Bernhard’s last play Heldenplatz, viewed as an attack on Austria, caused a media sensation in Vienna in 1989 and brought widespread reactions of outrage that ranged from the man in the street to the highest government officials. Such criticism totally misconstrued the nature and purpose of the play, which in form, style, and content fits directly into the normal sequence of his plays. Using his standard technique of exaggeration and employing his outstanding linguistic talent, Bernhard contributes to the theme of Vergangenheitsbewältigung on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Anschluβ. A sickly character, Robert Schuster, representing a fatally ill Bern-hard, makes a last effort to confront the deficiencies of the land Bernhard loved, not hated, as is commonly assumed.
rarefilmm | The Cave of Forgotten Films Posts
A bookseller from “rive gauche” (de la Seine, Paris) wants to meet the friends of his son who committed suicide. This search is the prelude to an immersion in the imaginary and the ghosts of the father, whose identity is multiple. Argentine writers Jorge-Luis Borges and Adolfo Bioy-Casares participated in the writing of this film.
Native son returns from school in Spain to California in 1855 and finds corrupt politicians stealing land from old California families. He becomes a sort of Robin Hood in order to fight them.
First the atomic war broke out, new machines were made, dead birds appeared. In 1999 a biological warfare broke out, there were sandstorms and giant locust infestations; the human tissue was transformed and a new being, once legendary, now real, emerged: the vampire. Only Robert Neville, the last man on Earth, remains unpolluted, living in a constant struggle with the new inhabitants of the planet…
On the same day that he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary valor in the European campaign during World War II, Sergeant Joe Dusak is charged with desertion during combat by a military court. Also summoned to testify are Corporal Crocker, Corporal Quinn and Private Pope, the only surviving members of a patrol led by Dusak. The charges stem from a patrol into the Black Forest of Germany in which Dusak claims the patrol got lost. Sergeant William Hutchins testifies that he ran into Dusak’s patrol, and the men were laughing and not lost.
American-born athlete Victor Herman becomes a prisoner of Soviet Russia’s mounting nationalism. At 16, he moves to Russia, where he excels in parachute jumping. As his accomplishments draw praise, Soviet officials ask that he renounce his American citizenship. When Herman refuses, he is exiled to Siberia and imprisoned in a hard-labor camp for 18 years because of his so-called “counterrevolutionary activities.” The film is based on a true story.
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The film was inspired by Jure Kastelan’s famous poem. Aleksandar Marks’ woodcut-style drawings graphically depict hallucinations of sick partisans marching through wastelands.
In 1930s Italy, Tommaso Scalia commits a triple homicide, and the public, the newly instated fascist leaders and Tommaso himself all believe the death penalty is the only answer. Judge Vito Di Francesco is put on the case, though, and he doesn’t believe in capital punishment. As the judge remains determined to see that Tommaso gets a proper trial, he infuriates members of Mussolini’s regime — and finds his own life at risk.