel. While billeted with a local family, he is astonished to discover a woman that may or may not be the lover he thought lost. Unfortunately, she is suffering from amnesia and remembers nothing of their former passion. A rival suitor, claiming to be her husband and who may also be suffering from amnesia, is equally unsuccessful at winning her affection. The melancholy story plays itself out against the madness of the Great War.
Jan is a young assistant professor in chemistry and a workaholic, whose entire life is dedicated to study and advancement to full professorship. Anna is an unsuccesful science writer who turns to Jan for advice and human compassion in a critical moment of mental confusion and nervous exhaustion. Jan, absorbed with his career, remains immune to Anna’s clumsy efforts to pierce his defences. Affrayed by her ultimate plea for an embrace, he escapes to his own quarters. In the end Anna makes an unsuccesful suicide attempt and he visits her in the hospital.
CONVERSATIONS WITH A CUPBOARD MAN is a strange yet compelling film about loneliness and isolation, and their effects. Charles is not a particularly fragile boy, but his mother guards him jealously, keeping him away from school and other children. She feeds him, washes him, and is his only companion. For the first 20 of his life, he stays in their small apartment, and spends most of his time in an attic closet. One day, his mother meets a man. Suddenly, Charles becomes an impediment to her new life, and so she sets him free. To Charles, who has never bought anything in a store, taken a bus, or even talked to a stranger, his new-found freedom is bewildering and frightening.
This wonderful debut feature captures the elusive relationship between two teenaged girls. Gwen and Lise live in opposite parts of France but have spent summer vacation together on the Brittany coast for years. The 15th summer of Lise and Gwen will be one of many contrasts, between love and desire, laughter and tears, life and death. An intimate, unflinching look at the intricacies of two girls’ lives.