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.
Tag: 1980s
Isaac Ink drags a corpse through the bowels of a city of confusing geometry and labyrinthine architecture. Along the way he comes across sinister incarnations of science and technology, presented as oppressors of the contemporary man. A glimmer of humanity survives in music, dance, and sex, in the figure of a colorful jester who briefly lights up Mr. Ink’s shadowy path.
A sculptor is fighting his final battle against death on his houseboat on the frozen Schelde river. Two women are at his side: his first wife, who he is divorced from, and his second wife. The latter is most concerned about his death as she realizes that in the end the only result will be irrevocable loneliness. She wants to postpone the fatal moment and therefore tries to find comfort in her reminiscences from the times when she was happy with him. A story about fidelity till after death.
This story takes place during an experiment concerning psychological effects of mental fatigue on those locked in a fallout shelter for a long period of time. Twelve subjects are locked in a nuclear fallout shelter to see how long they can endure before mental breakdown occurs. After the experiment Dr. Herbert Monroe tells the world about this terrifying experiment and its outcome.
Young lovers on the run in Paris attempt to elude a number of sinister characters. French new-wave filmmaker Claude Chabrol, appearing in a bizarre role as a voyeur, is one of many in-jokes/references to Fuller’s fascination with European culture.
With the help of a couple of her oddball friends, a woman takes her former lesbian lover to a hotel to convince her that their affair shouldn’t end. After much shouting and some sex, things complicate when the lover’s husband shows up.
Mauro, a judge, is worried about his older sister Marta, who took care of him since he was a boy, and is now affected by psychic problems and suicide fantasies. She seems to recover from her depression when Mauro acquaints her with Giovanni, a brilliant actor at the edge of legality. Mauro become unconsciously jealous of this relationship, and tries to get Giovanni arrested.
The life and slow death of Communist journalist and Prague City Council member Jozka Jaburkova in the Ravensbruck concentration camp is the focus of this wartime drama starring Jana Rihakova as the tragic Jaburkova. Suffering almost from the beginning as an illegitimate child burdened with extreme moral expectations by her fanatically religious mother, Jaburkova suffered at the hands of the teachers and authorities in her all girls’ school. Her sympathy for the oppressed or those experiencing unjust hardship or discrimination got her into trouble again and again, both as a student and when she went on to seek employment. As the camera focuses on scenes in the concentration camp, Jaburkova’s memories of her past are shown in flashbacks.