Quote:
It is an odd film: the central relationship between Joseph and Célestine is not entirely plausible, even as a desperate amour fou. But it is well acted and confidently performed. The antisemitism is a key to the film’s oppressive atmosphere. The pale, pinched neatness and pleasantness of this bourgeois household conceal a secret poison sac into which all the evil is drained: Vincent’s horrible leaflets, which express what so many respectable folk are thinking. This is a minor, flawed movie, but watchable in its suppressed, pornographic melodrama. –The Guardian

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/D64DCA38C9C5711/Benoit_Jacquot_-_%282015%29_Diary_of_a_Chambermaid.mkv
http://www.nitroflare.com/view/E076D87AC4DEAD0/Benoit_Jacquot_-_%282015%29_Diary_of_a_Chambermaid.srt

Language(s):French
Subtitles:English

Quote:
The wag who first suggested running the trailer for Bad Education before screenings of The Passion of the Christ in southern France deserves a rosette for provocation beyond the call of duty. But while the region’s priests have responded with predictable outrage, they should have taken a closer look at the film itself. To the character of the paedophile Father Manolo, Pedro Almodóvar extends the same compassion and pity with which he regarded the various sex offenders in Matador (1986), Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1989) and Talk to Her (2002). Almodóvar has the most democratic sensibility in cinema since Andy Warhol. Whatever passes before his camera is met with curiosity or understanding.

This creates some unusual difficulties in Bad Education. The slow-motion footage of pubescent boys frolicking in a river invites us to see the children from Manolo’s perspective, when in fact he is not observing them at that point – the erotic reading of their horseplay belongs uniquely to Almodóvar. Similarly, the movie’s most hypnotic image – an overhead shot of rows of white-vested boys exercising in the schoolyard – would be problematic in its echoes of the homoeroticism of 100 Days Before the Command (1990), Like Grains of Sand (1995) and Beau Travail (1999), even if it were not the case that, once again, it is Almodóvar, not Manolo, who is investing the children with sexual properties. Unless, that is, the elevated camera hints that a higher power is complicit in this voyeurism, an idea that surfaces in comic form when a priest who is reminded that God has witnessed his wrongdoings remarks: “Yes, but He’s on our side.”

If the Catholic church is not placated by the film’s generosity toward its errant servants, it might take consolation from the fact that Bad Education is more concerned with the traffic between past and present, life and art, sin and forgiveness. From its credit sequence, which plays like Saul Bass animating a Gilbert & George catalogue defaced by Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, the film aspires to the texture of a collage or mosaic. It’s there in the layers of faded, half-peeled movie posters outside the derelict Olympo Cinema, where the boyhood friends Enrique and Ignacio once masturbated one another as Sara Montiel loomed on the screen before them.

And you can see it in José Luis Alcaine’s deep-focus photography and Antxón Gómez’s art design, particularly in the office of the adult Enrique, now a successful film director. Ignacio arrives there clutching a story (‘The Visit’) based on their school days, while around them the segmented background and foreground compete in an ongoing and symbolic war of mise en scène reminiscent of The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant (1972). Mosaics are most strongly represented on the exterior of Ignacio’s apartment building, with the same patterns inside on the walls and curtains. The suggestion in these mosaics of a gaily coloured puzzle, of unruly pieces put together without ever quite fitting, could not be more appropriate.

Then there are the characters’ slippery identities to contend with. In Enrique’s film of ‘The Visit’, Ignacio hopes to play the transsexual Zahara, whose real name is Ignacio, who in turn poses as her own sister to confront her abuser, Father Manolo; Ignacio himself goes by the name of Ángel, but is later revealed to be Juan, brother to the actual Ignacio. Some characters, like Zahara’s friend Paquito, don’t actually exist outside ‘The Visit’, while others, such as the leather-jacketed Enrique with whom Zahara has sex, are alternative incarnations of characters we have already met. Scenes from ‘The Visit’ are played out as flashbacks, though they are no more definitive in their version of events than the erroneous account of Ignacio’s death that is corrected when Father Manolo arrives under his real name, Berenguer.

Any description of the plot, which incorporates flashbacks within the film within the film, risks becoming a pointless itinerary. When a film-maker exercises this much control, there is an enormous gain, but a small loss too. And for all its authentic Almodóvarian passion, the movie sometimes resembles a clinical experiment in storytelling. The most potent antidote to this is the miraculous four-sided performance by Gael García Bernal, who plays Zahara as well as Juan-playing-Zahara, Juan-posing-as-Ignacio, and plain old Juan. Bernal not only looks divine in everything from platinum wigs to retro sportswear, he also displays an emotional dexterity to match his frequent Gaultier-designed costume changes. When the film gets in a spin, Bernal is its compass.

Without him, the movie’s symmetry and self-reflexiveness could have squeezed the life out of the material. Moments that provoke a strong connection are likely to be those that have the most clarity and simplicity – Manolo’s hunt for Enrique and Ignacio in the school dormitory, or the subtle editing that articulates Ignacio’s abuse (to the heartbreaking strains of ‘Moon River’), or the fraught poolside scene in which the adult Enrique is silently rebuffed by the man he believes to be Ignacio.

These episodes are marked by a spare visual style, an emancipation from physical clutter, and the characters themselves are on the same quest to strip away unnecessary embellishments. Audiences who find themselves short of breath during parts of Bad Education, as on a climb to high altitudes, will notice a shift in the final section, which peters out quite deliberately, like All about My Mother (1999) and Talk to Her before it. As the truth about the demise of the real Ignacio comes to light, the movie lets out a sigh of resignation; the multi-layered facade that had kept us entertained for nearly two hours is packed away, literally during the scene in which the camera retreats from a movie set as the lights are extinguished one by one. Truth brings its own rewards to the characters, but for Almodóvar it also represents a small death. In the final image, Enrique clutches Ignacio’s last, incomplete letter and slumps against his gate. The eye can’t help but experience a kind of anti-climax as it registers the first plain shot in this whole vibrant movie. Ryan Gilbey, Sight and Sound, June 2004

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/3E9D44FE4F0D104/Pedro_Almodovar_-_%282004%29_Bad_Education.mkv

Language(s):Spanish, Latin
Subtitles:English

Drama. Dressed in dominatrix leather fetish wear, the director pictures herself tying up her consenting girlfriend in frozen black and white images cut to the sound of high-heels clattering down a never-ending corridor.

“The German Swiss artist Cleo Uebelmann created a myth called “Mano Destra“ when she was only 22 years of age. This tough, black and white movie was first screened 1985 at the first SM Conference for Women „Secret Minds“ in Cologne and initiated a debate about SM. The movie displays a bondage session of dominatrix and her playmate, which demands absolute attention and awareness for both of them. The music, played by the female new wave band Vinyl is as cultic as the movie is a historical document of the SM movement.” (PorYes)

“Mano Destra is a lesbian art film by the Swiss filmmaker Cleo Übelmann, released in 1986. In black and white, Mano Destra (Italian for “right hand”) is a study of erotic objectification which depicts one woman tying up another woman in a lengthy act of consensual bondage. Made in Switzerland, the film is 53 minutes long.
Images from the film were later published in 1988 as part of a book, The Dominas – Mano Destra by the Cleo Uebelmann-Group.” (Wiki)

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/FFF4829FEF16D83/Mano_destra_-_1986_-_Cleo_Uebelmann.avi

Language(s):No dialogue

Quote:
Based on the 1861 masterpiece by Hungarian playwright and poet Imre Madách, Az ember tragédiája (The Tragedy of Man) is a powerful drama in 15 acts that guide us through the past and the future of mankind. The narrative begins with the creation of the world, the first and the last acts frame the story that show us Adam and Eve travelling through space and time in search of the meaning of life – with the guidance of Lucifer himself. The first human couple travels from the Paradise through prehistoric times, the ancient Egypt, Hellas, Rome, the medieval Byzantine Empire, Kepler’s Prague, the French Revolution to the London of the 19th century, then Jankovics rushes us through the last 150 years of Europe and we get an insight to the future. The film is a highly dramatised version of the play: while it keeps the philosophical profoundness of Madách’s book it also visually highlights and makes Lucifer’s fight for the soul of the first man more compelling than ever.

The Tragedy of Man is the most acclaimed Hungarian play ever written, and is the major and most enduring work by Madách. 4000 lines long, it is required reading for secondary school students in Hungary, a core component of Hungarian theatre repertoires, and many of its quotes have common quotes in Hungary. It has been translated to 90 languages, being constantly compared to Goethe’s Faust or Dante’s Divina Comedia not only because of its theme but also due to its qualities. The play still thrives in the European cultural sphere: it has been recently translated to Russian and Italian for the umpteenth time.

Cannes Palme D’Or winner and Oscar-nominated Hungarian legend of animation, Marcell Jankovics adapted the script from the play in 1983. The production of the film started in 1988 but only concluded at the end of 2011 after two and a half decades of struggle. Jankovics drew all the acts in different style making us feel that we are watching a monumental encyclopaedia of animation.

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/88A62F73FAF82FC/Az_ember_trag%C3%A9di%C3%A1ja.mkv

Language(s):Hungarian
Subtitles:English, Hungarian, French, Russian

A young woman lives a life filled with bad choices. She marries and has a child with an abusive thief at a young age who quickly ends up in prison. Left alone she takes up with his mate (another thief) who seems to give her some happiness but who also ends up in the nick. She then takes up with a series of seedy types who offer nothing but momentary pleasure. Her son goes missing and she briefly comes to grips with what is most important to her.

Quote:
Poor Cow was Ken Loach’s first feature film, and was based on the novel by Nell Dunn, who also wrote Loach’s earlier Wednesday Play, Up The Junction (BBC, tx.3/11/1965). Throughout his career, Loach has been a collaborative filmmaker, often working with the same team. Carol White, Poor Cow’s star, was already well-known as a result of her starring roles in Up the Junction and Cathy Come Home (BBC, tx. 16/11/1966). Uncharacteristically, Loach – who has generally preferred lesser-known actors – also used other ‘names’, notably Terence Stamp, in Poor Cow.

White plays the appropriately named Joy, free-spirited, resilient and flirtatious, despite being caught in a web of circumstances largely outside her control, relating to her gender and class. Loach shows characteristic sympathy for the characters and their situation. The opening song, written for the film and sung by Donovan, urges the audience “Be not too hard, for life is short, and nothing is given to man”.

Loach has acknowledged the influence of Italian neo-realist film-making, of which probably the best-known example is Bicycle Thieves (Ladri di biciclette, Italy, d. Vittorio de Sica, 1948): “Those classic post-war Italian films just seem to have an immense respect for people. They give people space and they’re concerned with their concerns.” This could be a motto for Loach’s own film-making, with his compassionate observation of the ways in which ordinary people deal with difficult social circumstances. Poor Cow shares this socio-political concern with the effects of poverty and poor housing on the lives of its characters.

As with Loach’s earlier work, the stylistic techniques are inventive. The use of Joy as a narrator on the soundtrack reflects the first-person narration of the original novel. The film also makes occasional use of intertitles, more commonly associated with silent films. This risks distancing the viewer from their involvement in the story, but is effective in adding an ironic note, exemplified by “The world was our oyster… And we chose Ruislip”.

The continuity of the story is sometimes broken: Loach uses montage techniques, juxtaposing observational shots of characters not connected with the main story, for example in the pub where Joy works. As is common in Loach’s work, the film is at the same time the story of an individual and a demonstration of the way everyone is connected with the wider community.

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/359EA53868FBB47/Poor_Cow_%281967%29_Ken_Loach.avi

Spanish French subs:
http://www.opensubtitles.org/en/search/sublanguageid-all/idmovie-10811

Language(s):English
Subtitles:Spanish,French

Quote:
Both a romantic-triangle tale and a philosophical take on violence in times of revolution, The Home and the World, set in early twentieth-century Bengal, concerns an aristocratic but progressive man who, in insisting on broadening his more traditional wife’s political horizons, drives her into the arms of his radical school chum. Satyajit Ray had wanted to adapt Rabindranath Tagore’s classic novel to the screen for decades. When he finally did in 1984, he fashioned a personal, exquisite film that stands as a testament to his lifelong love for the great writer.

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/913DA322BF5EAD2/Satyajit_Ray_-_%281984%29_The_Home_and_the_World.mkv

Language(s):Bengali
Subtitles:English

Synopsis
On January 21st 1975, in a village in the north of Portugal, a child writes to his parents who are in Angola to tell them how sad Portugal is. On July 13th 2011, in Milan, an old man remembers his first love. On May 6th 2012, in Paris, a man tells his baby daughter that he will never be a real father. During a wedding ceremony on September 3rd 1977 in Leipzig, the bride battles against a Wagner opera that she can’t get out of her head.
But where and when have these four poor devils begun searching for redemption?

Quote:
Miguel Gomes, Lisbon, 1972. Studied Cinema. Film critic between 1996 and 2000. He directed several short films. THE FACE YOU DESERVE (2004) is his first feature. OUR BELOVED MONTH OF AUGUST (2008) and TABU (2012) have confirmed his success and international projection. TABU has been released in about 50 countries, and won dozens of awards.
Retrospectives from Miguel’s work have been programmed at the Viennale, the BAFICI, Torino Film Festival, in Germany and the USA.
ARABIAN NIGHTS, a three-part feature film, premieres in 2015 edition of the Directors Fortnight in Cannes.

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/2B1BAED2483ADD0/Redemption.2013.APH.DVDRip.x264-MaZ.mkv

Language(s):Portuguese, French, German, Italian
Subtitles:Spanish, English, Portuguese

Synopsis
Assis 2005: a troubadour walks the streets of St. Francis of Assisi hometown, singing and playing the Song of Brother Sun or Song of the Creatures, written by St. Francis back in the winter of 1224. Woods of Umbria, 1212: during one preaching to the birds, St. Francis suddenly faints. Reanimated by St. Clare, the saint looks strange and absent and he doesn’t remember anything. When the night falls, the animals in the forest sing and praise Francis. But this love sung by the animals leads to a feeling of possession, a desire of exclusivity usually known as jealousy.

Quote:
Miguel Gomes, Lisbon, 1972. Studied Cinema. Film critic between 1996 and 2000. He directed several short films. THE FACE YOU DESERVE (2004) is his first feature. OUR BELOVED MONTH OF AUGUST (2008) and TABU (2012) have confirmed his success and international projection. TABU has been released in about 50 countries, and won dozens of awards.
Retrospectives from Miguel’s work have been programmed at the Viennale, the BAFICI, Torino Film Festival, in Germany and the USA.
ARABIAN NIGHTS, a three-part feature film, premieres in 2015 edition of the Directors Fortnight in Cannes.

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/53235EB0998C69A/Cantico.das.Criaturas.2006.APH.DVDRip.x264-MaZ.mkv

Language(s):Portuguese
Subtitles:Spanish, English

Vers Mathilde (Towards Mathilde)
France | 2005 | 84mins | col | dir. Claire Denis, with Mathilde Monnier

Mathilde Monnier is more than France’s foremost contemporary choregrapher. An explorer of the thorny fields of post-modern theory she has acquired a reputation as a kinetic investigator par excellence. More than just a documentary, this parallel triggered between Claire Denis’s work explores the birth, formulation and performance of a radical new dance piece.

Interview
Why did you film with a Super 8 camera and an Aaton Super 16?

I put to Mathilde the idea of going to see her in Montpellier from time to time, without any organised schedule, but over a period of one year. To begin with, we took a small Super 8 so that it wouldn’t be too expensive and so that Mathilde would see it more as a try-out. I liked the Leica Super 8, because it was very noisy, like a coffee grinder. And I thought, Mathilde will always know when I’m filming, I won’t take her by surprise. I didn’t want to make a documentary on Mathilde Monnier. I wanted to get to know her.

Then, once we’d gone through this baptism of fire with the Super 8, we were able to use an Aaton Super 16, first of all because it was more visible than a digital camera, and then we picked up the sound all the same and I could also use a clapperboard. I wouldn’t have liked to have filmed someone’s personal work without their knowing. Sometimes in feature films, you steal something from an actor, but it’s not theft, it’s an understanding between both parties.

You can only steal what’s given and that’s important to me. Vers Mathilde needed to be like that.

Vers Mathilde is not a portrait of Mathilde Monnier, but a move towards getting to know a friend, a filmed token approach to dance at work.

This film isn’t called Vers Mathilde for nothing, because we found one another in its making. This move « towards » formed a sort of link, because we were too shy with words. I had to take the train, go to Montpellier with our little team, take this step towards her for something to click. The move concluded a sort of agreement between us.

«It is by watching a dancer that we have, more than once, illustrated what we used to call empathy (…) the resonance of the other.» This quote from Jean-Luc Nancy seems particularly relevant to your film.

I had just finished a short film called Vers Nancy, filmed on a Paris-Nancy-Strasbourg train ride with Jean-Luc and one of his students. At the same time, I was starting to work on preparations for The Intruder, adapted from Jean-Luc’s book. It just so happened, although there’s no such thing as chance in work, it’s always a logical sequence of events, that Mathilde and Jean-Luc had been writing to one another for years and, naturally, I found Jean-Luc’s influence in Mathilde’s work. I really like this quote. It formed a connection between Jean-Luc, Mathilde and myself.

You often use very tight frames or isolate certain moves. In some of Mathilde Monnier’s arm movements, she talks about « marking the space ».

Both Mathilde and I like this idea. Now, when I move my arm, I always ask myself if I am going to « mark the space ». We are aware of this notion of marking space when we film a frame. A movement in a frame marks space. Mathilde taught me that you can feel this from within, with your own body. But for us, it’s a notion we feel in a film frame. My brother, Brice Leboucq, who’s not a sound engineer, but a musician, worked on this aspect. He had perfectly understood the sound in the Bagouet Studio. He tried to capture both the resonance in the studio, the fact that Mathilde’s dancers can hear her even if she whispers, the sound of the camera rolling, which she heard and therefore also needed to be present in the film, and the sounds of the town. In summer, the windows are open and you can hear the trams and the birds. It was important to get across that we were in the Montpellier dance centre, a town in the south of France.

You have quite a different approach to the body, which is often seen in the dance sequences in your films.

I believe that, in the shot, the body should live and also tell the story. It’s not up to the actors to lay themselves naked, but up to the film to give them the space to express themselves. Denis Lavant in Good Work wasn’t choreographed. I simply gave him the music and the place and he invented the dance. We filmed in one take without rehearsing … I must say that Denis is an exceptional human being. I also had an unforgettable experience with Grégoire Colin when I directed US Go Home for Arte. The film opens on a teenager dancing alone in his bedroom to a fabulous song by Chuck Berry. The music was from a different era for Grégoire and he wanted to rehearse. I said no, because I wanted us to throw ourselves into it after listening to it together a number of times. This is how something is triggered in the body, but if you set the moves, it doesn’t work anymore. We therefore got together at my place every evening to listen to the song. And then we filmed the scene on the first day of shooting. I find it the most beautiful moment of dance I have ever filmed. Richard Courcet dancing to Murat’s Le Lien Défait in I Can’t Sleep was also a unique moment. Agnès Godard followed Richard’s movements with the camera on her shoulder and I felt like I was in Richard’s body, that I was an extension of his fingers, that I was dancing in all the takes. I totally felt what Jean-Luc Nancy calls « empathy ».

It’s like the young Taiwanese girl in Vers Mathilde . She was shy and having a hard time, and I told Mathilde that I’d like to film this young woman because I could see she was finding it hard to fit in and, if I filmed her, it might trigger something. We watched her in a way that wasn’t prying – the camera doesn’t pry, it says, «Come» – and she responded. Although she didn’t respond gently, but like a warrior, in that it was an attack and it nearly scared the living daylights out of us. These are beautiful moments and I still get goose bumps just thinking about them. They say a lot about the mysterious relationship between human beings in a creative process: a relationship of trust, abandon and violence.

Interview by Stéphanie Nava – FID Marseille 2005

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/438B40578C021B7/Vers_Mathilde.avi
http://www.nitroflare.com/view/9BF47320CC1CD0A/Vers_Mathilde.idx
http://www.nitroflare.com/view/5ABD69BF1BAB291/Vers_Mathilde.rar
http://www.nitroflare.com/view/1179F42A9E87E4D/Vers_Mathilde.sub

Language(s):French
Subtitles:English, Spanish and Portugese Subtitles

A silent film of collaged and painted sequences of lovemaking between Schneemann and her then partner, composer James Tenney; observed by the cat, Kitch.

Carolee Schneemann wrote:
…I wanted to see if the experience of what I saw would have any correspondence to what I felt– the intimacy of the lovemaking… And I wanted to put into that materiality of film the energies of the body, so that the film itself dissolves and recombines and is transparent and dense– as one feels during lovemaking… It is different from any pornographic work that you’ve ever seen– that’s why people are still looking at it! And there’s no objectification or fetishization of the woman

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/284D56D413B67FE/Carolee.Schneemann-Fuses.1965.avi

no pass

Quote:
After a couple of major studio flops, Peter Bogdanovich returned to his 1960s filmmaking roots with this Roger Corman-produced low budget film. Easygoing expatriate Jack Flowers (Ben Gazzara) makes his living in early-1970s Singapore legally and illegally looking after the needs of American and British businessmen, such as the mild-mannered William Leigh (Denholm Elliott). With his gift for putting clients and girls at ease, Jack opens a successful brothel, but pressure from local mobsters soon puts him out of business. Ever the survivor, he starts working for the shady, Cuban-cigar-smoking Eddie Schuman (Bogdanovich) as a pimp for GIs on breaks from Vietnam. But Jack’s conscience starts to dog him when Schuman hires him to take compromising pictures of a visiting Senator (George Lazenby). Adapted by Bogdanovich, Howard O. Sackler, and Paul Theroux from Theroux’s novel, Saint Jack offers a pimp with a heart of gold, who is less an ugly colonial American abroad than an outsider trying to make the best of a bad situation.Shooting on location in Singapore, cinematographer Robby Müller lends an appropriately gritty look to the matter-of-fact narrative. With restrained and forceful performances by Gazzara and Elliott, Saint Jack was something of a succès d’estime for the embattled Bogdanovich, winning the Italian Journalist Award for Best Film at the 1979 Venice Film Festival. While not a box-office success, it remains an affecting and unsung character study of a man’s desire to forge a reasonably honorable life in a dishonorable profession.

From a interview in The Guardian:
Q1: I lived in Singapore for a few years and there are many stories there of Saint Jack and how you told the Singapore government that you were doing one thing and did something else with the movie. Could you tell the truth about what happened with that, please?

PB: Well, what happened was… the book, Saint Jack by Paul Theroux, was banned in Singapore, because they did not want to cop to the fact that Singapore was a city where American soldiers came, during Vietnam, for R&R, which really meant getting girls and so on. And they didn’t want to admit that that happened. So the book was banned. And when I decided to make the movie, we travelled around most of Asia looking for a place to shoot it besides Singapore, because we knew we couldn’t shoot it there. But Manila, Hong Kong, wherever we went, it wasn’t as good as Singapore, obviously, because that’s where it took place. So we decided we would shoot it in Singapore after all, but we couldn’t tell them that it was Saint Jack because they never would have let us. So we told them we were shooting a movie called Jack of Hearts. And one afternoon, I dictated to my Chinese secretary a totally different plot, about a guy who comes from Buffalo to Singapore to open a nightclub or something. Actually he wants to open a whorehouse. I talked it out and described all the scenes – it was complete fiction, it was kind of a cross between Pal Joey and Love is a Many-Splendoured Thing. Quite terrible. But this is what we handed out to everybody, and nobody knew we were shooting Saint Jack at all. I was there for six months. Got back to Los Angeles and – remember Roderick Mann? – he came over to do an interview with him, and like an idiot I told him the truth. And of course, he printed it, it was a good story, and well… Headlines in Singapore: “Bogdanovich tricks Singapore”. Vicious editorials and the picture, of course, was banned in Singapore. Though I am told there are bootleg copies there. So that’s what really happened. It was sort of fun to do it that way, though, I have to admit.

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/EAF984A9BD78AEA/Peter_Bogdanovich.mkv
http://www.nitroflare.com/view/8194EFFA65EC220/Saint_Jack.mkv
http://www.nitroflare.com/view/36B548BB2D4E72B/trailer.mkv

Language(s):English dual audio with commentary
Subtitles:none

From All Movie Guide
Filmmaker Wang Bing spent three years charting the decline and decay of one of China’s major industrial regions in his over nine-hour, three-part documentary Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks. From 1999 to 2001, Wang traveled via freight train through the northeast district of Tie Xi. Beginning with the four-hour first section entitled Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks — Part One: Rust, the director visits three important factories in Tie Xi that are all on the verge of closure — a development sure to accelerate the region’s economic downturn. In the nearly three-hour second section, Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks — Part Two: Remnants, Wang visits a rundown governmental housing community that is also on the slate for demolition, leaving the inhabitants without shelter as well as unemployed. Completing his series is the final section, Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks — Part Three: Rails, that follows some of the people that make their earnings by bumming around and on the rail lines. With the downturn of the economy, which in turn decreases the rail traffic, these scavengers are also falling into desperate times that force difficult choices to be made. The entirety of Tie Xi Que was screened at the 2003 Rotterdam International Film Festival and the 2003 Toronto International Film Festival. During its festival run, this film played in an English-subtitled version.

Grand Prize, International Documentary Festival, Marseille, 2003
Grand Prize, Festival du Film, Yamagata, 2003
Grand Prize, International Documentary Festival, Lisbon, 2002

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/51491547D83AC85/West.of.the.Tracks.Part.1.Rust.D1.2003.DVDRip.XviD-KG.avi
http://www.nitroflare.com/view/AE936BA4E841C8B/West.of.the.Tracks.Part.1.Rust.D2.2003.DVDRip.XviD-KG.avi

Language(s):Mandarin
Subtitles:English, burned in

Quote:
With three full feature films in two years under his belt, Igor Voloshin has both received critical acclaim and provoked public debates. Nirvana (2008), a “gothic cyber-punk” about drug addiction, got Voloshin the Best Debut prize at the Kinotavr film festival in Sochi. In March 2009, Russia’s First TV Channel screened Voloshin’s Olympius Inferno, a melodrama-cum-action about Georgia’s attack on Ossetia dubbed by many critics, such as Mkheidze and Kuvshinova, a state-commissioned “agit-prop” film. His next project, I Am,competed at Kinotavr 2009, where the film’s director of photography Dmitrii Iashonkov received an award for Best Cinematography. The film continues to generate controversy: “the best film of the year or the shame of Russian cinematography?” (Mkheidze and Kuvshinova)

As its title suggests, I Am is an autobiographical film, based on Voloshin’s own script and executed as a fictional recreation of the director’s adolescence and youth in the late-1980s-mid 1990s, in the city of Sebastopol on the Black Sea. The frame for the narrative is provided by the narrator-protagonist, played by Artur Smol’ianinov, who is riding a bus at night shooting a film about his friends. He calls his film “a demo for God.” I Am has two time-specific settings: 1987, when the protagonist is twelve and hangs out with his older friends in front of an mental asylum doing drugs; and 1993, when he is eighteen and voluntarily checks into the asylum to avoid being drafted. At the asylum, the hero experiences brutality, forcible drug treatment, and quasi-memories or quasi-hallucinations featuring his now dead friends.

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/E2CE325CF9425B2/Igor_Voloshin_-_%282009%29_I_Am.mkv

Language(s):Russian
Subtitles:English

About the Film
A 25 minute Swiss short film; which was nominated for an Academy Award, for Best Live Action Short Film, at the 87th Academy Awards. The short is about an Afghan immigrant, living in Switzerland, who’s desperately trying to send home money to her family; but can’t due to lack of identification. She finds help from a local Swiss girl; who’s nothing like her. The film was written and directed by first time filmmaker Talkhon Hamzavi and stars first time film actresses; Nissa Kashani and Cheryl Graf.

The movie is set in the Swiss alps; at a transit centre, for refugees seeking asylum. Parvaneh (Kashani) is a young girl, that’s just arrived there, from Afghanistan. She first looks for work, and then attempts to send money home (to her family) but can’t; because she doesn’t have the proper ID. She meets a girl on the streets (Graf), who agrees to help her, and the two form an unlikely friendship.

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/BA46308078AAC78/Parvaneh_%282012%29.mkv

Language(s):German
Subtitles:English Hardcoded

About the Film
A young photographer and his assistant suggest to Tibetan nomads to take their picture. Against diverse and more or less exotic backgrounds, families appear to the photographer. Through these shots, the photographer will weave unique links with each of the various villagers.

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/ED7A2DE51B89C2B/La_lampe_au_beurre_de_yak_AKA_Butter_Lamp__2013_.mkv

Language(s):Tibetan
Subtitles:English, French

A cute and comic film about first love and sexual identity. Schoolgirl Jin s Young s mother brings home another woman and our model student finds herself coming to terms with growing up, a major crush on her mum s girlfriend and puberty.

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/266D5D274DB09FA/I_Am_Jin_Young_%282006%29_by_Sung-eun_Lee.avi

Language(s):korean
Subtitles:English (hardcoded)

Quote:
Curious, seeing this after the smash hits of “Todo Sobre Mi Madre” and “Hable con Ella”, because this movie sort of prepared the viewers to what was coming. Grabbing a solid and original story, Pedro Almodovar creates a movie that revolves around a strange set of characters, and on the process gives an excellent essay on the effect time has on people’s lives. All the actors are top notch, specially the commanding Javier Bardem, who would later become an Oscar nominee with “Before Night Falls”. Great music, cinematography and direction give this movie an even more satisfying look, and make this a well-achieved movie that ends up being the first part of an unofficial trilogy of Almodovar’s best works.

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/D4A3C55DE6185FD/Pedro_Almodovar_-_%281997%29_Live_Flesh.mkv

Language(s):Spanish, Italian, Bulgarian
Subtitles:English

Nicola (Lou Castel) bears the psychological scars of unbearable guilt. As a boy, he was given the job of looking after his mentally unstable mother and protecting her from herself. One day, he and his sister went instead into a large closet and enacted a childishly intensive “I dare you” bonding ritual, marking one another with the blade of their father’s sword cane. While he was occupied in this manner, the boy’s mother hung herself and died. Now an adult, he still has an unhealthily strong fixation on his sister. This is so obvious that a girlfriend of his sister’s, with whom he has an affair, breaks it off, complaining that she is not interested in being a stand-in for the sister.

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/EAB2281739B0389/Les_enfants_du_placard.mkv

Language(s):French
Subtitles:None

Plot:
John Wayne’s most popular film of the 60s is a broad, boisterous comedy-western loosely based on William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Wayne in his two-fisted best stars as a George Washington Mclintock, a middle-aged cattle baron (John Wayne) who has his hands full with his estranged wife (Maureen O’Hara) – she walked out on him 2 years ago without a word and has returned to get a divorce in order to move back to the east with their daughter,Becky (Stefanie Powers). Verbal fireworks explode, slapstick pratfalls bloom, and the Wayne-O’Hara “reconciliation” culminates with the biggest mud-hole brawl this side of the Mississippi. Patrick Wayne, Yvonne De Carlo, Chill Wills, Strother Martin and Jerry Van Dyke are among the dazzling supporting cast in this wild, raucous and hilarious western. Directed by Andrew V. McLaglen (Cahill U.S. Marshall).

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/A3A90C92D6A73BF/McLintock%21_%281963%29_OliveFilms_DVDRip_x264_BBM__CG_.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:None

summary
A night watchman (Per Oscarsson) in Stockholm interrupts a burglary and finds a mannequin that he takes home; in his mind, it’s a beautiful and very much alive woman. Director Arne Mattsson knows how to use the shadows of black-and-white cinematography to chilling effect; that along with Oscarsson’s performance elevate this psychological look at loneliness and mental illness. The star must have studied Anthony Perkins in Psycho (1960); he looks like him and plays his character in a similar fashion. Behind the youthful façade lies insanity. Gio Petré is credible in the transition between doll and human. ~ Movie Hamlet.

More on the film (edited for spoilers):

“… this movie is both disturbing and sad.”… …”The movie has several subjects worth pondering, such as the problems which can be caused by pervasive loneliness, the way fear can overrun and take over our lives, and finally that it is much easier to fall into madness than to get back out of it. The movie is hard to watch at times, but quite fascinating, and peopled with some interesting characters, including a scarred landlady who may well have strong feelings about the night watchman… …This one is definitely worth a peek for anyone interested in the cinema of madness. ~ Dave Sindelar – Fantastic movie musings.

“It’s a creepy tale that unwinds rather slow, but the nosey and obnoxious neighbours and Oscarsson’s fantastic performance as reclusive Lundgren with Petré’s stiff & sexy portayal of the manequin, really make it worth the while. There’s a few shocks and a surprise ending that suits this movie like a charm. If you like Mattsson and haven’t seen this one, it should be next on your list of movies to see. If you’ve never seen a Mattsson movie, well then it’s a great starting point. In my oppion it’s far better than his “Hillman” series, which are more Hitchcockian and border on swedish “Pilsnerfilm” feeling.” ~ Pappazilla.

“Who says she’s not real?” This was Bill Nestrick’s response to a student’s suggestion that the woman of Arne Mattsson’s The Doll was merely an illusion to her reclusive lover. Lundgren, a lonely department-store security guard, steals a mannequin and brings her to his attic apartment. In a startling moment of magical realism and cinematic brilliance, the doll becomes animated for both Lundgren and the audience. The doll/woman becomes the reflection before which this alienated man becomes someone; there is nothing he would not do to make her happy. ~ Link.

Atmospheric and borderline poetic, Arne Mattsson’s Vaxdockan, from Sweden, boasts a brilliant lead performance by Per Oscarsson, whom I have twice named best actor, including for his astounding performance as the starving writer in Henning Carlsen’s Hunger (1966), from Hamsun. His Lundgren in Vaxdockan pointed Oscarsson in the direction of his greatest film role. (Oscarsson claimed an even greater one on stage: Hamlet.)

Lundgren is a department store night watchman who resourcefully reports a burglary to the police as cover for his heist of his favorite store mannequin, which he takes home to his dim apartment and lavishes with attention and romance. The mannequin comes to life for him… …and, vicariously, for us. In a master stroke on Mattsson’s part, with considerable foundation in the script by Lars Forssell and Eva Seeberg, whatever the degree of our solitudinousness in viewing the film becomes correlative to the solitudinousness of Lundgren’s existence. Lundgren’s quiet, dignified voiceover narration also helps us slip into his experience.

Mattsson’s finest achievement perhaps lies in keeping his film from becoming a case study of mental illness. (Roman Polanski would have no such luck with his Repulsion, 1965.) Rather, Lundgren’s condition emerges as a magnification of urban loneliness with which a significant number of viewers may be able to identify. A long-shot of a passing train later connects, inside Lundgren’s tiny apartment, with the booming sound of another train’s passage, evoking a tremendous sense of isolation, entrapment, alienation—as though Lundgren unconsciously wishes he could get on that train for somewhere else. The overhead shot of Lundgren’s hauling the mannequin up to his top-floor apartment recalls Norman Bates’s carrying “Mother” down to the cellar in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), and this perhaps also nudges the delusional young protagonist in the direction of being an Everyman. ~ Grunes.

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/EC5C70316DF4951/Vaxdockan.mkv

Language(s):Swedish
Subtitles:English