Tengiz Abuladze’s black comic allegory – the first instance of a Soviet filmmaker directly confronting the legacy of Stalin’s purges – caused a sensation when it first aired on Georgian television. Unfolding over two timelines, the film combines absurdist parable with wrenching drama. When the corpse of the recently deceased mayor of a small town is repeatedly disinterred, its citizens must face up to the horrors of their buried past. Abuladze’s poetic film is a powerful act of cinematic testimony, combining religious symbolism with knowing references to the various ghosts of 20th-century totalitarianism.
Category: Comedy
Franklin Cane is a red-hot professional tennis player who climbs the ladder of success with his trainer, Jonathan, at his side. Jonathan was once considered the greatest American tennis player and intends to guide Franklin to the high-road. Franklin does not transcend the interest he has in local Hollywood-type parties littered with has-beens, wannabes and think-they-ares. It is there that he meets Cynthia, a pretty photographer who makes a living photographing people like French filmmaker Jean Renoir and taking production photos of commercials.
Wafer factory-owner P. Tinto and his wife Olivia want a their own child more than anything else in the world, but after years of trying, they have nothing but a pair of extraterrestrial midgets living in their spare bedroom. When they decide to try adoption, a series of misroutings and chance encounters results in an escaped adult mental patient arriving at their door with adoption papers in hand. P. Tinto and Olivia accept this without question and welcome him in as their son. Can this family arrangement work?
Paul and Paula have had bad experiences with love: Paul is financially well off but has lost all affection for his wife, and Paula leads a troublesome life raising two children on her own. They meet and discover a strong passion for each other. Life seems like a dream when they’re together – but their short flights from the burdens of reality are once and again interrupted by Paul’s ties to family and career.
A naive Canadian barber who knows US popular culture inside and out meets a flamboyant roadie who needs someone to drive her and her “brother’s” corpse to New Orleans. Chaos ensues after the barber agrees to drive her, the corpse, and the drugs stashed within all the way.
In the first part of the film, two young women live together and create their own eccentric adventures, transforming their (always rainy) everyday environment into an enchanted playground, full of pop-musical sequences and synchronized tooth brushing performances. As the second half of the film shifts to both deeper psychological themes and a more meta-filmic playfulness, Yaguchi develops a bewitchingly melancholic atmosphere of unpredictability.
When Elena Sandoval returns from Mexico to her family’s ranch in California, she hopes to bring new ideas to modernize their business. Her plans, however, spark conflict with relatives who cling to tradition. Romance, rivalry, and cultural clashes unfold, leading to a spirited mix of comedy, music, and misunderstandings before harmony is restored.
Two eccentrics who have ended up in jail due to their inability to conform build a fantastical flying machine to flee their grey reality. At once a bizarre comedy with bite about two outsiders in some indeterminate place at some indeterminate time, a plea for the power of dream and a concealed critique of the system.