When it was released in 1950, The Sinner inspired vigorous protests and caused huge controversy for a film industry just getting back on its feet. Its tale of a young woman who survives as a prostitute after the war and later falls in love with a dying artist shocked conservatives and religious authorities. A popular actor and director of comedies since the 1920s, director Forst, in his first postwar movie, reveals a considerable feeling for melodrama. His narration proceeds without any sensationalism, and the theme of a great, ill-fated love is skillfully developed through the unfolding memories of the woman.
Category: Drama
Never released in America, Petri’s second feature displays the same evocative mix of realism and symbolism found in THE LADY KILLER OF ROME. The film stars Salvo Randone as Cesare, a lonely Roman plumber in his early fifties. Traveling by tram one day, he witnesses the sudden death, by heart attack, of a man his own age. The event shocks him into the realization that his own days might be numbered, and he becomes determined to make the most of the time he has left. Quitting his job, he sets out with enthusiasm to enjoy the finer things in life, but the effort only leaves him dispirited and disillusioned.
Alexandre, a TV reporter, is working for a few days in a border town, where a lot of refugees from Albania, Turkey and Kurdistan are packed in. Among them, he notices an old man and thinks he is an important Greek politician who disappeared mysteriously a few years ago. Back in Athens, he asks this politician’s former wife to come and identify him. A slow and dry meditation about the inhumanity of borders.
A tribute to graffiti art and the city where it all began. Blest, a 19-year-old graffiti writer, has just graduated from high school. With no ambition toward mainstream goals of work and family, he spends his time bombing the city with graffiti messages until he and his crew become the most wanted bombers by the corrupt NYPD Vandal Squad. He even attracts major media and gallery attention for his tags. As they fight with their spray cans and their tags, Blest meets a political activist, Alexandra. Soon after, Blest’s relationship with Buk 50 and the crew fragments as Blest ponders his position in life.
On the highway of life, Jerry’s at a dead-end. Unemployed and still living at home with his parents, this thirty-three year old loser has no drive to better his life. That’s all about to change. A fateful drug deal gone bad transforms Jerry overnight into the cop’s number one murder suspect and the mob’s primary target. With a sack full of drugs and a budding romance at stake, Jerry could get a life… or lose it. Either way, it will be the ride of his life.
This drama about the Carmelite order of nuns is set during the French Revolution. A young woman seeks refuge with the Carmelites because she is terrified of dying during the upheaval. The longer she associates with the nuns the more she is transformed by their faith and devotion.
Yoshishige Yoshida’s first feature follows the lives of young students against a background of jazz, emptiness and boredom. The plot is fairly simple: a “good-for-nothing” from a poor background falls in love with the young secretary of his rich friend’s father. The woman senses good in him and tries to lead him on the right path.
Yoshishige Yoshida returned to feature filmmaking after a hiatus of thirteen years with this brave and moving film about the struggle to maintain dignity in the face of old age and approaching death. The Human Promise reaffirms Yoshida’s ability to deal with difficult and even taboo topics by exploring the question of euthanasia with a profound sensitivity and subtlety. The film’s unusually frank meditation on death is anchored by the restrained performances by its veteran actors.