Showing newest posts with label movies. Show older posts
Showing newest posts with label movies. Show older posts
remy belvaux, andré bonzel & benoît poelvoorde | man bites dog
documentary filmmakers andré and rémy have found an ideal subject in ben. he is witty, sophisticated, intelligent, well liked—and a serial killer. as andré and rémy document ben’s routines, they become increasingly entwined in his vicious program, sacrificing their objectivity and their morality.
yakov protazanov | aelita : queen of mars
the first big budget film from soviet russia, it tells a rather simple story of an engineer who dreams of aelita, the queen of mars. unable to bear life without her, he builds a spaceship to take him to mars, and into the arms of his beloved. fortunately for him, queen aelita has coincidentally been using her new telescope to check him out on earth. upon arrival, he naturally gets caught up in a martian proletarian uprising, started by the queen herself. the revolution is a success and the M-USSR is born. though the film was intended as piece of propaganda, protazanov was attacked for creating a work of "western-style escapism, commercialism and ideological compromise." still, any film that depicts how love and a workers' revolution can save the day is all right. a must see for sci-fi marxists.
cornel wilde | the naked prey
glamorous leading man turned idiosyncratic auteur cornel wilde created in the sixties and seventies a handful of gritty, violent explorations of the nature of man, none more memorable than the naked prey. in the early nineteenth century, after an ivory-hunting safari offends an african tribe, the colonialists are captured and hideously tortured. only wilde's marksman is released, without clothes or weapons, to be hunted for sport, and he embarks on a harrowing journey through savanna and jungle, back to a primitive state. distinguished by vivid widescreen camera work and the unflinching depiction of savagery, the naked prey is both a propulsive, stripped-to-the-bone narrative and a meditation on the notion of civilization.
theatrical trailer
peter watkins | la commune
all of peter watkins films are events. when he tackles a historical moment of such magnitude as the paris commune of 1871, watkins provokes, disturbs, jostles. the story, based on a thorough historical research, leads to an inevitable reflection about the present.
la commune is the name given to the french revolutionary government established by the people of paris during the franco-prussian war (1870-1871). on march 17 and 18, parisians led an uprising against the national government, which fled the capital and re-established itself in versailles. the radicals established a proletarian government in paris, called the central committee of the national guard, and set march 26 as the date for the election of a municipal council. this council became known as the commune of 1871, and its members as communards. most communards were followers of louis auguste blanqui, a revolutionary held prisoner in versailles by the head of the national assembly, adolphe thiers. other communards supported the school of socialism expounded by the french philosopher pierre joseph proudhon and members of the international workingmen's association, of which karl marx was then a corresponding secretary.
for the film la commune we travel back in time to 1871. a journalist for versailles television broadcasts a soothing and official view of events while a commune television is set up to provide the perspectives of the paris rebels. on a stage-like set, more than 200 actors interpret characters of the commune, especially the popincourt neighborhood in the xith arrondissement. they voice their own thoughts and feelings concerning the social and political reforms. the telling of this story rests primarily on depicting the people of the commune, and those who suppressed them.
deliberately, this film is an attempt to challenge existing notions of documentary film, as well as the notions of 'neutrality' and 'objectivity' so beloved by the mass media today. the film is not intended as an apologia on behalf of the paris commune. but at the same time, it attempts to show that the paris commune, for all its human frailty, its internal conflicts and its blundering, was an event of major importance, not least because of the way in which its leading reformers tried to work with social process, by a direct involvement with the community and its needs.
for peter watkins, to make a film is to question his own work as a filmmaker. la commune represents an uncompromising challenge to modern media and a penetrating critique.
peter watkins about la commune
la commune is the name given to the french revolutionary government established by the people of paris during the franco-prussian war (1870-1871). on march 17 and 18, parisians led an uprising against the national government, which fled the capital and re-established itself in versailles. the radicals established a proletarian government in paris, called the central committee of the national guard, and set march 26 as the date for the election of a municipal council. this council became known as the commune of 1871, and its members as communards. most communards were followers of louis auguste blanqui, a revolutionary held prisoner in versailles by the head of the national assembly, adolphe thiers. other communards supported the school of socialism expounded by the french philosopher pierre joseph proudhon and members of the international workingmen's association, of which karl marx was then a corresponding secretary.
for the film la commune we travel back in time to 1871. a journalist for versailles television broadcasts a soothing and official view of events while a commune television is set up to provide the perspectives of the paris rebels. on a stage-like set, more than 200 actors interpret characters of the commune, especially the popincourt neighborhood in the xith arrondissement. they voice their own thoughts and feelings concerning the social and political reforms. the telling of this story rests primarily on depicting the people of the commune, and those who suppressed them.
deliberately, this film is an attempt to challenge existing notions of documentary film, as well as the notions of 'neutrality' and 'objectivity' so beloved by the mass media today. the film is not intended as an apologia on behalf of the paris commune. but at the same time, it attempts to show that the paris commune, for all its human frailty, its internal conflicts and its blundering, was an event of major importance, not least because of the way in which its leading reformers tried to work with social process, by a direct involvement with the community and its needs.
for peter watkins, to make a film is to question his own work as a filmmaker. la commune represents an uncompromising challenge to modern media and a penetrating critique.
peter watkins about la commune
les religions sauvages
le dernier cri is a french outsider art editor/artist group. for this film, they have gathered a large amount of underground artists and produced a collection of hand-made animated shorts.
hypnotic, offensive, agressive, electric visuals made with very little amount of bucks and lots of artistry.
will fuck you up for sure :D
hypnotic, offensive, agressive, electric visuals made with very little amount of bucks and lots of artistry.
will fuck you up for sure :D
bruno bozzetto | allegro non troppo
the film is a parody of disney's fantasia, though possibly more of a challenge to fantasia than parody status would imply. in music, an instruction of "allegro ma non troppo" means to play "fast, but not overly so". in the context of this film, and without the "ma", it means not so fast!, an interjection meaning "slow down" or "think before you act" and refers to the film's pessimistic view of western progress.
mikhail kalatozov | i am cuba
started only a week after the cuban missile crisis and designed to be cuba’s answer to both sergei eisenstein’s propaganda masterpiece, potemkin and godard’s freewheeling romance, rreathless, i am cuba turned out to be something quite unique — a wildly schizophrenic celebration of communist kitsch, mixing slavic solemnity with latin sensuality. the plot, or rather plots, feverishly explore the seductive, decadent world of batista’s cuba — deliriously juxtaposing images of rich americans and bikini-clad beauties sipping cocktails poolside with scenes of ramshackle slums filled with hungry children and gaunt old people. using wide-angle lenses that distort and magnify and filters that transform palm trees into giant white feathers, urusevsky’s acrobatic camera achieves wild gravity-defying angles as it glides effortlessly through long continuous shots. but i am cuba is not just a catalog of bravura technique — it also succeeds in exploring the innermost feelings of the characters and their often desperate situations.
peter watkins | punishment park
both controversial and relentless in its depiction of suppression and brutality, punishment park was heavily attacked by the mainstream press and permitted only the barest of releases in 1971.
set in a detention camp in an america of the near-future, punishment park’s pseudo-documentary style places a british film crew amongst a group of young students and minor dissidents who have opted to spend three days in ‘bear mountain punishment park’. the detainees, rather than accept lengthy jail sentences for their ‘crimes’, gamble their freedom on an attempt to reach an american flag — on foot and without water — through the searing heat of the desert. the pursuit of group 637 — a lethal, one-sided game of cat-and-mouse with a squad of heavily armed police and national guardsmen — is contrasted with the corrupt trial of group 638 by a quasi-judicial tribunal.
unlike easy rider’s mythologising of american counter-culture, punishment park’s uncompromising stance, and its uneasy parallels with guantanamo bay, retain a powerful and prescient message in the post-9/11 present.
set in a detention camp in an america of the near-future, punishment park’s pseudo-documentary style places a british film crew amongst a group of young students and minor dissidents who have opted to spend three days in ‘bear mountain punishment park’. the detainees, rather than accept lengthy jail sentences for their ‘crimes’, gamble their freedom on an attempt to reach an american flag — on foot and without water — through the searing heat of the desert. the pursuit of group 637 — a lethal, one-sided game of cat-and-mouse with a squad of heavily armed police and national guardsmen — is contrasted with the corrupt trial of group 638 by a quasi-judicial tribunal.
unlike easy rider’s mythologising of american counter-culture, punishment park’s uncompromising stance, and its uneasy parallels with guantanamo bay, retain a powerful and prescient message in the post-9/11 present.
jack woods | equinox
before he took you to a galaxy far, far away, before he brought you face-to-face with living, breathing prehistoric beasts, dennis muren, (star wars, jurassic park), joined forces with a group of talented young filmmakers to create an homage to the creature features of yore in the eerie monster mash equinox. deep within the woods and canyons of california, four teenagers happen upon an ancient book containing the secrets of a strange, malevolent world that coexists with that of mankind. this $6,500-budget wonder (originally called the equinox... a journey into the supernatural) was picked up for distribution by producer jack h. harris (the blob), who shot new footage for the film with writer-director jack woods and released it in 1970 as equinox. since then, the film has gained a passionate cult following and inspired succeeding generations of horror/fantasy filmmakers.
f. w. murnau | tabu
in 1929, f.w. murnau invited leading documentarist robert flaherty to collaborate on a film to be shot on location in tahiti, a polynesian idyll in which murnau imagined a cast of island actors would provide a new form of authentic drama and offer rare insight into their “primitive” culture. the result of their collaboration was tabu, a film that depicts the details of indigenous island life to tell a mythical tale that is rich in the universal themes of desire and loss.
aleksei balabanov | of freaks and men
a late 19th century costume drama, shot for the most part in sepia-tinted monochrome, set in St Petersburg, about bourgeois families being laid low by unscrupulous sleaze merchants who take over the cellars of respectable households and turn them into makeshift studios for photographs and later films of more than mildly disreputable content.
carlos reygadas | stellet licht
carlos reygadas’s (japón & battle in heaven) latest film displays an amazing maturity of vision in this mesmerising and deeply moving tale of love and betrayal played out against the pastoral backdrop of the north mexican mennonite community. silent light tells the story of johan, a married man who against the laws of his faith and traditional beliefs, falls in love with another woman, thus facing an internal dilemma, whether to betray his wife, the woman he once loved and disrupt the apparent stability of the community or sacrifice his true love and future happiness. sublimely shot, entirely on location in the mexican mennonite community near chihuahua, silent light opens with what is arguably the single most remarkable shot of the year; dawn breaking over the rural landscape.
probably my favorite from 2007
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