In an open field, a butterfly flies from flower to flower. The charming image is interrupted by cut-out photos of apartment blocks and flats that jump into view to the rhythm of a pile driver. The butterfly is increasingly hemmed in by the buildings, until there’s no more space left, and it is finally mounted and framed on a wall. The last of its kind died in 1975.
Tag: 1970s
One of the most sublime color films ever made, Ballad of Orin follows the hardscrabble life of a wandering outcast goze (blind female musician) in early 20th-century Japan. Cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa and director Masahiro Shinoda interviewed surviving goza of the time to capture “a sense of the ideal beauty that these blind women had inwardly visualized.
“There are in life faces which, at first sight, appear unremarkable, but when seen through the camera or when projected on screen they become extraordinary. Behind every expression lies an entire life, a destiny,” Ferenc Grunwalsky once declared. While making a sociological documentary, the director-cinematographer came across a young mother who so caught his attention that he decided to devote an entire portrait film to her. In the absence of dialogue, the most minute expressions become the film’s ‘protagonists’, and instead of explanatory narration and captions the power of imagery prevails.
With his monumental ‘film fresco’ Ferenc Kósa erected a monument to the peasant revolt led by György Dózsa (16th century). Although under the Marxist interpretation of history of the period the revolt was frequently simplified down to an early example of ‘class struggle’, in the screenplay of Ferenc Kósa and Sándor Csoóri the depiction of historical events bears the universally valid formulation of questions about revolution and violence, while the figure of Dózsa – thanks also to the characterization of Ferenc Bessenyei – takes on a more lifelike and human aspect.
The marriage of Les and Katie Bingham is in big trouble. They’ve already split up once, and now they’re giving it one more try, but the bedroom of their New York apartment is not a happy place. Les finds her too cold. Katie finds him too fast.
A PERFECT COUPLE is a satisfying film for the romantic at heart. When Sheila Shea, a young member of a raucous rock-‘n’-roll group, meets an older man, Alex Theodopoulos, through a computer dating service, their unusual courtship takes them on a life journey neither could ever have imagined. Finding that they share a common bond, the two unlikely lovers find a way to accept each other’s differences.
The film tells the true story of the Lenkey-Hussar battalion. It depicts naturally the obsessed and ill-weighed assertion of home sickness and patriotism thus revoking the memory of 1848. Obeying the pressure of the Empire the Hussar regiment of Paál Farkas and his companions has to be stationed in a small Polish town. Upon receiving the news on the revolution and freedom fight in Hungary, the Hussar Korsós attempts to desert.