Previous Films

When the strength of a man’s spirit cannot keep him from succumbing to the weakness of his flesh, tragedy ensues, as can be seen in Joseph Von Sternberg’s powerful classic tale of lust and moral corruption that chronicles the downfall of upright and tough schoolmaster Immanuel Rath (Emil Jannings).  He meets his demise at the icy hands of seductive gold-digging cabaret singer Lola Frohlich (Marlene Dietrich in the performance that made her an international star).

A film with virtually no dialogue which comprises the “four phases of Pythagoras”.  These phases occur in Calabria where Pythagoras had his sect at Crotone.  Pythagoras claimed he had lived four lives and this, with his notion of metempsychosis, is the structure of the film showing one phase and then turning into another.  A famous anecdote is that Pythagoras heard the cry of his dead friend in the bark of a dog.  Despite this baffling and unintelligible premise, a quiet, meditative and spiritual film about the transmigration of the soul.

An allegory of post-World War II Eastern European political systems, the film is told as a black-and-white cinematic poem with 39 long, single-camera takes. It examines the brutalisation of a society, its political systems and ethics through the metaphor of a decaying circus whale – its star performer.  It is set in a desolate, isolated small town in Hungary during Soviet times.  The title refers to the baroque musical theorist Andreas Werckmeister. In the film a character gives a monologue propounding a theory that Werckmeister’s harmonic principles are responsible for aesthetic and philosophical problems in all music, which need to be undone by a new theory of tuning and harmony. Baffling …

Over the span of a week, twenty-two souls arrive at a way station (which looks like an old junior high school) between life and death, where they are asked to choose just one memory to take into the afterlife.  The new arrivals include an elderly woman, a rebellious dropout, a teenage girl and a 70-year-old war veteran.  Once they have chosen a memory, it is recreated and filmed by the staff of the way station, using all the tricks and illusions of cinema: cotton balls are used to mimic clouds, a fan is used for a summer breeze.

In the spring of 1940, following the invasion of Poland by Russia’s Red Army in 1939, up to 20,000 Polish officers and soldiers were executed by Stalin’s secret police.  The men were imprisoned in three POW camps, one of which was based in the Katyn forest.  Working from a novel by Andrzej Mularczyk and real life accounts, Katyn tells the story of four fictional families, forever separated from one another. A brutal and devastating work.

There is something dark and mysterious occurring in a small Hungarian village, but exactly what that is remains a secret, barely perceptible among the rhythms of everyday life.  A youth drives the milk cart and spies a young woman sunbathing.  An old woman plows her field, and a farmer’s sow is fertilized.  But there is also a strange ritual that involves the villagers and the mailman, who presents items to every new widow when her husband dies – something that happens with regular frequency.

Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly) is an American ex-GI who stays in post-war Paris to become a painter, and falls for the gamine charms of Lise Bouvier (Leslie Caron). However, his paintings come to the attention of Milo Roberts, a rich American heiress, who is interested in more than just art. MGM executive Arthur Freed bought the entire Gershwin musical catalogue and some of his music was included in the movie, such as “I Got Rhythm” and “Love Is Here To Stay”. Other songs in the movie include “I’ll Build A Stairway To Paradise” and “S’Wonderful”. The climax of the film is “The American in Paris” ballet, a 17-minute dialogue-free dance featuring Kelly and Caron set to Gershwin’s famous work.

With bills to pay and a daughter to support, Juan Villegas is desperately in need of a job.  Unfortunately, at age 52, and without any marketable skills, gainful employment seems unlikely.  His luck changes when he helps a woman repair her car and she repays his kindness by giving him a pure-bred puppy.  Convinced of his future in the competitive dog circuit, Villegas seeks out the help of dog trainer Walter Donado and the two take their fortunes on the road.

In October 1989, just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Alex Kerner (Daniel Brühl) is living with his mother, Christiane (Kathrin Sass), and sister, Ariane (Maria Simon).  But when the mother, a loyal party member, sees Alex participating in an anti-communist rally, she falls into a coma and misses the revolution.  After she wakes, doctors say any jarring event could make her have a heart attack, meaning the family must go to great lengths to pretend communism still reigns in Berlin.

Arguably Luchino Visconti’s best film and certainly the most personal of his historical epics, The Leopard chronicles the fortunes of Prince Fabrizio Salina and his family during the unification of Italy in the 1860s.  Based on the acclaimed novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, the picture opens as Salina (Burt Lancaster) learns that Garibaldi’s troops have embarked in Sicily.  While the Prince sees the event as an obvious threat to his current social status, his opportunistic nephew Tancredi (Alain Delon) becomes an officer in Garibaldi’s army and returns home a war hero and begins courting the beautiful Angelica (Claudia Cardinale).