Europe's Second Renaissance (The Post-war Decades)
Les Choristes
Christoph Barratier (France 2004)
SALU/VCD/LCH/SF
Language: French
Subtitles: English, Chinese
Set in 1948, a professor of music, Clement Mathieu, becomes the supervisor at a boarding school for the rehabilitation for minors. What he discovers disconcerts him--the current situation is repressive. Through the power of song, Clement will try to transform the students. http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&cf=info&id=1808609187&intl=us
See also film site (in French): http://www.leschoristes-lefilm.com/
Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thieves)
Vittorio de Sica (Italy 1948)
SALU/DVD/LB/SF
Language: Italian
Subtitles: English, Italian
The unemployment rate is high in postwar Italy. Antonio Ricci has been workless for two years, when he at last is offered a job as a poster. There is only one condition: he must have a bike of his own. At the moment his bicycle is at the pawn-shop, but Antonio's wife Maria says they can pawn their six sheets instead. The first day at work Antonio's bicycle is stolen. A friend offers to help him search for it the next morning at Piazza Vittorio, where the street vendors sell stolen bikes. The search is unsuccessful, but Antonio and his little son Bruno don't give up. They continue to the market at Porta Portese, where Antonio happens to see the thief talking to an elderly man. As he cannot catch the thief, he instead pursues the old man, who goes into a church, where he disappears during the mass. The third time Antonio happens to see the thief, he succeeds to pursue him to his dwelling-place. A local policeman believes Antonio's story about the theft, but as he cannot find the stolen bike in the apartment, the case is dismissed. Driven into utterly despair Antonio tries to steal a bike himself, but fails. Crestfallen he and Bruno walk back home - back to unemployment. (IMDB)
Violette
Martin Provost (France 2013)
SALU/DVD/VIOL/SF
Languages: German, French
Subtitles: German
Violette Leduc, born a bastard at the beginning of last century, meets Simone de Beauvoir in the years after the war in St-Germain-des-Prés. Then begins an intense relationship between the two women that will last throughout their lives, relationship based on the quest for freedom by writing to Violet and conviction for Simone to have in their hands the fate of an extraordinary writer. (IMdb)
Die Luftbrücke - Nur der Himmel war frei (Airlift)
Dror Zahavi (Germany 2005)
SALU/DVD/AIR/SF
Language: German, English
Subtitles: English, Chinese
Berlin Airlift: A nearly forgotten event of the last century that shaped the course of the cold war and world history itself up to the present day.
The Berlin Airlift involved a clash between some of the strongest personalities of the twentieth century: Truman, Stalin and the American General Clay. When Europe is carved up between Western and Soviet powers at the end of World War II, there is one western outpost deep in the heart of Soviet-controlled territory. Although Germany has been literally torn down the middle, the former capital Berlin lies in the center of the Soviet occupied eastern sector--and Berlin is jointly administered by all four victorious Allies: France, Britain, America and Russia.
By 1948, the three western powers have considerable military forces stationed in their sectors of Berlin. Stalin tries to force them to leave. he mounts a massive land blockade, using a huge occupation army to physically prevent food, fuel and other essential supplies from reaching Berlin. In a word--blackmail, on an enormous scale...and involving the lives of millions of innocent people.
So now the crucial question is whether the Allies, led by the USA, will stand up to the Soviets or give in. A military response could trigger World War III and even lead to a nuclear challenge...http://www.hkflix.com/xq/asp/filmID.540567/qx/details.htm
Two-part historic drama about a difficult love affair between a German woman and an American soldier during the Berlin Airlift. After her husband Axel has been considered dead, Luise Kielberg has to survive as single mother of a 12-year-old boy in Postwar Berlin. At the beginning of the Soviet Blockade in 1948, she works as waitress at the Tempelhof Airport and gets to know General William Turner, one of the most influential aides of General Clay to organize the American airlifts. Luise becomes his personal secretary and falls in love with him, but suddenly Axel returns ...(http://imdb.com/title/tt0447728/plotsummary)
Umberto D.
Vittorio De Sica (Italy 1952)
SALU/DVD/UMB/SF
Language: Italian
Subtitles: English
Umberto Ferrari, aged government-pensioner, attends a street demonstration held by his fellow pensioners. The police dispense the crowd and Umberto returns to his cheap furnished room which he shares with his dog Flick. Umberto's lone friend is Maria, servant of the boarding house. She is a simple girl who is pregnant by one of two soldiers and neither will admit to being the father. When Umberto's landlady Antonia demands the rent owed her and threatens eviction if she is not paid, Umberto tries desperately to raise the money by selling his books and watch. He is too proud to beg in the streets and can not get a loan from any of his acquaintances. He contracts a sore throat, is admitted to a hospital and this puts a delay on his financial difficulty. Discharged, he finds that his dog is gone and, following a frantic search, locates him in the city dog pound. His room has been taken over by the landlady and the now-homeless Unberto determines to find a place for his beloved dog, and … (IMDB)
Margaret Thatcher - The Long Walk to Finchley
Niall McCormick (UK 2008)
SALU/DVD/MTF/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: English, Chinese
Margaret Thatcher - The Long Walk to Finchley, subtitled in the initial credits How Maggie Might Have Done It, is a 2008 BBC Four television drama based on the early political career of the youngMargaret Thatcher (née Roberts), from her attempts to gain a seat in Dartford in 1949 via invasion to her first successful campaign to win a parliamentary seat, Finchley, in 1959. It also portrays her early relationship and marriage with Denis Thatcher. (wikipedia)
Le Notti di Cabiria (The Nights of Cabiria)
Federico Fellini (Italy 1957)
SALU/DVD/NAECA/SF
Language: Italian
Subtitles: English
Cabiria is a wide-eyed waif, a streetwalker living in a poor section of Rome where she owns her little house, has a bank account, and dreams of a miracle. We follow her nights (and days): a boyfriend steals 40,000 lire from her and nearly drowns her, a movie star on the Via Veneto takes her home with him, at a local shrine she seeks the Madonna's intercession, then she meets an accountant who's seen her, hypnotized on a vaudeville stage, acting out her heart's longings. He courts her. Is it fate that led to their meeting? Is this finally a man who appreciates her for who she is? (IMDB)
Fellini's Roma
Federico Fellini (Italy 1972).
SALU/DVD/FR/SF
Language: Italian
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
The biography of a young man before WWII in Italy -and his love for the everlasting, monumental, sensual and extravagant mother of all European cities: ROME
A virtually plotless, gaudy, impressionistic portrait of Rome through the eyes of one of its most famous citizens. blending autobiography (a reconstruction of Fellini's own arrival in Rome during the Mussolini years; a trip to a brothel and a music-hall) with scenes from present-day Roman life (a massive traffic jam on the autostrada; a raucous journey through Rome after dark; following an archaeological team through the site of the Rome subways; an unforgettable ecclesiastical fashion show) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069191/plotsummary)
Die Ehe der Maria Braun (The Marriage of Maria Braun)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Germany 1979)
SALU/DVD/FASS/SF
Language: German
Subtitles: English
Maria (Hanna Schygulla) marries Hermann Braun in the last days of World War II, only to have him disappear in the war. Alone, Maria uses her beauty and ambition to prosper in Germany's “economic miracle” of the 1950’s. Fassbinder’s biggest international box-office success and the first part of his “postwar trilogy,” The Marriage of Maria Braun is a heartbreaking study of a woman picking herself up from the ruins of her own life, as well as a pointed metaphorical attack on a society determined to forget its past. (http://www.criterionco.com/asp/release.asp?id=204&bid=203)
See also: The Marriage of Maria Braun
Lola
Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Germany 1979)
SALU/DVD/FASS/SF
Language: German
Subtitles: English
Germany in the autumn of 1957: Lola, a seductive cabaret singer-prostitute (Barbara Sukowa) exults in her power as a temptress of men, but she wants out—she wants money, property, and love. Pitting a corrupt building contractor (Mario Adorf) against the new straight-arrow building commissioner (Armin Mueller-Stahl), Lola launches an outrageous plan to elevate herself in a world where everything, and everyone, is for sale. Shot in childlike, candy colors Fassbinder’s homage to Josef Von Sternberg’s classic The Blue Angel stands as a satiric tribute to capitalism.(http://www.criterionco.com/asp/release.asp?id=206&bid=203)
Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss (Veronika Voss)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Germany 1979)
SALU/DVD/FASS/SF
Language: German
Subtitles: English
Once beloved Third-Reich era starlet Veronika Voss (Rosel Zech) lives in obscurity in postwar Munich. Struggling for survival and haunted by past glories, the forgotten star encounters sportswriter Robert Krohn (Hilmar Thate) in a rain-swept park and intrigues him with her mysterious beauty. As their unlikely relationship develops, Krohn comes to discover the dark secrets behind the faded actresses’ demise. Based on the true story of a World War II UFA star, Veronika Voss is wicked satire disguised as 1950s melodrama. (http://www.criterionco.com/asp/release.asp?id=205&bid=203)
La Dolce Vita
Federico Fellini (Italy/France 1960)
SALU/DVD/DV/SF
Languages: Italian, German
Subtitles: German
Seven days (and nights) in the life of a Marcello, a Roman journalist torn between making something serious of his life or drifting along on a pleasant if empty stream of casual affairs and profitable, but meaningless, newspaper and magazine work. In the course of the week, he flirts with a visiting movie star has a couple of encounters with a bored socialite, one of them in a prostitute's bedroom, is shocked when Steiner, a "serious" writer and deep thinker kills himself and his entire family, and generally ignores his adoring girlfriend. In the end, he seems to have cut himself adrift on a sea of frivolity and self-disgust, with no real idea of how to find his way "home" again . . .
Marcello is a society gossip columnist. During one of his rounds, he meets again Maddalena and spends the night with her in a whore's bedroom. When he comes back home the next morning, he discovers that his girlfriend Emma poisoned herself because of him. Later, he is at the airport where the famous star Sylvia is arriving : he will go with her a few days... A chronicle of a decadent society where there is no more values except alcohol and sex, and no solutions but suicide. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053779/plotsummary)
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_dolce_vita
L'Éclipse (L'éclisse)
Michelangelo Antonioni (Italy/France 1962)
SALU/DVD/LEC/SF
Language: Italian
Subtitles: English, Chinese
At dawn on July 10, 1961 a young literary translator, Vittoria (Monica Vitti), breaks off her affair with Riccardo (Francisco Rabal), a writer, and hesitantly begins a summer romance with Piero (Alain Delon), an energetic youngstockbroker. They are unable to form a steady relationship and shortly before sunset at 20:00, September 10, 1961 they seemingly fail to meet as agreed on the corner of Viale del Ciclismo and Viale della Tecnica by the construction site of a new apartment building in the Esposizione Universale Roma (EUR), a modern suburban neighbourhood south of Rome where Vittoria lives.
L'eclisse won the Jury Special Prize at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm).
Director Martin Scorsese, in his documentary about Italian films, My Voyage to Italy, describes how the film haunted and inspired him as a young moviegoer, noting it seemed to him a "step forward in storytelling" and "felt less like a story and more like a poem." He adds that the ending is "a frightening way to end a film... but at the time it also felt liberating. The final seven minutes of Eclipse suggested to us that the possibilities in cinema were absolutely limitless." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_(1962_film))
Cría Cuervos
Carlos Saura (Spain, 1976)
SALU/DVD/CRCU/SF
Language: Spanish
Subtitles: English, Chinese
After doing several films with screenwriter Rafael Azcona (GARDEN OF DELIGHTS, MY COUSIN AGNELICA) Carlos Saura made CRIA! from his own script. He continued using actors in dual roles, allowing for easily shifting time frames and multiple points of view. In a dreamy opening scene, Ana (Ana Torrent), a wide-eyed child of about ten, comes down the stairs and sees a half-dressed woman run from her father's room. She quietly and without emotion goes into the room where her father lies dead on the bed and removes a half-full glass of milk. In the kitchen, as she washes out the glass, her mother (Geraldine Chaplin) enters and scolds her for being up so late. But her Mother, we learn later, died earlier, and Ana blamed her father for it and put poison in his milk. When Ana is alone her mother appears to her again, but this time she looks right in the camera and explains that she's Ana, now age 29. Some of what came before was a flashback from her adult perspective. With Chaplin playing both parts, the film shifts between the story of Ana and her mother, and Ana's life as an adult, until what actually happened the night her father died is completely revealed. CRIA! is the most complex and ambitious of the many films that Saura and Chaplin made together. (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/cria/#)
This film was made during a period where Carlos Saura was considered one of the great opponents, along with other directors, of the Franco regime, with characters and themes in the film alluding to Saura's interpretations and criticisms of Franco-inspired truths.
The film stresses the disparity between Ana's inner world of private traumas and the outer world of political realities and fascism. Ana will cope with her guilt in both arenas.
When asked to elucidate on the nature of Ana's suffering, the director, Carlos Saura replied :" Cria cuervos is a sad film, yes. But that's part of my belief that childhood is one of the most terrible parts in the life of a human being. What I'm trying to say is that at that age you've no idea where it is you are going, only that people are taking you somewhere, leading you, pulling you and you are frightened. You don't know where you're going or who you are or what you are going to do. It's a time of terrible indecision." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%ADa_cuervos)
See also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pczJsUbqblY&feature=related, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25ckdkg1xCw
La question
Laurent Heynemann (France 1977)
SALU/DVD/(French Collection)
Language: French
Subtitles: English
The movie deals with an initially little known topic: torture in French Algeria. Henri Alleg's small book of the same title first sold little, but by the end of the sixties one could find it anywhere.The title ("the question") is borrowed from the Middle Ages when they called torture "questioning".
Laurent Heynemann made a non spectacular movie, and his leading actor, Jacques Denis, remains very sparing of gestures and words as Alleg (Charlègue), the director of a newspaper and a FLN sympathizer (i.e. of Algerians fighting for independence against the French army). His human dignity does not let him to become an informer. A very dark page of French history.(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075118/)
Pippi Longstocking
Olle Hellblom (Sweden 1969)
SALU/DVD/PL/SF
Language: Swedish
Subtitles: English, Spanish
Film adaptation of a children’s novel by Astrid Lindgren, much-beloved all over Europe.
Pippi Longstocking, a child of incredible strength, moves by herself to a Swedish town with her monkey, horse, and a bag full of gold coins. She befriends two children, Annika and Tommy, shocks the adults of the town, defends herself from bandits, and has a reunion with her seafaring father. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0366905/plotsummary)
If
Lindsay Anderson UK 1968)
SALU/DVD/IF/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: English
In an indictment of the British public school system, we follow Mick and his mostly younger friends through a series of indignities and occasionally abuse as any fond feelings toward these schools are destroyed. When Mick and his friends rebel, violently, the catch phrase, "which side would you be on" becomes quite stark. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063850/)
La Mala Educación (Bad Education)
Pedro Almodóvar (Spain, 2006)
SALU/DVD/BE/SF
Language: Spanish
Subtitles: English, Chinese
In the early 60s, two boys - Ignacio and Enrique - discover love, movies and fear in a Christian school. Father Manolo, the school principal and Literature teacher, both witnesses and takes part in these discoveries. The three characters come against one another twice again, in the late 70s and in 1980. These meetings are set to change the life and death of some of them.
In 1980 Madrid, Ignacio Rodriguez lands on the doorstep of his childhood friend, Enrique Goded, a man he has not seen in sixteen years since the day Enrique was expelled from school. Enrique is now a famous filmmaker, Ignacio an aspiring actor with the stage name Angel Andrade. Angel, who as a child loved writing, has a semi-autobiographical manuscript in hand, which he hopes, unspoken, that Enrique will turn into a screenplay and cast him in one of the major roles. The manuscript primarily tells the story of their friendship at St. John's catholic school, which included their first sexual experience with each other; Ignacio's relationship with Father Manolo, the principal and literature teacher of the school; and Ignacio's fantasy encounter with Father Manolo as an adult. In meeting Angel, Enrique sees a man different than what he imagined Ignacio to be, almost unrecognizable. Father Manolo may be able to shed some light on the difference that Enrique notices.(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0275491/plotsummary)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Stanley Kubrick (UK 1964)
SALU/DVD/DRSL/SF
Language: German, English, Italian, Spanish
Subtitles: German, English, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Greek, Turkish and others
U.S. Air Force General Jack Ripper goes completely and utterly mad, and sends his bomber wing to destroy the U.S.S.R. He suspects that the communists are conspiring to pollute the "precious bodily fluids" of the American people. The U.S. president meets with his advisors, where the Soviet ambassador tells him that if the U.S.S.R. is hit by nuclear weapons, it will trigger a "Doomsday Machine" which will destroy all plant and animal life on Earth. Peter Sellers portrays the three men who might avert this tragedy: British Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, the only person with access to the demented Gen. Ripper; U.S. President Merkin Muffley, whose best attempts to divert disaster depend on placating a drunken Soviet Premier and the former Nazi genius Dr. Strangelove, who concludes that "such a device would not be a practical deterrent for reasons which at this moment must be all too obvious". Will the bombers be stopped in time, or will General Jack Ripper succeed in destroying the world ?
U.S. President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) is on the hot line to Moscow with some rather embarrassing news for the Soviet premier: "Hello, Dimitri....I'm fine....Now then, you know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the bomb....The bomb, Dimitri. The hydrogen bomb....Well, now, what happened is that, uh, one of our base commanders...he went a little funny in the head....and he went and did a silly thing....He ordered his planes to attack your country." A comedy about an accidental nuclear attack? One that ends with total annihilation, thermonuclear apocalypse? Preposterous! Stanley Kubrick thought otherwise. In the end his thinking prevailed. The mad saga revolves around a psychotic Strategic Air Command officer, Gen. Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden), who lets loose his B-52 bomber squadron on the Soviet Union. Ripper takes this unilateral action because of his paranoid belief that Communists are sapping and contaminating "all our precious bodily fluids" as part of their plan to take over the world." Unbeknownst to Ripper, his attack will trigger the Russian's ultimate weapon, the Doomsday Machine, a diabolical retaliatory device set to blow up the planet. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057012/plotsummary)
The Door (Hinter der Tür)
Istvan Szabo (Hungary/Germany 2012)
SALU/DVD/HDT/SF
Languages: German, English, Hungarian
Subtitles: English
This is a story of a special relationship between two women, a writer (Martina Gedeck) and her maid (Helen Mirren). Set in Budapest in the 1960s.
Blow-Up
Michelangelo Antonioni (UK 1966)
SALU/DVD/BU/SF
Language: Deutsch, Englisch
Subtitles: Deutsch, Englisch
Blowup (Blow-Up) is a 1966 British-Italian film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, that director's first English language film. It tells the story of a photographer's accidental and incidental involvement with a murder. The film was inspired by the 1959 short story "Las babas del diablo" (i.e. "The devil's drool/drivel") by Argentinian writer Julio Cortázar, and by the work, habits and mannerisms of Swinging London photographer David Bailey. The film was scored by jazz pianist Herbie Hancock. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowup)
Trailer (YouTube)
Orlando
Sally Potter (UK/Russia/France/Italy/Netherlands 1992)
SALU/DVD/ORL/SF
Languages: English, German
Subtitles: German
Orlando, a man of ideal nobility starts his search for love, poetry, a place in society and a meaning in life, in and around the court of historical England in the late 16th century. The blessing of eternal life from Queen Elizabeth I enables him a long and deep philosophical quest, accompanied by the features of "noble" English life with a good taste for irony. Both sides of the coin are shown when Orlando, partly fed up and disgusted with how men think and act, returns from his ambassadorship in the Far East as exactly the same person, let alone his sex. Orlando, a woman of ideal nobility continues her journey to realize the truth about life, love, and approaching one's own sex in the late 18th century England. For one who lived four hundred years and haven't aged a day, finding humanity's forgotten need for androgynity as the key to the happiness of her own as well as her daughter's. Sally Potter's adaptation of Virginia Woolf's Orlando not only tells the story on film with brilliant visual design, but also tries to extend the plot as Woolf would have, had she lived to the end of the twentieth century. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107756/plotsummary)
The Roman Polanski Collection
Roman Polanski (Poland/US)
SALU/DVD/RPC/1-3/SF
Languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian
Subtitles: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian
Content
1/ Rosemary’s Baby
2/ The Tenant
3/ Chinatown
2001: A Space Odyssey
Stanley Kubrick (UK 1968)
SALU/DVD/TSO/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: English, Chinese, Korean
When the world is ruled by apes, one particular group discovers a mysterious rectangular monolith near their home, which imparts upon them the knowledge of tool use, and enables them to evolve into men. A similar monolith is discovered on the moon, and is determined to have come from an area near Jupiter. Astronaut David Bowman, along with four companions, sets off for Jupiter on a spaceship controlled by HAL 9000, a revolutionary computer system that is every bit mankind's equal, and perhaps his superior. When HAL endangers the crew's lives for the sake of the mission, Bowman will have to first overcome the computer, then travel to the birthplace of the monolith. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/plotsummary)
A Clockwork Orange
Stanley Kubrick (UK 1971)
SALU/DVD/CO/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: English, Chinese, Korean
Alex, a teenage hooligan in a near-future Britain, gets jailed by the police. There he volunteers as guinea pig for a new aversion therapy proposed by the government to make room in prisons for political prisoners. "Cured" of his hooliganism and released, he is rejected by his friends and relatives. Eventually nearly dying, he becomes a major embarrassment for the government, who arrange to cure him of his cure. A pivotal moment is when he and his gang break into an author's home: the book he is writing (called "A Clockwork Orange") is a plea against the use of aversion therapy, on the grounds that it turns people into Clockwork Oranges (Orang is Malay for "Man"): they are not being good from choice (sentiments later echoed by the prison chaplain). The film reflects this: many bad scenes in a Clockwork Orange are accompanied by jolly music; if we are to experience them as we should, we have to do it consciously, by realising they are bad, and not because the director tells us so through the use of music and images. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066921/plotsummary)
La meglio gioventù (The Best of Youth)
Marco Tullio Giordana (Italy 2003)
SALU/DVD/BY/SF
Language: Italian
Subtitles: English, Chinese
La Meglio Gioventù, as director Marco Tullio Giordana calls his prizewinning narrative masterpiece, begins in Rome, in 1966, when the Carati boys — two of four children born into a middle-class family — are just launching their adult lives. Nicola wants to become a doctor (to which end a kindly professor urges the young man to move away because ''Italy is a dying, useless country''); Matteo has more longings — he's a passionate reader of books — and fewer plans. Nicola identifies with liberalism and enlightenment; Matteo becomes a soldier, then a cop. And as the lives and fortunes of the Carati clan wax and wane, expand and intertwine, their intimate struggles, joys, and accommodations reflect the rhythms of societal life on a larger scale: The 1966 Florence floods, Italy's 1982 World Cup championship, the terrorism of the Red Brigades, and the violence of Mafia murders share equal, gracefully apportioned weight with personal history. (The geography shifts too, from Rome to Florence to Turin to Palermo to the Tuscan countryside, with a magical stop in Norway.)
Like a great novel from a more expansive bygone age, The Best of Youth is full of big thoughts; like a great soap opera, it's also full of sharp plot turns, vibrant characters, and great talk. It is, in short, the best of cinema. (http://www.ew.com/ew/article/review/movie/0,6115,1036441_1_0_,00.html)
See also: http://www.miramax.com/thebestofyouth/
Les Innocents (The Dreamers)
Bernardo Bertolucci (France 2003)
SALU/DVD/LI/SF
Language: French/English
Subtitles: Chinese, English
Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Dreamers" is set in Paris in the spring of 1968, a tumultuous time of sexual experimentation and political revolt. The people have taken to the streets, but for attractive, enigmatic twins Isabelle and Theo and their American friend Matthew, the riotous events that will define their lives transpire inside--in the bath tub and on the hard kitchen floor, in bed and beneath the altar of a black and white pin-up of Marilyn Monroe tacked on to Theo's bedroom wall. (http://worldfilm.about.com/cs/italianfilms/fr/thedreamers.htm)
Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum (The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum)
Volker Schlöndorff / Margarethe von Trotta (Deutschland 1972)
SALU/DVD/AG/SF
Language: Deutsch
Subtitles: English
Katharina Blum is a young handsome German maid. She meets Ludwig, and they fall in love at once. They spend the night together. In the morning, the police bursts in her flat, looking for Ludwig : he is a terrorist. But he was no longer here. Katharina is arrested, humiliated, suspected to be a terrorist herself, dragged in the mud by the newspapers... A plea for democracy and individual rights.(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073858/plotsummary)
Feltrinelli
Alessandro Rossetto (Switzerland//Italy 2006)
SALU/DVD/FEL/DF
Languages: German, English, Italian
Subtitles: German, English, Italian
The Film tells the story of a great Italian publishing house «La Feltrinelli», about books and the work and passion that goes into their making, development and circulation. It’s a story that delves into the discovery of literature and into a world that has been changed by books.
The point of departure is Giangiacomo Feltrinelli - legendary, European publisher and revolutionary. A publisher with his “head in the clouds and feet fast on the ground”, who was born in 1926 from a Milanese upper middle class family and whose portrait we find forty years later in Andy Warhol’s Factory. After his tragic death in 1972, his German wife Inge managed the publishing house. Today, Carlo, his son manages the company.
The point of arrival is today. FELTRINELLI portrays a half a century of dreams and risks and is more a European adventure than a strictly Italian one. With Carlo Feltrinelli we visit old friends of his father, who tell us about their friendship, experiences and memories.
FELTRINELLI is a journey into the publishing universe. We meet people from behind the scenes - literary agents, booksellers, bookstore managers, but have also great encounters with novelists such as Doris Lessing, Amos Oz, Giorgio Bocca and Maurizio Maggiani. (http://artfilm.ch/feltrinelli.php)
Carlos (Carlos der Schakal)
Olivier Assayas (France/Germany 2010)
SALU/DVD/CS/SF
Language: Deutsch
Subtitles: Deutsch
Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, aka 'Carlos,' is a Venezuelan-born Marxist revolutionary who aligns himself with the Palestinian cause and becomes the world's most notorious terrorist. He leads assaults on the meeting of OPEC ministers, taking them hostage and flying them from country to country seeking asylum, one of the most daring acts of terrorism in history. From his earliest days as an apprentice in the revolutionary movement to his subsequent downfall, Carlos becomes a figure of legend. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1321865/)
Grupo di famiglia in un interno (Conversation Piece)
Luchino Visconti (Italy 1974)
SALU/DVD/CP/SF
Language: English, Italian
Subtitles: English
Retired professor of American origin lives solitary life in luxurious palazzo in Rome He is confronted by vulgar Italian marchesa and her companions: her lover, her daughter and daughter's boyfriend and forced to rent to them an apartment on upper floor of his palazzo. From this point his quiet routine is turned into chaos by his tenants' machinations, and everybody's life is taking unexpected but inevitable turn. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071585/plotsummary)
Scener ur ett äktenskap (Scenes from a Marriage)
Ingmar Bergman (Sweden 1974)
SALU/DVD/SUEAE/SF
Language: Swedish
Subtitles: English
Ten years of Marianne and Johan's relationship are presented. We first meet them ten years into their marriage. He is a college professor, she a divorce lawyer. They say that they are happily married - unlike their friends Katarina and Peter who openly fight, especially when under the influence of alcohol - but there is a certain detached aloofness in the way they treat each other. In the next ten years, as they contemplate or embark upon divorce and/or known extramarital affairs, they come to differing understandings at each phase of their relationship of what they truly mean to each other. Regardless of if it's love or hate - between which there is a fine line - they also come to certain understandings of how they can best relate to each other, whether that be as husband and wife, friends, lovers or none of the above. (IMDB)
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
Terry Jones / Terry Gilliam (UK 1983)
SALU/DVD/ML/SF
Language: Deutsch
Subtitles: English
The Monty Python group examines the meaning and purpose of life in a series of sketches from conception to death and beyond. In typical Monty Python fashion they satirize ...almost everyone.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085959/plotsummary
The Python swansong, a nostalgic return to the sketch format of the original TV shows, garnished with the 'explicit' sex and violence jokes that are deemed necessary to get bums on seats in cinemas in these depraved times. This is the one with the exploding Mr Creosote, the parody of Zulu, and the sketch about organ-snatching from live donors. The high point comes early, when a Catholic family in Yorkshire burst into song with 'Every Sperm Is Sacred'. (http://www.timeout.com/film/73474.html)
Dance of the Vampires
Roman Polanski (1967)
SALU/DVD/DV/SF
Language: Deutsch, Englisch
Subtitles: Deutsch, Englisch
Two incompetent vampire hunters travel through the Transylvanian winter in search of their prey. Arriving at Shagal's inn Professor Abronsius (Jack MacGowran) soon realises that vampires are near - garlic festoons the walls and the locals are strangely reticent when asked if there is a castle nearby. Meanwhile his assistant, Alfred (the director) has taken a keen interest in the innkeeper's pretty daughter, Sara (Sharon Tate). When Count Von Krolock abducts Sara, the "fearless vampire killers" resolve to destroy the vampire and rescue the girl. (http://www.eufs.org.uk/films/dance_of_the_vampires.html)
The Fearless Vampire Killers or:
Pardon Me, but Your Teeth Are in My Neck (= Dance of the Vampires)
Roman Polanski (UK/US 1967)
SALU/DVD/RPFVK/SF
Languages: German. English, Spanish
Subtitles: German, English, Spanish, Polish, Hebrew & others
The elderly bat researcher, professor Abronsius and his assistant, Alfred, go to a remote Transylvanian village looking for vampires. Alfred falls in love with the inn-keeper's young daughter Sarah. However, she has been spotted by the mysterious count Krolock who lives in a dark and creepy castle outside the village... (IMdb)
Wenn die Gondeln Trauer tragen (Don't Look Now)
Nicholas Roeg (UK 1973)
SALU/DVD/DLN/SF
Language: Deutsch, Englisch
Subtitles: Deutsch, Englisch
John and Laura Baxter are living in Venice when they meet a pair of elderly sisters, one of whom claims to be psychic. She insists that she sees the spirit of the Baxters' daughter, who recently drowned. Laura is intrigued, but John resists the idea. He, however, seems to have his own psychic flashes, seeing their daughter walk the streets in her red cloak, as well as Laura and the sisters on a funeral gondola. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069995/plotsummary)
La Luna
Bernardo Bertolucci (Italy 1979)
SALU/DVD/LUNA/SF
Language/Subtitles: English
Recently widowed American opera diva Caterina takes her teenaged son Joe with her on a long singing tour to Italy. Absorbed in her hectic work in various Verdi operas around Rome, Caterina is soon shocked to discover that her troubled and lonely son has become a heroin addict. Her desperate attempts to wean the youth off the drug result in an incestuous relationship, but also in a possibility to reunite Joe--maybe even herself--with his real father, whose existence she has kept a secret from him (IMDB)
Carmen
Carlos Saura (Spain 1983)
SALU/DVD/CAR/SF
Language: Spanish
Subtitles: German, English, Dutch
Carlos Saura's 1983 Carmen is ... another version ... of Bizet's world-famous opera, using flamenco music and dance, and a modern story-line, alongside elements of the opera. ... Saura sets his story in the period of rehearsal before a new production, except in this case there is no successful opening night as the climax of the movie, but a tragic death echoing the opera. The music and dancing are dramatic, passionate and exciting, especially for those of us who love flamenco; and the weaving together of the modern characters and plot with those of the opera is effective ...
There is, however, an ironic aspect to the film. Possibly no country in the western world has a stronger culture than Spain. Spanish food, drink, language, literature, music, dance and much else are unique and immediately identifiable. Yet one of its national icons - the free-spirited gypsy Carmen, who seduces and abandons men at will - is a totally French creation. Bizet, who never set foot in Spain, based his 1875 opera on a story by Prosper Merimée, also a Frenchman; and no matter how Spanish his music sounds, it is merely imitation. ...
It is tempting therefore to regard the film as a kind of reclamation for Spain of Bizet's pseudo-Spanish Carmen. And certainly in the adaptation for guitar of some of Bizet's music, and in the translation to flamenco dance of some of the action of the opera, such a reclamation or reconciliation has taken place. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085297/#comment)
Querelle
Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Germany/France 1982)
SALU/DVD/FASS-QUE/SF
Language: English
Fassbinder did not live to see the premiere of his last film, Querelle, based on Jean Genet's novel Querelle de Brest. The plot follows the title character, a handsome sailor who is a thief and hustler. Frustrated in a homoerotic relationship with his own brother, Querelle betrays those who love him and pays them even with murder. His story unfolds in a surreal, phallic setting lighted with an orange glow. The film was the subject of much controversy ... (Wikipedia)
Video excerpt: Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves
Diva
Jean-Jacques Beineix (France 1981)
SALU/DVD/DIV/SF
Language: German, French, Italian, Spanish
Subtitles: German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Turkish
Two tapes, two Parisian mob killers, one corrupt policeman, an opera fan, a teenage thief, and the coolest philosopher ever filmed. All these characters twist their way through an intricate and stylish French language thriller. (imdv)
Lord of the Flies
Harry Hook (USA) 1990
SALU/VCD/LOF/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: Chinese
Adapted from William Golding's novel of the same name (1954), this is the story of a group of military school boys who become stranded on an island. They are, however, not alone. To begin with their commander is dragged from the water by Ralph. It is after the commander becomes feverish and delusional that he runs away and the boys develop their own society, with frightening and powerful consequences. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100054/plotsummary)
See also: William Golding's 'Lord of the Flies' (Wikipedia)
The Tunnel
Roland Suso Richter (Germany/France/Australia/Canada 2001)
SALU/DVD/TUN/SF
Language: German
Subtitles: Chinese, English
Based on a true story a group of East Berliners escaping to the West. Harry Melchior was a champion East German swimmer at odds with the system under which he has already been imprisoned. On his own escape, he is determined the arrange the escape to the West of his sister and her family. The idea of the tunnel is born, but the project does not run smoothly. The participants struggle not only with the massive logistics of their task, but betrayal from friends in the East. And always the East German police are close to discovering the plot. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0251447/plotsummary
4 luni, 3 saptamâni si 2 zile (4-3-2; 4 Monate 3 Wochen 2 Tage)
Cristian Mungiu (Romania 2007)
SALU/DVD/FTT/SF
Languages: Romanian, German
Subtitles: German
Drama about a woman who assists her friend to arrange an illegal abortion in 1980's Romania. Nominated for Golden Globe. Another 20 wins & 14 nominations. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1032846/)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Philip Kaufman (USA 1988)
SALU/DVD/ULB/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese. Thai, Bahasa
In Philip Kaufman's surprisingly successful film adaptation of Czech author Milan Kundera's demanding 1984 best-seller, Daniel Day-Lewis stars as Tomas, an overly amorous Prague surgeon, while Juliette Binoche plays Tereza, the waiflike beauty whom he marries. Even though he's supposedly committed, Tomas continues his wanton womanizing, notably with his silken mistress Sabina (Lena Olin). Escaping the 1968 Russian invasion of Prague by heading for Geneva, Sabina takes up with another man and unexpectedly develops a friendship with Tereza. Meanwhile, Tomas, who previously was interested only in sex, becomes politicized by the collapse of Czechoslovakia's Dubcek regime. (rottentomatoes)
Kolya
Jan Sverak (Czech Republic 1997)
SALU/DVD/KOL/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: Chinese, English
When a financially strapped former symphony cellist, now making a meager living by playing at funerals, gets pressured into a paper marriage with a friend's single-mother niece, his roving-eye bachelor life is turned upside-down. The beautiful young woman immediately abandons her new husband and her five-year-old son, and the unlikely duo struggles to adjust to their new lives in Prague on the eve of 1989's Velvet Revolution. Winner of the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. Academy Award: Best Foreign Language Film. (http://www.celebritywonder.com/movie/1996_Kolya.html)
Strajk - Die Heldin von Danzig (Strike)
Volker Schlöndorff (Germany 2006)
SALU/DVD/STR/SF
Language: German, Polish
Subtitles: English
Volker Schlöndorff has directed a gripping account of the slow progress of the worker's movement in Poland over roughly 20 years, from the discontent of the Sixties to the open rebellion of the Eighties, eventually led by Lech Walesa. The Lenin shipyards in Gdansk are filmed to look appropriately forbidding--the accident that claims the lives of 21 workers in 1970 is very well staged. The cynicism of the Party bosses, the apathy and drunkenness of the workers and the passion of Agnieszka, the crane operator who provides much of the impetus for change: these things are brought out vividly.
Katharina Thalbach gives a fine performance as the worker who's not going to take any more, Andrzej Chyra is very good as Walesa and Pope John Paul II puts in an appearance via news footage.(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0440978/#comment)
German filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff dramatizes the creation of Poland Solidarity movement through the story of poor woman, who, despite being a simple welder, was able to ferment an international movement through sheer determination. Schlöndorff captures with sweeping majesty this crucial chapter of modern history. (http://www.psfilmfest.org/festival/film/)
Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others)
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (Germany/Poland 2006)
SALU/DVD/LDA/SF
Language: German
Subtitles: Chinese, English
Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's movie debut focuses on the horrifying, sometimes unintentionally funny system of observation in the former East Germany. In the early 1980s, the successful dramatist Georg Dreyman and his longtime companion Christa-Maria Sieland, a popular actress, are big intellectual stars in the socialist state, although they secretly don't always think loyal to the party line. One day, the Minister of Culture becomes interested in Christa, so the secret service agent Wiesler is instructed to observe and sound out the couple, but their life fascinates him more and more... (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/plotsummary)
Nuovo Cinema Paradiso
Giuseppe Tornatore (Italy/France1989)
SALU/DVD/NCP/SF
Language: English/Italian
Subtitles: Chinese, English
famous film director returns home to a Sicilian village for the first time after almost 30 years. He reminisces about his childhood at the Cinema Paradiso where Alfredo, the projectionist, first brought about his love of films. He is also reminded of his lost teenage love, Elena, who he had to leave before he left for Rome.
A man receives news from his aging mother in a little town that someone he once knew has passed away. A beautiful story unfolds about the man's childhood friendship with an old man who was the projectionist at the local theater. Their bond was one that contained many highlights and tragedies, and shaped the way for a young boy to grow and move out of his rundown village to pursue a dream.(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095765/)
Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire)
Wim Wenders (Germany, 1987)
SALU/DVD/HÜB/SF
Language: German, English.
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
This Wim Wenders film centers around the story of two angels wandering in a mixture of post-war and modern Berlin. Invisible to humans, they nevertheless give their help and comfort to all the lonely and depressed souls they meet. Finally, after many centuries, one of the angels becomes unhappy with his immortal state and wishes to become human in order to experience the joys of everyday life. He meets a circus acrobat and finds in her the fufillment of all his mortal desires. He also discovers that he is not alone in making this cross over, and that a purely spiritual experience is not enough to satisfy anyone. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093191/plotsummary)
The History Boys
Nicholas Hytner (UK 2006)
SALU/DVD/HISTBY/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Thai, Korean
When a 1980s class achieves the best scores ever at Cutlers' Grammar School for boys in Sheffield (Yorkshire, northern England), the petty headmaster, who craves the prestige like the parents, recruits a young Oxford graduate, Irwin, to prepare them for the general entry exams for the world class universities of Oxford and Cambridge. He stresses that takes not just delivering what all schools prepare for, but -if they even really want to go- standing out by a different approach and perspective: surprising quotations and associations, the other side of the coin, witty phrasing... Actually good foundations were laid by the current staff, less by history teacher Dorothy Lintott, a frustrated liberal feminist without actual impact, then by the enthusiasm-arousing 'Hector' in General Studies, who gets their attention and makes them think trough literature, open discussion, role-play and performing declamation and song, at both of which the only Jewish (like the Muslim, fully integrated) boy, sensitive gentle gay David, excels. Alas, when the headmaster learns that the caring, paternal Hector once innocently touched a boy's privates, he insists on 'graceful' early retirement, a personal drama with surprising twists in the end. Meanwhile the irresistible class flirt, Dakin, skillfully tests all borders including his and Irwin's sexual orientation, and all consider what they really aspire and care for, in studies and life. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0464049/plotsummary)
The Iron Lady
Phyllida Lloyd (UK 2011)
SALU/DVD/IL/SF
105 min
Language: English
Subtitles: Chinese
An elderly Margaret Thatcher talks to the imagined presence of her recently deceased husband as she struggles to come to terms with his death while scenes from her past life, from girlhood to British prime minister, intervene. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1007029/)
Entre Tinieblas (Dark Habits)
Pedro Almodóvar (Spain, 1983)
SALU/DVD/ET/SF
Language: Spanish.
Subtitles: English
Dark Habits (Spanish: Entre tinieblas) is a 1983 Spanish black comedy film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar and starring Julieta Serrano, Marisa Paredes and Chus Lampreave. The plot follows a cabaret singer who finds refuge in a convent of eccentric nuns. The film is an exploration of the anachronistic situation of institutionalized religion in contemporary Spanish society, portraying spiritual desolation and moral bankruptcy. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Habits)
See also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QL2rC1Be9A&feature=related
¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto!! (What have I done to deserve this?)
Pedro Almodóvar (Spain, 1984)
SALU/DVD/QHME/SF
Language: Spanish.
Subtitles: English
A dysfunctional family in Madrid: Gloria is a cleaning lady, hooked on No-Doze, living in a crowded flat with Antonio, her surly husband, a cabby who adores an aging German singer he used to chauffeur; he's also a forger. One teen son sells heroin, the other sleeps with men. Her mother-in-law keeps bottled water and cupcakes under lock and key, selling them to the family. Two alcoholic writers cook up a plot to sell a manuscript as Hitler's memoirs, if Antonio will transcribe it in Hitler's hand. He agrees, so they ask the German singer to play the role of the original owner since her past affinity for Nazi memorabilia makes her a likely candidate. Meanwhile, Gloria has given away one son to a sex-crazed dentist, and grandma picks up a pet lizard. Can this chaos be tamed?(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088461/plotsummary)
Matador
Pedro Almodóvar (Spain, 1986)
SALU/DVD/MAT/SF
Language: Spanish.
Subtitles: French, English
Ex-bullfighter who is getting turned on by killing, lady lawyer with same problem and young man driven insane by over-religious upbringing - these are the main characters in this stylish black comedy about dark sides of human nature. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091495/plotsummary)
La Ley del Deseo (Law of Desire)
Pedro Almodóvar (Spain, 1987)
SALU/DVD/LD/SF
Language: Spanish.
Subtitles: French, English
Pablo and Tina have complicated sexual lives. Pablo writes and directs plays and films; he's gay and deeply in love with Juan, a young man who won't reply to Pablo's affection or letters. Pablo's sibling Tina is a transsexual, angry at men, raising Ada, and trying to make it as an actress. Pablo takes up with Antonio, a youth who becomes jealous of Pablo's love for Juan. Antonio seeks out Juan, and violence leads to Pablo's grief and a temporary loss of memory. When memory returns, he learns that Antonio has taken up with Tina. In horror, he hurries to Tina's rescue and must face Antonio and his desire. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093412/plotsummary)
Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown)
Pedro Almodóvar (Spain, 1988)
SALU/DVD/WVNB/SF
Language: Spanish.
Subtitles: French, English
A woman's lover leaves her, and she tries to contact him to find out why he's left. She confronts his wife and son, who are as clueless as she. Meanwhile her girlfriend is afraid the police are looking for her because of her boyfriend's criminal activities. They talk to a female lawyer, who turns out to be the lover's new lover, and everyone's path keeps crossing each other's in a very complicated and confusing manner. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095675/plotsummary)
In the Land of Blood and Honey
Angelina Jolie (USA/Bosnia 2011)
SALU/DVD/LBH/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: English, Chinese
Set against the backdrop of the Bosnian War that tore the Balkan region apart in the 1990s, In the Land of Blood and Honey tells the story of Danijel and Ajla, two people from different sides of a brutal ethnic conflict. Danijel, a soldier fighting for the Serbs, and Ajla, a Bosnian held captive in the camp he oversees, knew each other before the war, and could have found love with each other. But as the armed conflict takes hold of their lives, their relationship grows darker, their motives and connection to one another ambiguous, their allegiances uncertain. (rottentomatoes)
Amintiri din epoca de aur (Tales from the Golden Age)
Hanno Höfer / Razvan Marculescu (Romania / France 2009)
SALU/DVD/TGA/SF
Languages: Romanian
Subtitles: English
Twenty years ago, the fall of the Berlin Wall marked the beginning of the end of Communism in Europe. Across Eastern Europe, the people came out in public revolt against the regimes - including the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania.
Director Cristian Mungiu has brought to life some of the most popular urban myths about the Communist era in Romania in his film, Tales from the Golden Age. They include countryside mayors having to hang fruit from the trees and paint the grass before a visit from Ceausescu; a policeman trying to silently gas a pig so his hungry neighbours will not realise he has pork to eat on Christmas Day; teenagers selling bottled air ahead of inspections from the Ministry of the Environment. (BBC News)
"i was born in 1991, 2 years after the fall of communism. my parents and older brothers used to tell me stories from the commie age and some, you'd think, were outrageous but believe me, nothing you see here is fiction. it was a pretty hard time and that we still manage to find funny aspects in it is amazing. so, long story short, if you have no idea what communism was like this is the movie for you and it shows everything: fear of the party superiors, stupidity, bad taste, power abuse, lack of simple everyday supplies and most importantly, the will of the communist party"(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1422122/)
See also: Tales from the Golden Age / Trailer (Romanian/English) / Scenes (Romanian/French)
Hawking
Philip Martin (UK 2004)
SALU/DVD/HAW/SF
Language: English
Subtitles: English
Hawking is a BBC television film about Stephen Hawking's early years as a PhD student at Cambridge University, following his search for the beginning of time, and his struggle against motor neuron disease. It stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Hawking and premiered in the UK in April 2004.
The film received acclaim, with critics particularly lauding Cumberbatch's performance as Hawking. It was nominated for Best Single Drama in the BAFTA TV Awards in 2005. Cumberbatch won the Golden Nymph for Best Performance by an Actor in a TV Film or Miniseries, and received his first nomination for a BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor. (wikipedia)
Cumberbatch's portrayal of Hawking was the first ever portrayal of the physicist on screen