André Delvaux’s final feature film, based on the novel L’oeuvre au noir (Het hermetisch zwart/The Abyss) by Belgian-born novelist Marguerite Yourcenar, tells the story of Zeno, a doctor and alchemist whose quest for knowledge takes him around 16th-century Europe. The film focuses on the end of Zeno’s travels, when he has returned to Bruges to contemplate his life. Living quietly under an assumed name, he treats the sick in one of the town’s religious houses. But once his identity becomes known, the church authorities put him on trial.
Tag: 1980s
A homage to Krišjānis Barons and his life’s work – to collect and catalogue Latvian folksongs or dainas, thus creating the encyclopaedia of Latvian life, a poetic reflection of the knowledge of life accumulated over the centuries. The film is based on Krišjānis Barons’ life during late 1800s and early 1900s – his childhood and youth in Latvia, studies and work in St. Petersburg and other places in Russia, his relationship with his faithful wife Dārta, and the awakening of the Latvian national self-awareness.
Abel has never left home (literally). After failing with doctors and psychiatrists, Abel’s father Victor brings home Christine, a friend, in an attempt to teach Abel basic social skills. But Victor’s wife Duif accuses him of having an affair, and in the ensuing row Abel is thrown out into the street. But help is at hand when he runs into kind-hearted stripper Zus – whose show Victor is obsessed with…
Adapted by Károly Makk and Zoltán Kamondi from a 1955 work by Tibor Déry, the film follows celebrated writer György Nyári, who unexpectedly rises from his coffin during his own funeral and heads toward the cemetery. As rumors spread about a secret diary exposing the intellectual elite, the story reflects with irony on Hungary’s late Kádár-era cultural circles.
Based on the novel by FE Sillanpää and directed by Matti Kassila, the film is about an aging writer, Martti Hongisto, who makes his last trip to visit his childhood sweetheart. The writer’s ultimate goal is to go over the missed opportunities with his former lover and what life could have been like if they had not broken up.
One Woman Waiting evokes questions of subjectivity in the mirrored performance of two women. The single take, tableau composition forms the structure for catalytic change between the characters. The sensuous desert environment accentuates the poetic and ephemeral quality of this film.
Set in a cave imagined as an air-raid shelter, images of the surrounding trees are painted over directly on the film. Vivid colors intermixed with the sound of wartime radio communications and bombing create a harmonious composition of documentary and animation.
A poor young man, Stoicea, becomes obsessed with finding Califar, a mysterious miller rumored to grant wealth. When he finally reaches the mill, he experiences a life of sudden prosperity and success. However, this new reality proves to be an illusion crafted by Califar. In the end, the story reveals a dark moral about greed, temptation, and the deceptive nature of material desires.