Shot in the summer of 1980, this film from longtime directorial partners Straub and Huillet investigates the changing relationship between people, the land, and society in France and Egypt.
Category: Arthouse
Somewhere between Woody Allen and Freud, between documentary and fiction, Histoires d’Amerique conjures up the destinies of several generations of Jewish immigrants in New York.
The childhood and early adulthood of Li Tien-lu, an 84-year-old Taiwanese puppet master, comes to life using a combination of documentary technique and elegant dramatization, while the real Li functions as on-and-off-screen narrator, as the film travels from 1908 to 1945.
——UPGRADED——
Aimless young Alexandre juggles his relationships with his girlfriend, Marie, and a casual lover named Veronika. Marie becomes increasingly jealous of Alexandre’s fling with Veronika and as the trio continues their unsustainable affair, the emotional stakes get higher, leading to conflict and unhappiness.
Ukrainian filmmaker Kira Muratova offers a darkly comical look at everyday cruelty in these three savage tales. The first, “Boiler Room No. 6” is based on a story by Yevgeny Golubenko and takes place with in a blue-tinted boiler room where a panic-stricken resident of a communal apartment has dragged the body of his neighbor, a young woman he killed over an argument about a bar of soap. The nearly surreal “Ophelia,” the second story, centers on the vengeance of the title woman, a blonde beauty who works in a maternity hospital. The third vignette, “The Maiden and Death” follows a winsome little girl who tires of being constantly admonished by her well-meaning, but wearisome, paralyzed grandfather.
Bearing traces of the old Anton Chekhov play The Wedding, The Contract is set during an “arranged” ceremony. The bride and groom barely know each other, but this matters not at all to their tradition-bound families. At the last minute, the bride balks. Only slightly nonplused, the groom’s father, a status-seeking doctor, decides to go ahead with the expensive reception anyway.
In this intricately layered film, the nature of actresses and what they gain from acting is explored. The lives of three actresses are laid bare, and scenes from their lives are woven in and out of interviews with each of them. Each of them has experienced a traumatic event which contributes to their particular enjoyment of becoming someone else in dramatic roles.
Louis Coline assists the head of advertising of a department store in decline. He has little to do, but seems content with his marriage to Nina, his visits to his mother and grandmother, and poker games with friends. When new boss Bernard Malair arrives to turn the store around, Louis fears for his job; but Bernard, with his numbers man Paul and his factotum François, invites Louis into an inner circle of long hours of work, nightclubs, and dinners with an androgynous vamp. Nina objects, but Louis cannot say no to Bernard’s demands, no matter how personal. In desperation, Nina leaves Louis, but that drives him further into Bernard’s orbit. Can anything break this spell?