In the winter of 1992, in a small provincial town in Moldova, a young woman named Ema wanders through the drab corners of her surroundings in search of meaning, pleasure, or a way out. Like Flaubert’s Emma Bovary, she dreams of a different life, finding refuge in films, fantasies, and daydreams as she struggles to escape the monotony and emptiness of her everyday existence.
Tag: 1990s
Stéphane, a young Parisian, goes to Romania to search for Nora Luca, a Roma singer harshly criticized by Roma activists for allegedly denigrating Roma’s image that his father listened to incessantly in the last days of his life. His search takes him to a gypsy village where he befriends Izidor and witnesses the pains and joys of the Romani experience.
A collaboration by four budding Indonesian filmmmakers, ‘Kuldesak’ intercuts the stories of four young urbanites, exploring problems and dilemmas in contemporary Jakarta. Aksan is an aspiring filmmaker in need of money to finance his first film; Andre, a lonely teen on his birthday who somewhat identifies with Kurt Cobain; Dina, the box office attendant is preoccupied with her television star idol who often comes to the theatre she works at; and Lina, the office girl is taken hostage by her own boss. The film took three years to complete, commencing pre-production in 1996 during the Suharto rule and was released five months after his resignation.
In Macedonia, former Yugoslavia, two Sheikhs squabble for power in a Dervish brotherhood. In this fragile, unsteady society, far from God and traditional Sufism, their petty quarrel focuses on the issue of which group will pierce themselves at the Nevruz ceremony. Through the rivalry between these two characters, who correspond to two opposing archetypes of religious leaders, the documentary offers a living glimpse of spiritual experience at a popular level which, despite the humorous situations and extraordinary images, may shock our sensitivity.
Jean’s solitary existence strangling women along the path of the Tour de France is upended when the troubled Claire finds herself hopelessly drawn to him. Grandrieux operates the camera himself shooting in low-light environments, offering an alien vision of the French countryside stuck in a state of perpetual dusk. SOMBRE announced Grandrieux as a singular voice in the New French Extremity movement, with its fearless gaze into the intersection of desire and death.
Tom Noonan’s dark comedy features a husband-and-wife team of psychotherapists who run a New-Age therapy group out in the wilderness. Late one night, Jack and Rita are visited by one of their patients, Cosmo, and his wife, Arlie. Cosmo’s wife has felt “left out,” since her husband spends so much time with the therapists and confides all of their secrets to them. Arlie has insisted on meeting them–the evening begins awkwardly, then painfully grinds on, as various tensions and power struggles emerge between and among the two couples.
Jimmy Pearls, a directionless young drifter, kills Henry Logan’s son and two other men after he found out that they murdered Jimmy’s parents for their land. Trying to get away from Logan’s vengeance, he goes to ground in the mountains and meets Winston Patrick Culler, an old trapper, who becomes his traveling companion and protector. Jimmy doesn’t understand though why Culler is helping him…