The Chinese Typewriter is about education and language, and the way a society is shaped by them. It exemplifies the politically committed film that defies the strict rubric of avant-garde. Daniel Barnett seems less interested in challenging traditional form than in exploding his own occidental vision. He transforms cyclonic cutting among a character-filled Chinese printing shop, a school, and street life into a visual poem that extracts the country’s fierce mechanistic energy while leaving the fragrant residue of humanity.
Tag: 1970s
Is Emma a voyeur vampire who can turn into a bat? Apparently, and she leaves many smiling faces on her victims after going down on them during a full moon. When they’re not having sex with their suspects, two cops investigate the murders.
In this one-man show starring Rich Little, Ebeneezer Scrooge (played by Rich as W.C. Fields) hates Christmas, and it’s up to the Ghosts of Christmas Past (played by Rich as Humphrey Bogart), Present (played by Rich as Columbo) and Future (played by Rich as Inspector Clouseau) to convince him otherwise.
The film takes place in the XIX century. In a rich house come to the New Year’s tree children from rich families. A servant girl, similar to Cosette from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, observes their holiday. After the holiday, during the cleaning of the hall, she dances with a broom instead of a partner and sees an abandoned nutcracker – a toy that was cracked with nuts and almost broke. She awakens a pity for the Nutcracker, and he comes to life and tells the main character about his past.
Barbara, pretty daughter an archaeology professor, arrives on the island of Milos determined to prove that the statue of the Venus de Milo exhibited in the Louvre is a copy, and the original is still on the island. She pretends to be a geologist, provoking the suspicion of U.S. multinational corporation ALUMINE, which is about to sign a contract to mine bauxite on the island, although the deposit is extremely rich in uranium-235.
After winning the “most virgin” contest, Miss Canada is married to a rich milk tycoon. But she quickly flees the marriage to experience the world around her, full of sweetness and anarchy. With its lewd abandon and sketch-comedy perversity, Sweet Movie became both a cult staple and exemplar of the envelope pushing of 1970s cinema.
In Lausanne, Léon is involved by accident with a small Leninist group and gets to know Léa, a dedicated activist and the group leader’s mistress. The police keep a close watch on them and trouble is bound to follow.
Eliot Green finds himself caught up in a whirlwind of caterers, guest lists, hairdressers and Torah study as Maria Charles’ endearingly fussy matriarch Rita prepares him for the most important day of his life (no pressure!). Exhausted dad Victor and elder sister Lesley take a more serene approach, but Eliot’s about to experience an acute case of cold feet. Affectionately satirising the rituals of Jewish community and debunking the myth of adulthood, Jack Rosenthal’s witty time capsule of 1970s Britain is still irresistible three decades on.