Quote:
Greta Garbo Appears as Queen Christina of Sweden in Her First Film in More Than Eighteen Months.
Soon after entering the Astor Theatre last night for the presentation of Greta Garbo’s first picture in eighteen months, the spectators were transported by the evanescent shadows from the snow of New York in 1933 to the snows of Sweden in 1650. The current offering, known as “Queen Christina,” is a skillful blend of history and fiction in which the Nordic star, looking as alluring as ever, gives a performance which merits nothing but the highest praise. She appears every inch a queen.

S. N. Behrman, the playwright, is responsible for the dialogue, which is a bright and smooth piece of writing, and Rouben Mamoulian did the direction. Mr. Mamoulian still has a penchant for asking the audience to fasten their gaze on his work with lights and shades rather than continuing the story, but here he does it less frequently than hitherto, and his scenes are, without a doubt, entrancing compositions.

It is an easy flowing romance in which there are several pleasingly humorous situations. As Queen Christina, Miss Garbo reveals her sense of humor and she handles some of the reticent levity in a superb fashion. She is forceful as Her Majesty and charming as Christina the woman. She is effectively supported in the romance by John Gilbert, who acts Don Antonio, an emissary from the King of Spain.

When Christina was born one is informed that her father Gustavus Adolphus regretted that she was not a boy. He persuaded her as a child to wear knickerbockers and it can be assumed that Oxenstierna, Chancellor of Sweden, insisted that she continue dressing as a boy after she was crowned Queen. This penchant for male attire is the result of a beguiling incident and the producers take the opportunity of giving Christina an elderly valet instead of a maid.

Christina has a dominant personality and in the film she is beloved of her people. She goes dashing on horseback over the snow-covered countryside escorted only by her valet Aage, who is played by C. Aubrey Smith. They do not spare their horses in riding and it chances that some miles distant from town they come across a coach, the front wheels of which are caught in the deep snow. Christina tells the driver how to get the vehicle freed and one of the passengers is so relieved at being able to continue his journey that he presents to the Queen a silver piece, one adorned by her own profile. This passenger, who is none other than Don Antonio, thinks the Queen is quite an intelligent young man.

It is in a lovely wayside inn a few hours later that Don Antonio next sets eyes on the “intelligent young man,” who, to digress for an instant, insists to one member of her court that she will not die an old maid, but “a bachelor.” Christina has reserved for herself the last room at the inn. By this time Don Antonio appreciates that the “intelligent young man” is evidently well born and wealthy. They chat together and become unusually interested in each other. Eventually, Don Antonio suggests that they share the room and — after some hesitation — Christina agrees.

In course of time Don Antonio realizes that his companion is a woman. It is a case of love and they spend the night together. Subsequently it is an abashed and bewildered Spaniard who presents his credentials to the Queen and discovers in the gorgeously clad creature on the throne his companion of the wayside inn. The fact that he comes to the Swedish ruler with a proposal of marriage from the King of Spain adds considerably to the emissary’s confusion.

How the film ends is best left untold here. And if history has been gilded it is accomplished neatly and intelligently. Mr. Mamoulian’s glimpses and vistas of the Queen’s palace are extraordinarily striking and as a contrast to them there is the rugged simplicity of the tap room in the inn.

The conflict of the narrative is simple but effective. Besides the fascinating Swedish performer, there are several players who contribute good work. Mr. Gilbert is far more restrained than he was in his silent films. Ian Keith is splendid as the artful Magnus. Lewis Stone is admirable as sensible old Oxenstierna. C. Aubrey Smith is splendid as Aage. The other performers also acquit themselves favorably.
Mordaunt Hall New York Times, December 27, 1933

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Language(s):English, Spanish
Subtitles:English + Spanish + French sub/idx & English CC SRT

When a successful, but tired Tokyo-based playwright who has sworn off easy women and casual encounters takes refuge in the countryside, his plans are disrupted by a horny woman who pedals fast into his life and is unrelenting.

Quote:
A long-dormant sub-genre of cinema returns to sparky life in Akihiko Shiota’s increasingly raunchy but disarmingly breezy Wet Woman in the Wind(Kaze ni nureta onna). Part of a five-film project reviving the ‘Roman Porno’ movies which helped sustain venerable production-house Nikkatsu through the 1970s and 1980s, it’s an extreme long-shot in Locarno’s Golden Leopard competition but should nevertheless enjoy further festival exposure in coming months. Already sold to South Korea and Taiwan, it has the makings of a novelty box-office attraction at home in Japan where the Roman Porno period is now regarded with nostalgic affection.

Among the five directors selected for Nikkatsu’s intriguing gambit, Shiota lacks the international renown of Hideo Nakata (Ring) or the critical reputation of Sion Sono (Love Exposure), and is still best-known at home for directing the futuristically swashbuckling, 139-minute mega-hit Dororo(2007). His belated follow-up, 2014’s two-hour medical weepy I Just Wanna Hug You, was much more tepidly received, and he now returns to the relatively brief running-times of his previous independent successes, the S+M themed debut Moonlight Whispers (1999) and high-school drama Harmful Insect (2001).

Indeed, Nikkatsu’s stipulations, intended to mimic the original Roman Porno template (‘Roman’ here comes from the French word for a novel), required a duration of less than 80 minutes and a tight one-week shooting schedule. Shiota rises to these restrictions with flair and energy, concocting a silly but engaging tale about Kosuke (Tasuku Nagaoka), a successful, thirtysomething Tokyo playwright who, burned out by romantic shenanigans, swears off women and becomes a rural recluse. His attempts at off-grid living are complicated by livewire lass Shiori (Yuki Mamiya), who quite literally cycles into his life out of the blue — propelling herself into a river in one of the opening scenes.

“I’ve locked onto you,” she exclaims to the bemused Kosuke, “don’t think you can escape me! You can’t!” Kosuke’s attempts to brush Shiori off like a “stray dog” meet with little success, and she installs herself as a waitress at a nearby diner. Further daft complications arise when Kosuke’s Tokyo-theaterworld past catches up with him in the form of an admiring troupe of performers, setting in chain the vigorous sexual escapades which take up the bulk of Wet Woman In the Wind’s second half.

These include a slapstick threesome that takes a steamily sapphic turn, and a comically protracted example of rock-the-house coitus whose destructive impact trumps even that famously over-the-top sequence involving Jeff Goldbum and Emma Thompson in The Tall Guy (1989). Belly-laughs are duly reaped courtesy of the game ensemble, who throw themselves into proceedings with suitable brio — egged on by Shunsuke Kida’s infectious, percussively jaunty-jazzy score — while Shiota’s screenplay is good for intermittent belly-laughs before dribbling away somewhat post-climax.

His script nods to his own back-catalogue, to Howard Hawks’ screwball classic Bringing Up Baby and to several Roman Porno classics along the way. “I’m a love hunter,” explains Shiori, name-checking Seiichiro Yamaguchi’s wildly controversial 1972 entry which saw cops raiding cinemas and arresting the director and several key personnel at the studio. Times have moved on in the intervening decades, of course, and the titillating semi-soft-core of Wet Woman in the Wind isn’t likely to land anyone in anything remotely hot water — though the upcoming installment by perpetual provocateur Sono may yet elevate pulses both inside cinemas and further afield.
(Neil Young)

http://nitroflare.com/view/CFA6F870C853593/Wet.Woman.in.the.Wind.2016.576p.BluRay.x264-gooz.mkv

https://publish2.me/file/cfd97eea5b662/Wet.Woman.in.the.Wind.2016.576p.BluRay.x264-gooz.mp4

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English, Portuguese

A group of German construction workers start a tough job at a remote site in the Bulgarian countryside. The foreign land awakens the men’s sense of adventure, but they are also confronted with their own prejudice and mistrust due to the language barrier and cultural differences. The stage is quickly set for a showdown when men begin to compete for recognition and favor from the local villagers.

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Language(s):German
Subtitles:English,French,German

Unable to secure Hollywood-studio backing for his Depression-era agrarian drama Our Daily Bread, director King Vidor financed the picture himself, with the eleventh-hour assistance of Charles Chaplin. Intended as a sequel to Vidor’s silent classic The Crowd (1928) the film casts Tom Keene and Karen Morley as John and Mary, the roles originated in the earlier film by James Murray and Eleanor Boardman. Unable to make ends meet in the Big City, John and Mary assume control of an abandoned farm, even though they know nothing about tilling the soil. Generous to a fault, the couple opens their property to other disenfranchised Depression victims, and before long they’ve formed a utopian communal cooperative, with everyone pitching together for the common good. Beyond such traditional obstacles as inadequate funding, failed crops and drought, John is deflected from his purpose by sluttish blonde vamp Sally (Barbara Pepper), but he pulls himself together in time to supervise construction of a huge irrigation ditch — a project which consumes the film’s final two reels, and which turns out to be one of the finest and most thrilling sequences that Vidor (or anyone) ever put on film.
The acting by Tom Keene and Barbara Pepper is atrocious, but John Qualen saves the show as a dedicated Swedish farmer, especially when he loudly rejects the notion that communal farming is a “Red” idea (this didn’t stop the anti-New Deal press from labelling the film as “Pinko” back in 1934 — and never mind that the communist press considered the film “capitalist propaganda”!) The optimistic finale, distinguished by its Eisentein-like “rhythmic” editing, fortunately lingers in the memory far longer than the film’s dramatic and structural defects. Our Daily Bread is also enhanced by Alfred Newman’s stirring musical score, later borrowed by Darryl F. Zanuck for his production of Les Miserables (1935).

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https://publish2.me/file/3a3093ba8913a/Our_Daily_Bread.mp4

Language(s):English
Subtitles:None

Synopsis:
Catherine Breillat’s adaptation of An Old Mistress stars Fu’ad Ait Aatou as Ryno de Marigny, and Asia Argento as Vellini, two lovers in 19th century Paris. The two have been passionately involved for nearly a decade, but de Marigny attempts to end their relationship now that he is engaged to Hermangarde (Roxane Mesquida), a respectable young woman. As the bride-to-be’s grandmother forces de Marigny to confront his past as a notorious womanizer, the film flashes back to reveal the intense decade the lovers shared. Although de Marigny appears to want to shut Vellini out forever, her passions may be far too much for him to deny.

Review:
Catherine Breillat is not known for crowd-pleasing. She has marked out her career by pushing the sexuality envelope, and in films such as Anatomy Of Hell, Romance and Fat Girl, she has frequently been accused by more conservative critics of putting pornography before a story. It is to be hoped that her notoriety in this department won’t put audiences off going to see what is surely her most mainstream movie to date. Although it deals with her favourite subjects of gender issues and female sexuality – and contains a fair amount of the steamy stuff – The Last Mistress is a lavish costume drama, chiefly about romance.

Ryno de Marigny (Fu’ad Ait Aattou in a fantastic debut) is rakish aristocrat. After sowing his wild oats around Paris he finally falls for blonde, beautiful and young Hermangarde (Breillat regular Roxane Mesquida).
Copy picture

Before Ryno can get hitched, he is quizzed extensively by Hermangarde’s gran (Claude Sarraute, a well-known writer in France, spellbinding in her first really serious stab at acting at the age of 80). Over the course of a night he ‘woos’ her by recounting his on/off 10-year relationship with wild Spanish aristocrat Vellini (Asia Argento) – but is he really prepared to give up his lover to be with Hermangarde forever?

Despite the initial premise and period being reminiscent of Dangerous Liaisons, the issues of fidelity and adultery are handled in an altogether less cynical fashion. Although there is strategy at work as well as romance, these are not conniving, Machiavellian types, bent on courtly games. Rather they are much closer to the star-crossed lovers of Shakespeare, with heart ruling head.

The indicators of decadence are all here, from opulent sets to gluttonous feasting. The costumes are lavish but never get in the way of the characters, who are all fully fleshed out and given added verve from the excellent cast. Argento was born to play the “goddess of capriciousness” Vellini, whose tongue is as sharp as the blade she uses to pin up her hair, and who isn’t scared to wield it in frustration. Her passion and hints at masculinity – violent tendencies, self-assurity, cigar smoking – are perfectly balanced by that of Fu’ad Ait Aattou as the androgynous Ryno – with the good looks of a Jean Paul Gautier model, he is feminine without being effeminate, sensitive without being soppy. Although Hermangarde, rather inevitably, pales in comparison to the larger than life Vellini, this adds to the drama of the ‘love triangle’.

The supporting cast, too, are uniformly excellent, particularly veterans Michael Lonsdale and Yolande Moreau as rumour-mongers Le Vicomte de Prony and La Comtesse d’Artelles.

The writing and direction are also impressive. Breillat adapted the screenplay from the novel by Jules-Amédée Barbey d’Aurevilly and has deliberately opted for ‘old’ French cadences and language. This has been excellently translated into English and the subtitles retain a poetic quality. Quirky directorial touches – such as Vellini’s blowing of smoke rings, or a dimming of sound at key moments – put the audience into the head of the protagonist and help us connect us fully with the characters.

The idea of love being close to violence and madness is never far away – from Vellini lapping at Ryno’s blood, to clever juxtaposition of images, including the slaughter of a chicken. But the love-making itself is never seen as a violent act. It is, in fact, suitably erotic and engaging. Although the latter part of the film sees the passion ebb away slightly, as one too many plot points is introduced, this is still a most welcome departure for Breillat. In the press notes she says it was time for “new pastures” after Anatomy Of Hell. The grass is certainly greener here, let’s hope she stays.

— Amber Wilkinson (EyeForFilm.co.uk)

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Language(s):French
Subtitles:English(muxed)

Hamoon’s wife is leaving him. He is also unsuccessfully trying to finish his Ph.D. thesis. He is forced to reexamine his life. In a series of flashbacks and dreams, Hamoon tries to figure out what he did wrong.

http://nitroflare.com/view/A9041655B3ADB86/Western.2017.WEB.x264.720p-SaL.mkv

https://publish2.me/file/376904ecf7593/Hamoun.mkv

Language(s):Persian
Subtitles:English

Quote:
The extraordinary, heart-breaking official record of Captain Scott’s legendary final expedition to the South Pole, has been fully restored by the BFI National Archive, with a new musical score by Simon Fisher Turner.

Captain Robert Scott described Herbert Ponting as ‘an artist in love with his work’, and, after the Antarctic expedition’s tragic outcome, Ponting devoted the rest of his life to ensuring that the grandeur of the Antarctic and of the expedition’s heroism would not be forgotten. The images that he captured have fired imaginations ever since.

Ponting’s footage begins in 1910 with the departure of the Terra Nova from New Zealand’s south island, for the Antarctic – a perilous journey during which animals and stores were lost overboard in a gale and the ship had to break through unusual amounts of pack ice for 400 miles to reach the Great Ice Barrier. Ponting took some of his most impressive footage – showing the ship breaking through the ice – from a makeshift platform over the side of the ship. Once arrived on Ross Island, Ponting filmed almost every aspect of the expedition the scientific work, life in camp and the local wildlife – including killer whales, seals, Antarctic skuas and the characterful Adélie penguins. What he was unable to film, he boldly recreated back home. Most importantly, Ponting recorded the preparations for the assault on the Pole – from the trials of the caterpillar-track sledges to clothing and cooking equipment – giving us a real sense of the challenges faced by the expedition

Now, the BFI National Archive – custodian of the expedition negatives – has restored the film using the latest photochemical and digital techniques and reintroduced the film’s sophisticated use of colour. The alien beauty of the landscape is brought dramatically to life, showing the world of the expedition in brilliant detail.

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Language(s):English
Subtitles:none

Quote:
Impressionistic short documentary of the Helsinki morning at the end of 1930s with a poetic narration.

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Language(s):Finnish
Subtitles:English

Quote:
Louise lives with Rémi in Marne-la-Vallée. He is an architect, she is an interior decorator. Their lives would be perfect if Rémi were less of a homebody, and if Louise were not such a night owl. Conscious of preserving her independence, Louise rents a pied-à-terre in Paris. Octave, her friend and confidant, is always ready to accompany her during her night prowls. One evening, beneath a full moon, and Octave’s jealous, loving gaze, she succumbs to the charms of a sensual dancer. As day breaks she realises, however, that she would much rather be with Rémi.

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Language(s):French
Subtitles:English

In 1968, the Popular Swiss Bank asked to three directors to give their vision about the future of Switzerland. This is their answer.

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Language(s):French, Swiss German
Subtitles:Swiss German (for French parts)

Quote:
In the confusion following a massive power outage, an awkward demolition derby driver vanishes, setting in motion a series of events affecting his pregnant girlfriend, his helplessly car-less father, a pack of wild boy scouts, a lactose intolerant roller rink employee, an elderly woman in search of her lost dog, and his best friend – a ten-year-old girl named Turkeylegs.

Pieces of the mystery begin to come together as Turkeylegs sets out to find her missing friend. Cars drive circles in the dirt, a woman attends her own funeral, the sun rises sideways and an orange vehicle trades hands again and again. Everything eventually culminates in a massive demolition derby that throws all of the characters into different directions.

This feature debut by writer/director Todd Rohal is filled with bizarre satisfactions: a forlorn woman alone in a rural Chinese restaurant with a feast in front of her; a 10-year-old-girl narrator named Turkeylegs whose unabashed sweetness fills even the film’s darkest nooks; and Will Oldham’s performance as Donald Turnupseed, like a beleaguered Napoleon Dynamite with bottomless emotional complexity. Demonstrating a knack for finding profoundly original scripts, Oldham joins a cast of unpaid local talent in Rohal’s unlikely ensemble piece.

What plot exists—revolving around Donald’s disappearance from the sleepy town—is negligible. In part, this is because Oldham’s character is so deeply haunted that his absence isn’t much different from his already questionable presence, which occupies the screen with separate but equal force. Aside from Oldham’s anti-star power, the film pleasantly recalls Robert Altman’s Nashville and David Byrne’s True Stories in its vignette-filled structure, each character gradually shedding quirk until his or her most basic needs are revealed, however obliquely. Ken Byrnes—tender and taciturn as Donald’s father—spends the entire film trying to get back into his tool shed (Donald having run off with the key), finally opening it in time for the climactic demolition derby.

The Guatemalan Handshake is willfully obscure. Its title remains mysterious. Flashbacks and real time entwine as a dozen flawed weirdoes unveil their equally knotted issues. But it’s perhaps accidentally dense, the size of the ensemble pushing its audience’s collective RAM to the max. Nonetheless, it’s a remarkable first feature for Rohal, who has previously directed several shorts (including 2001’s Hillbilly Robot) and some music videos, as well as acted in mumblecore mainstay Joe Swanberg’s Hannah Takes The Stairs. Indeed, The Guatemalan Handshake is not unrelated to this latest lo-fi genre, reaching for a similar type of slowly processed catharsis. But where mumblecore’s emotional realism often matches the blandness of reality, Rohal gleefully engages in redeeming flights of fancy.

Shot on 35 millimeter, the film played the festival circuit upon its 2006 release but never found wider distribution. Certainly, it’s not for all audiences, but there are enough LOLs to balance the WTFs. Rohal’s gift isn’t in dialogue so much as capturing a moment—the face of forlorn Ethel Firecracker (Kathleen Kennedy) as she searches for a dog whose fate seems known in the film’s first minutes, and her surprise when she sees her own obituary in the newspaper. Even minor characters—like Ivan Dimitrov’s seemingly one-note Ivan—find their answers during the dust-filled derby.

Though Rohal is ultimately unsparing, the film’s frame remains positive. Uplifting would be the wrong word, but the final sense is something far better than despair.

http://nitroflare.com/view/E2BC484423E0977/The_Guatemalan_Handshake.mkv

https://publish2.me/file/a7a279b3de4be/The_Guatemalan_Handshake.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English

Quote:
Two young women, marginalised by society, go on a destructive tour of sex and violence. Breaking norms and killing men – and shattering the complacency of polite cinema audiences.

Baise-moi (Fuck Me) is a 2000 French thriller film written and co-directed by Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi and starring Karen Lancaume and Raffaëla Anderson. It is based on the homonymous novel by Despentes, first published in 1999. The film received intense media coverage because of its graphic mix of violence and explicit sex scenes. Consequently, it is sometimes considered an example of the “New French Extremity”.

Baiser is a French verb meaning “to fuck”; it also means “a kiss” when used as a noun (un baiser). Baise-moi would be translated as “Fuck me”. The film has also been screened in some markets as “Rape me”, but this translation, which is not in the French word, was rejected by the directors in a 2002 interview.

In 2000, The Film Censorship Board of Malaysia banned the film outright due to “very high impact violence and sexual content throughout”. That same year, the film was later banned in Singapore due to “its depictions of sexual violence may cause controversy in Singapore”. In Australia, the film was allowed to be shown at cinemas with an R18+ (adults only) rating. Then in 2002, the film was pulled from cinemas and television and after that, banned outright. The film is still banned there due to its “harmful, explicit sexually violent content”, and was re-banned in 2013. However, an edited R18+ version was screened on 23 August 2013 on the World Movies channel of the Australian state broadcaster SBS, as part of the World Movies “Films That Shocked The World” season.

The film was filmed on location between October and December 1999 in Biarritz, Bordeaux, Lyon and Marseille. It was shot on digital video without artificial lighting. This low budget method of filming divided critics – some said it gave the film an amateurish look. Lou Lumenick, reviewing the film in the New York Post, went further and said it “looked like hell”. Others, such as James Travers writing for filmsdefrance.com, said the filming method added something to the film. Travers wrote “the film’s ‘rough and ready’ feel helps to strengthen its artistic vision and draws out the messages which it is trying to get across, without distracting its audience with overly choreographed ‘shock scenes’.”

upgraded rip

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Language(s):French
Subtitles:English

Quote:
With its giddily complex noir plot and color-drenched widescreen images, Made in U.S.A was a final burst of exuberance from Jean-Luc Godard’s early sixties barrage of delirious movie-movies. Yet this chaotic crime thriller and acidly funny critique of consumerism—starring Anna Karina as the most brightly dressed private investigator in film history, searching for a former lover who might have been assassinated—also points toward the more political cinema that would come to define Godard. Featuring characters with names such as Richard Nixon, Robert McNamara, David Goodis, and Doris Mizoguchi, and appearances by a slapstick Jean-Pierre Léaud and a sweetly singing Marianne Faithfull, this piece of pop art is like a Looney Tunes rendition of The Big Sleep gone New Wave.

Upgraded Link

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https://publish2.me/file/7e57a5dbbd3bd/Jean-Luc_Godard_-_%281966%29_Made_in_USA.mp4

Language(s):French, English
Subtitles:English

Quote:
A history teacher mets a hippy girl in Paris, he drops his job and starts a relation with her. So they start live together (vivre ensemble). A some point they do a trip to NY. Then they come back… Well this is the first film of Anna Karina as writer and director. Some images of Paris and NY in 72 are nice as an old postcard.

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https://publish2.me/file/8270d78a6ff7d/Anna_Karina_-_%281973%29_Vivre_ensemble.mp4

Language(s):French
Subtitles:None

Loveless (winner of the Jury Prize at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival) is a Russian drama film directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev – acclaimed director of Leviathan, and The Return.

The story concerns two separated parents who have lost their young son and attempt to find him. It was shot in Moscow, with international support after the Russian government disapproved of Zvyagintsev’s 2014 film Leviathan. Loveless opened at Cannes to critical acclaim.

In Moscow, a married couple, Zhenya and Boris, are in the midst of obtaining a divorce, with much animosity. They have a 12-year-old son, Alyosha, who witnesses the two arguing heatedly. Alyosha afterwards vanishes. Boris and Zhenya appeal to police for assistance in finding the boy, but the police reply they are too busy and tell them to find volunteers for search and rescue instead.

http://nitroflare.com/view/51058A7E447F576/Loveless_2017_720p_BluRay_DTS_x264.mkv

https://publish2.me/file/6ff780a7f8c46/Loveless_2017_720p_BluRay_DTS_x264.mkv

Language(s):Russian
Subtitles:English, French

Quote:
This is the story of Uxbal, a man living in this world, but able to see his death, which guides his every move.

Quote:
It’s a real testament to a filmmaker’s abilities when one of his pieces can principally revolve around a struggling man’s attempts to support his family, plus the effects he has on those around him, and then use said protagonist’s psychic abilities as little more than a subplot. Imagine if The Sixth Sense portrayed Cole as a grown man, near destitute and hammered by life, with the “I see dead people” crux as narrative depth rather than intricate focus. Mexican maestro Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu has proved just how apt he his at capturing the vast scope of a story, whether in the sensational and emotionally hardboiled (Amores Perros) or the ambitious but ultimately underwhelming (Babel), but with his Catalan set epic Biutiful he takes a boat across the Atlantic to delve into a novel-like character study stuffed with an infusion of European sensibility and uniquely personal vision that tops the lot. Having cinematic supreme and go-to guy for villainy Javier Bardem drawing in the crowds in a superb central performance ultimately sells the film both in terms of interest and in quality.

Bardem is Uxbal, unlucky in love and life as he crosses the line of the law to provide for his children Ana and Mateo (great child acting by Hanaa Bouchib & Guillermo Estrella). Without a solid job to rely upon for income, his paltry returns instead come from assisting his fellow unfortunates, whether they be Chinese construction managers relying on illegal immigrants for work or Senegalese black marketers doubling as both business partners and family friends. The fact that he can see the dead, and converse with them at the behest of grieving relatives, doesn’t elevate his life into anything particularly special, indeed it is another facet of misery in his luckless existence. Things, naturally, can only get worse, and tragedies in work and sickening news at home force Uxbal to take drastic action as he faces up to the fact that he is now working towards a legacy for those he loves. He attempts to rebuild a more solid family life by rekindling his relationship with manic depressive ex Marambra (Maricel Alvarez), while seeking redemption and a future in his unsung efforts to look after those that fate have left worse off than himself. The only solace, as the title would suggest, is in appreciating the beauty around him hidden amongst the despair.

It sounds like utterly downbeat, depressing stuff, and for the most part this is true; make no mistake, Biutiful holds no punches in its occasionally brutal depiction of hard living in Barcelona’s dark shadows and working class fixer culture. When bad news comes, it comes in threes and devastates the beleaguered audience as much as it does the myriad cast on show. Such a summation delivered on its own may be starkly honest, but it is also grossly misleading, for Inarritu’s intensions are not to drive a viewer to suicidal sadness, but to remove the roof and shine some light on the seemingly miserable and draw from it some form of joy, hope and the inspirational possibilities that man at his best can provide. Despite its ambitious scale and scope – following the supporting characters deep into their personal lives represents a narrative detour most auteurs would be unable to sustain – the emotional bloodlines are pronounced and easily accessible, and work both ways. Yes, it hurts when Uxbal inadvertently plays a part in the death of a large group of Chinese laborers, but we can also smile with him through the quirky idiosyncrasies of his convincing bond with his young children, and silently cheer his schemes to help the wife of an imprisoned acquaintance.

This is where Bardem comes into his own, and although he is best known to Western audiences for the sublime of Anton Chigurh and the entertainment of Bond villainy, it is with his role that he displays the enthralling commitment to character and natural gift of subtle expression best exhibiting his talents. Uxbal is a hugely flawed individual, one with a moral compass that occasionally takes him into the realms of anti-hero and anti-villain, and his range of personal demons and pain cross into his decision making in a style that is both true to life and potentially alienating when seen in fiction. But there is a huge heart within him, and his actions are those of a desperate man forced to adapt to his surroundings, circumstances and luck. He rarely affords himself any kind of privilege, instead silently organizing, leading and exploiting for his own greater good. Ethically questionably actions fall to the scrutiny of necessity, and we have a sufficiently intimate look into his psyche and character that we can give him a pass, if only just. Those around him, like brother Eduard Fernandez and business partners Taisheng Chen and Jin Luo, certainly come across as far worse, and their lack of family priorities dictate more pronounced slides into the immorality of a cruel world.

While Bardem makes the protagonist both believable and overwhelmingly sympathetic, Inarritu goes about turning the canvas of Biutiful into something as extraordinary as it is grand, birthing epic story telling out of a simplistic genre. Political issues around immigration and law enforcement are handled with the confidence of a documentary veteran, subplots focusing on the lives of supporting characters bear the balance and impact of short films…and then there’s the psychic medium angle. It sums up the film’s attitude and tone that such a divisive story strand is handled with a degree of irrelevance, one that is refreshingly if bleakly honest to life’s grind; something paranormally, supernaturally special doesn’t really mean all that much in the long run.

Yes, Uxbal’s abilities are real and we learn this through his efforts to earn cash on the side at mortuaries and thanks to the appearance of a motherly figure from his past who honed his talent, but since when did such a controversial gift really define somebody’s life? It is not central because it is not central to Uxbal, what’s more important are his kids. Most films wouldn’t get away with it, but somehow this agenda elevates Biutiful even higher. The plotlines and variety of interests on show are more akin to a book, one that ordinarily would have to be condensed in the interest of adaptation, but here the full vision not only survives but thrives. It can ever afford bookends independent of the main plot that work so well despite being yet more to digest. Anyone doubting Inarritu’s own gift in light of the polarizing Babel should take note; he is something special.

A set of gritty and supreme performances from the superb supporting troupe pack the film with depth, as does an intelligent screenplay from the director plus writing partners Armando Bo and Nicolas Giacobone, while an effluent score by Gustavo Santaoletta gives it a tone and feel rarely captured in modern motion pictures; translucent emotional focus, a mood both palpable and understated, and themes that are hard hitting yet enlightening. Technically speaking, Biutiful is an utterly flawless film, gorgeously capturing Barcelona even as it depicts its back street criminal element, sublimely finding the beauty of life even in the doldrums of lower class struggle.

Essentially two very good films rolled into a single great, it is a final product that shouldn’t work, really shouldn’t work, and nine out of ten times wouldn’t. Controversial a view though it may be, here Inarritu matches the caliber of his career defining Amores Perros and tops it, delivering the Godfather of rough personal drama. Simply stunning and sensational cinema.

– Scott Patterson

http://nitroflare.com/view/0E19726DE37E537/Alejandro_Gonzalez_Inarritu_-_%282010%29_Biutiful.mkv

https://publish2.me/file/ff6c8f347cde0/Alejandro_Gonzalez_Inarritu_-_%282010%29_Biutiful.mp4

Language(s):Spanish
Subtitle(s):English

from IMDB: In São Paulo, the weird and romantic piano player Martin (Felipe Camargo) believes in serendipity and invents a game to find the woman of his dreams. He previously selects a route in the subway, and in the wagon, he chases a woman to see if her destiny is the same as his. Following his procedures, he meets Tania (Daniela Escobar), the mother of an autistic girl; the blind writer Laura (Júlia Lemmertz); and the mysterious Ana (Maria Luisa Mendonça), a woman with a secret past, and he falls in love for Ana.

Based on a short story of Julio Cortázar, one of my favorite writers when I was a teenager, “Jogo Subterrâneo” is a magnificent low-budget romance. The story and the stunning music score have the atmosphere of a film-noir; Felipe Camargo, the very sexy Maria Luisa Mendonça, Daniela Escobar, Júlia Lemmertz and the girl Thavyne Ferrari have great performances, and Maitê Proença has a minor but effective participation. There is a ridiculous remark in the IMDb goofs: São Paulo is a cosmopolitan city, and none information is given about the past of the characters; therefore they are living in São Paulo, but they were not necessarily born in São Paulo. The accent of each character is irrelevant in the plot, since their origins are not disclosed along the story.

http://nitroflare.com/view/DBCDF0EB889ABBA/Jogo.Subterraneo.2005.BRAZiLiAN.DVDRip.XviD-ARiSCO.avi
http://nitroflare.com/view/84CC83DE524C847/Jogo.Subterraneo.2005.BRAZiLiAN.DVDRip.XviD-ARiSCO.idx
http://nitroflare.com/view/7D19DF0D0BE626E/Jogo.Subterraneo.2005.BRAZiLiAN.DVDRip.XviD-ARiSCO.sub

https://publish2.me/file/ce58aaa5d84a3/Jogo.Subterraneo.2005.BRAZiLiAN.DVDRip.XviD-ARiSCO.idx
https://publish2.me/file/6cc4cb19514fa/Jogo.Subterraneo.2005.BRAZiLiAN.DVDRip.XviD-ARiSCO.mp4
https://publish2.me/file/01c9f83e27cf1/Jogo.Subterraneo.2005.BRAZiLiAN.DVDRip.XviD-ARiSCO.sub

Language(s):Portuguese
Subtitles:engish .idx . sub

Late Fassbinder melodrama. In Switzerland German singer ‘Willie’ falls in love with Jewish composer ‘Robert’ who offers resistance to the Nazis by helping refugees. But his family thinks that ‘Willie’ is also a Nazi and may be a risk for them. One day ‘Willie’ helps ‘Robert’ but has to stay in Germany. As Willie starts to sing the song ‘Lili Marleen’ she becomes very famous and every soldier hears that song via radio at 8 pm. Although even Hitler wants to meet her she still does not forget ‘Robert’ and helps to smuggle photos of concentration camps to the free Switzerland. When ‘Robert’ wants to visit her he is captured he can finally get free again but he will never see Willie again until war is over.

http://nitroflare.com/view/02953A07D4B9C6C/Lili_Marleen_%28with_Commentary%29.mkv
http://nitroflare.com/view/E1075D62C243BA0/Special_Features.rar

https://publish2.me/file/f1440c14b2596/Lili_Marleen_%28with_Commentary%29.mkv
https://publish2.me/file/4326c8c6d15ac/Special_Features.rar

Language(s):English, German, Audio Commentary by Dr. Roger Hillman
Subtitles:English (for English Audio Track), English (ausmanx translation), English (DVD translation)

Quote:
Angela Schanelec’s first feature since 2010 is the much-anticipated Der traumhafte Weg, a serious work that is deliberately constructed image upon image and allows the viewer to read a seemingly realistic, yet artificially created world as it is being experienced, yet ultimately works against any simple narrative comprehension. The best way to tackle Der traumhafte Weg is to proceed, scene by scene, with a description of the shots, of how within the shots the characters are framed, how the characters gaze, how they hold their bodies… In other words, it is an Angela Schanelec film, where attention is required and rewarded, and the characters are at the mercy of the elements of chance.

Again working with master cinematographer Reinhold Vorschneider, Schanelec employs familiar arthouse tropes (the use of ellipsis, natural light, Bressonian editing and framing) to tell the somewhat intertwined stories of two couples who experience alternate bleak realities, wracked by pain and sadness: the young backpacking lovers Kenneth and Theres, who meet in Greece, and, 30 years later, a contemporary husband and wife living in Berlin, Ariane an actress (played by Tatort regular Maren Eggert), and David an anthropologist. But this Bressonian familiarity belies a narrative strangeness: are the young lovers, as they appear in the second half, “dreamed” by one of them? Or is this strategy definitively based on the act of “unknowing” reality? Whatever works, you might say, when faced with an unsolvable puzzle – because being in the presence of such accomplished formal precision that speaks to reality, at a time where filmmaking has generally been diluted, is in itself a reward.

http://nitroflare.com/view/3DA41BE0BF7B2AF/Der_traumhafte_Weg.mkv

https://publish2.me/file/f419bb1910455/Der_traumhafte_Weg.mp4

Language(s):German
Subtitles:English (Hardcoded)

In 17th-century France, Father Urbain Grandier seeks to protect the city of Loudun from the corrupt establishment of Cardinal Richelieu. Hysteria occurs within the city when he is accused of witchcraft by a sexually repressed nun.

Alice Stoehr wrote:
With this film, Russell pushed his then-nascent penchant for extreme imagery of sex and violence as far as it could go. It makes up The Devils’ thematic core, expressing myriad ideas about lust, greed, power, etc. through explicit acts of unremitting cruelty. Nothing is here just for the shock value, though certainly that’s part of it.

Every flurry of carnal rage or church-sanctioned torture adds yet more pungent detail to the film’s hellish, plague-riddled world. I’m in awe of Russell’s moral craftiness—that a man as scummy as Oliver Reed’s Fr. Grandier could end up a near-martyr without really redeeming himself!—as well as the film’s subtle turns toward ludicrous, John Waters-esque comedy. It’s a deeply uncomfortable viewing experience, and it’s not something I would recommend to everyone, but I’ll definitely be returning to it in the near future. Never have I seen a movie dismantle the mechanisms of injustice and religious hypocrisy in such a mesmerizing, grotesque fashion.

Ben Sachs wrote:
Russell thought big and made big gestures, overloading most of his movies with historical references, psychedelic stylization, and outsized acting. He’s the sort of director you love or hate, but never accuse of holding back. THE DEVILS comes from the middle of Russell’s most productive period as a director of feature films (he had been a prolific director of TV documentaries for years before that), when over a four year period (1969-1972) he released five of his strongest films, which cover the full range of his style and themes. Perhaps the most extreme of that lot, THE DEVILS maintains an unrelenting air of hysteria that makes the bold, psychosexual imagery seem that much more provocative. The story, taken from true events, deals with power struggle and religious persecution in 17th-century France, but the design—as is often the case with Russell—is brazenly anachronistic. (Derek Jarman, who would become an uncompromising director in his own right, is the credited production designer.) Past and present bleed into each other to hallucinogenic effect, while Russell’s sincere interest in religious and political history vies with his strong desire to gross people out. Oliver Reed, in the role he was born to play, is a morally corrupt priest with a large flock of loyal followers; Vanessa Redgrave is the mad nun who desires him and wants to destroy him.

Nick Davis wrote:

Ken Russell’s at it with that gonzo hypersensual style of his again, but he has found the perfect (and outrageously true-to-life) story on which to slather his extreme sensibilities. The Devils revisits France in the time of Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIII, the first of whom was almost feverishly Machiavellian in his pursuit of total church-and-state autocracy, the latter one of the more famous and pathetic puppet monarchs in Western history. Unfortunately for Richelieu, as played by Christopher Logue, there exist walled-in communities with their own still-functioning systems of self-government, defiant enclaves against his project of universal authority. One such community is Loudon, a religious community under the leadership of Father Grandier (Oliver Reed), a charismatic and sanguinary man whose civic authority is strongly girded in the sexual influence this dark and swarthy fellow exerts on the thoughts of the people of Loudon, particularly the women. Grandier’s popularity has kept the town squarely behind him and the Loudon city walls impenetrable to outside invasion.

Russell makes clear that Grandier enjoys making potent and unapologetic use of his own carnal appeal, though even he underestimates the number and fervor of his admirers. Perversely, as befits a Russell film, many of his most devoted admirers are the nuns of Loudon’s convent, led by the hunchbacked, commanding, but neurotic Sister Jeanne (Vanessa Redgrave). Following a Crucible-ish arc more familiar to 20th-century audiences in the contexts of 1950’s McCarthyist inquisitions or some more recent public-sphere child abuse scandals, Jeanne and the Sisters, spurned (as they of course must be) by their revered Father, accuse him of harboring a demonic spirit and even of possessing their spotless Christian souls. News of the accusations reaches Richelieu’s ever-attentive ears, and he rightly identifies the perfect puncturing point in Grandier’s armor.

A courtroom scenario of wild assertions and spectacular displays of behavior inevitably follow, but if Russell has a single skill as a director—and I belong to the population who believes he has many—it is his dogged refusal to take his films to the places we expect, at least not in the order or the style we expect. Ironically, the one predictable dimension of most of Russell’s features (which also include the Tchaikovsky-as-nymphomaniac biography The Music Lovers and the seedy Crimes of Passion, with Kathleen Turner as a prostitute and Anthony Perkins as her Bible-zealot savior/pursuant) is the visual delirium that is ostensibly his most outrageous trait. The Devils includes a protracted sequence of the decadent sexuality and rampant, lusty iconoclasm that arises in Loudon as Grandier’s fall commences that seems as gratuitously over-extended and self-consciously “daring” as the infamous nude-wrestling match between Reed and Alan Bates in Russell’s Women in Love. Elsewhere, however, The Devils is an admirably realized effort, wild enough to portray the different hysterias of religion, sex, and political power that intersected so combustibly at that moment of French history, but never spinning out of Russell’s control.

All of the actors in the picture acquit themselves well as obvious mediums of Russell’s stylized and allegorical takes of the characters in his own screenplay, adapted from a novel by Aldous Huxley and a play by John Whiting. Redgrave’s Jeanne, an exterminating angel who assaults and destroys what she most loves, captures both the passion and the perversion of the character, and interestingly, the actress often associated with tonier period pieces or more contemporary political dramas ranks The Devils in her autobiography as, together with Tony Richardson’s The Charge of the Light Brigade, “the two greatest accomplishments of the postwar British cinema.” (That Redgrave stars in both pictures will not be lost on her detractors, nor her fans who, like myself, admire the bravado of this inimitable actress as much as her more palatable virtues.) Also look for Gemma Jones, the sapphire-eyed actress who played Emma Thompson’s mother in Sense and Sensibility, as the ingenue who seems uniquely capable of winning Grandier’s loyal affections.

Still, for all of the performers’ exertions, the camera and the sets of The Devils—the latter a dazzling super-structure of scintillant white brick, designed by future Edward II and Caravaggio director Derek Jarman—are, as the cliché goes, the real stars of the film. If 17th-century France had not existed in the way it did, Russell would have had to invent it to accommodate his own lavish impulses and baroque imagination. Then again, maybe our cultural image of 17th-century France exists as it does because Russell and other artists have produced of it such ripe and indelible portraits. Like Reed’s Father Grandier, Russell can be arrogant, libertinish, even heretical, but his hold on our attentions, and perhaps more importantly on our minds, never flags in The Devils. The movie, like a demon, possesses us.

http://nitroflare.com/view/FC6EB679D78FD9E/The.Devils.1971.BFI.Special.Edition.DVDRip.x264-TBB.mkv
http://nitroflare.com/view/68D171CE2588ADF/The_Devils_Extras.rar

https://publish2.me/file/a600d6730bf93/The_Devils_Extras.rar
https://publish2.me/file/342836db6bf7c/The.Devils.1971.BFI.Special.Edition.DVDRip.x264-TBB.mp4

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English