After the model of the Italian neorealist films, follows the lives of four women and their fates. Using professional actors and laymen, director Kurt Steinwendner presents the four “jealousy dramas” as allegorical episodes.
Category: Drama
Tragic love story about the photographer and explorer Felice Beato who travelled back to Japan in 1895 to seek his former wife O-Kiku. On the way he describes in a nostalgic letter to his brother how much he yearns for his lost love O-Kiku and how impotent he feels in an ancient Japan subject to rapid change.
In this war drama blurring the lines between documentary and fiction, the working class and the bourgeoisie of 19th century Paris are interviewed and covered on television, before and during a tragic workers’ class revolt.
A convent teacher spreads a little happiness and makes enough money to support her crippled brother’s habit by selling her favours regularly on a cross-country night sleeper. She makes sure she is in control of each encounter until one client reaches her more than she expects.
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.
Mikhail helps out Nikolay and Lyuba by giving them a ride to a nearby construction site. They will work there to build a new town and factory.
Gladys George, a superlative actress often wasted in secondary roles, carries her starring assignment in Valiant is the Word for Carrie with singular brilliance. George plays the town trollop, who for the love of two orphaned children sets up a successful dry-cleaning business. Her past comes back to haunt her, but she perseveres, giving up all thoughts of personal happiness to provide a decent upbringing for her adopted family.
In this drama, a frustrated upper-class writer decides that he will find real inspiration by examining his subjects first-hand. This leads him to begin wandering about the seamiest side of town where he witnesses a murder. When an innocent man is arrested, the writer refuses to assist him as the knowledge that he has been “slumming” could destroy his career. The young man is sentenced to 15 years in prison. Upon his release, he hears his own story in a radio drama written by the author. This enables the ex-con to get the necessary evidence to clear his name.