Synopsis :
Jules Dassin -- in his second European film after being driven out of the United States during the years of the house Un-American Activities Committee hearings -- directed this landmark caper film about the planning and execution of a nighttime robbery at a swanky English jewelry shop in the Rue de Rivoli. The story concerns a collection of thieves who band together to commit a seemingly impossible robbery. The gang consists of a tough, straight-talker named Tony Stephanois (Jean Servais); a young man under Tony's tutelage named Jo (Carl Mohner; a happy-go-lucky Italian by the name of Mario Farrati (Robert Manuel); and a safecracker named Cesar (the director Jules Dassin under the pseudonym of Perlo Vita) who likes to jiggle the combinations of women in his off hours. The set piece of the film is an intricate 28-minute sequence that depicts the robbery in detail -- all filmed silently without dialogue or music. After the success of the robbery, the gang barely has time to celebrate when a rival gangster, Pierre Gruuter (Marcel Lupovici), decides that he wants a cut of the take. When Tony's gang refuses to cooperate, Pierre kidnaps Jo's son, and the gang has to get tough with their nemesis. Paul Brenner
Title : Rififi (1955)
Original title : Du rififi chez les hommes
Directed by Jules Dassin
Duration : 115 min.
Subtitles : Portuguese
Audio in French
Genres : Drama, Thriller
Extras : Biography of Jules Dassin ...
Countries : France
Wednesday, March 6, 2024
Rififi (Du rififi chez les hommes) (1955) Directed by Jules Dassin | VIDEO (ISO)
Monday, March 4, 2024
L'Age d'Or (La edad de oro) (1930) Directed by Luis Buñuel | VIDEO (MKV)
Synopsis :
L'Âge d'Or begins as a documentary about the habits of scorpions, utilizing library footage and silent-style intertitles. Amid the rocks of an inlet, archbishops are seen chanting by a beggar-soldier (Max Ernst), who then makes a long journey back to his hideout. He informs his fellow beggar-soldiers that the "Mallorcans" have arrived and it is time to bear arms and fight. But this small group of soldiers is weak and exhausted through starvation, and only one of them survives the trip back. The Mallorcans, a caravan of wealthy dignitaries and their servants, arrive to lay a cornerstone commemorating the now skeletal archbishops. The ceremony is interrupted by the screams of lovemaking, and the couple is separated by gendarmes and led away. The man (Gaston Modot), whom we later learn is a government official of some standing, establishes his nasty and anti-social character through the kicking a dog. The ceremony continues; a title card identifies this as the foundation of Imperial Rome. The next sequence intercuts scenes of the girl (Lya Lys), who is the daughter of a wealthy marquis, lost in a world of erotic fantasy, with scenes of the man being led down the street by the gendarmes. The man finally produces diplomatic papers, and is released. The marquis (Ibanez) and marquise (Germaine Noizet) throw a large party at their villa, where a number of strange events occur without the slightest notice from the guests. A momentary distraction is caused when the gamekeeper shoots his son over a minor incident. The government official arrives at the party and is soon in pursuit of the girl, although the social nature of the event, at first, keeps them apart. The marquise accidentally spills a little wine over the government official's hand, and he slaps her, exciting the girl. (Alfred Hitchcock would later echo this very scene in Strangers on a Train.) The girl and the government official are finally allowed to consummate their fetishistic desires to the strains of Wagner in an extended love scene in the garden. This is interrupted when the conductor (Duchange) of the concert nearby has a headache and walks off the podium, directly into the arms of the girl. The government official gets a phone call, where he is told that his actions have resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of the "women, children, and old people" he is sworn to protect. He curses the caller, and enraged, he goes to his apartment to rip apart pillows and to hurl several objects, including an archbishop, out the window. The final sequence begins with a series of lengthy, and increasingly agitated, intertitles announcing that the Duc de Blangis (Lionel Salem) and his henchmen are due to emerge from 120 days of debauchery inside a secluded castle. When the party does emerge, the duke is seen to be missing his beard. David Lewis
Title : L'Age d'Or (1931)
Original title : La Edad de Oro
Directed by Luis Buñuel
Duration : 63 min.
Subtitles In english
Card in French
Genres : Drama, Comedy, Surrealist Film
Countries : France
Friday, March 1, 2024
Un Chien Andalou (Un Perro Andaluz) (1928) Directed by Luis Buñuel | Salvador Dali | Video (MKV)
Synopsis :
Fledging director Luis Buñuel and painter Salvador Dali create this ultimate surrealist film, which is essentially a barrage of striking and irrational images designed to shock and provoke. During the course of the film, we witness a close-up of a woman's eye being slashed open with a razor; a man dragging a piano, two bishops, and a pair of rotting asses across a room; ants swarming around a hole in a man's palm; and sundry severed limbs and gratuitous slayings. Though this was originally a silent film, Buñuel later added a recorded score consisting of Liebestod from Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde and a number of popular tangos of the time.
Title : Un Chien Andalou (1928)
Original title : Un Perro Andaluz
Directed by Luis Buñuel | Salvador Dali
Duration : 15 min. Short film
Genres : Drama, Horror
Countries : France
Wednesday, February 28, 2024
Passing Fancy (Dekigokoro) (1933) Directed by Yasujiro Ozu | VIDEO (ISO)
Synopsis :
The first of many films featuring the endearing single-dad Kihachi (played wonderfully by Takeshi Sakamoto), Passing Fancy is a humorous and heartfelt study of a close, if fraught, father-son relationship. With an ever more sophisticated visual style and understanding of fragile human relationships, Ozu seamlessly weaves rib-tickling comedy and weighty family drama for this distinguished precursor to a brilliant career. criterion
Title : Passing Fancy (1948)
Original title : Dekigokoro
Directed by Yasujiro Ozu
Duration : 100 min.
Subtitles : English, Portuguese, Spanish
Card in Japanes
Genres : Drama
Countries : Japan
Sunday, February 25, 2024
Women of the Night (Yoru no Onnatachi) 1948 | Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi | VIDEO (ISO)
Synopsis :
After World War II, Mizoguchi was inspired by Italian neorealism to make one of the most emotionally and visually raw films of his career. Filmed on location in Osaka, Women of the Night concerns two sisters—Fusako, a war widow, and Natsuko, having an affair with a narcotics smuggler—who along with their younger friend Kumiko descend into prostitution and moral chaos amid the postwar devastation surrounding them. criterion
Title : Women of the Night (1948)
Original title : Yoru no Onnatachi
Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi
Duration : 74 min.
Subtitles : English, Portuguese
Audio in Japanese
Genres : - Drama, Romance, Thriller
Extras : Biography of Kenji Mizoguchi + ...
Countries : Japan
The Birdcage Inn (Palan Taemun, 1998) Directed by Kim Ki-Duk | VIDEO (MKV)
Synopsis : Birdcage Inn is a drama about experiences moulding people's lives. After the clearing of the red light districts in Seoul, a ...
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Synopsis : With a structure similar to an organic poem, "FINIS TERRAE" transcends the linear narrative of a mere documentary. Film...
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Synopsis : How typical of the great German director F. W. Murnau that he used Moliere's scathing satirical comedy Tartuffe as a launchin...
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Synopsis : The German The Haunted Castle (Schloss Vogelrod) has been described as director F.W. Murnau's "warm-up" for his su...