O Sangue (Blood), tells the story of seventeen-year-old Vincente and his ten-year-old brother, Nino, who must face the departure of their abusive father and its aftermath. With the aid of Vicente’s girlfriend, Clara, the trio attempts to pick up the pieces of their fractured family life while confronting an unwelcomed uncle and mobsters who try to collect debt that their father left behind.
Category: Arthouse
A “cyclo” is a bicycle-drawn taxi similar to a rickshaw, and, in this story, the nickname of an 18-year-old boy trying to scrape together a living in the desperate poverty of Ho Chi Mihn City. Cyclo lives with his grandfather and two sisters, and drives his taxi for a bitter woman who devotes most of her time to her mentally unstable son. When the pedal-cab is stolen, Cyclo is forced into a life of crime to repay the debt and falls in with a group of petty thugs led by a self-styled poet. What Cyclo doesn’t know at first is that the poet is also a pimp, and he’s been using his romantic wiles to lure Cyclo’s older sister into a career as a prostitute.
A film set in a small Polish village in the ’60s that deals with a young girl’s awakening sexuality. Mala, about 13, lives with her unmarried mother and has a boyfriend of her own age. The village is sent into a turmoil by the arrival of the clan of Gypsies, who set up camp in the field. Gypsies are ostracized and damned as ‘devils’ by the conservative villagers. Mala is attracted to the Gypsies…
Locked in the world of everyday life, the woman – a mother of three children – not wanting to lose her beloved man, her husband, hides another pregnancy from him. She finds herself in a no-win situation. It is impossible to conceal her condition any longer, and whatever she does will be the wrong solution. A tragedy occurs. When the woman finally begins to be aware that outside her home there is another life, other people, another world – it is too late for everything.
The film deals with the fate of the Roman merchant Piacchi, who lost his eleven-year-old son in a plague and now takes in a foundling of the same age, raises him and bequeaths all his possessions to the young man. Nicolo, as the adopted son is called, however, uses his power to deceive and destroy Piacchi and his young wife.
Tony Takitani had a solitary childhood. At school he studied art, but while his sketches are accurate and detailed, they lack feeling. Used to being self-sufficient, Tony finds himself becoming more irrational and instinctive. After finding his true vocation as a technical illustrator, he becomes fascinated by Eiko, a client who in turn is fascinated by high end fashion.
A must-see for all Rainer Werner Fassbinder fans. Radu Gabrea’s campy 1984 biopic about the late director stars the very talented Eva Mattes in drag in the title role, manipulating his Munich stock company in a variety of perverse ways while coming on as a slob enfant terrible. Funny, insightful, and packed with inside references that enthusiasts of the director and his myth will particularly enjoy, this is good, decadent fun even for spectators with only a casual acquaintance with Fassbinder; Mattes’s hallucinatory performance has a fascination all its own.
Intrigue and deceit in medieval Hungary, with spectacular choreography by Miklós Jancsó. Gáspár, the youngest scion of the ruling family, returns home from Italy and discovers he is destined to be crowned king. However, the path to the throne is convoluted and in the death dance around the court nobody can escape their fate. Ninetto Davoli, known from Pasolini films, also plays an important role alongside László Gálffi, while József Madaras and György Cserhalmi similarly excel in this carnival-like allegory mixed with pantomime.