Andula, a pretty young girl living in a fading Czech factory town. Andula and her friends go to a party where they are seen as object of adoration by few soldiers. There Andula meets with Milda, a young pianist with the band who was visiting from Prague. After they spend the night together,he leaves and she travels to Prague to find him.
She takes the affair more seriously than he does and when she suddenly visits to his house ,everybody is surprised. It is a humored tale about a woman's journey to the discover of the first love. It's a quite progressive view this film had back in the 1960s in showing Andula trying to not flirt with soldiers in one way but end up talking to them ,then later to have a romantic evening with Milda. 'Loves of A Blonde' is a bittersweet film ; it is bitingly tragic and simultaneously touching. The film also offers a scathing characterization of society as a whole.
Imamura's 1964 black and white drama Akai Satsui is a great example of his cold style. The 150 min of runtime allow the director to establish a controlled and ambitious fiction where nothing is easily dismissed or fully interpreted.
The plot deals with a middle-class housewife Sadako (Masumi Harukawa) who lives with her librarian husband Richi and his young son Masaru. After she is raped by a burglar Hiraoko while being at home alone, she cannot even think about letting others know about the incident and initially intends to kill herself, but later drops the idea because of her love to Masaru. Sadako is treated badly by virtually everyone ,especially her mother-in-law and even Richi. Richi is also having an affair with a co-worker for a decade. Sadako's behaviour grows increasingly difficult to understand for the remainder of the film. Her rapist transitions into a stalker, an admirer, and, finally, a lover. Her past is so full of psychological mistreatment by her in-laws that it doesn't feel bad to think that to her, rape is not worse than her life as it is. Still Sadako is able to stay strong throughout her trials.
The black and white cinematography, stark shadows, wonderful scenery and the planned mise-en-scene make the frames of the film very interesting . The pacing always stays unhurried, making the film long but never tedious. The lead character is an unhappy,unappreciated woman who is dragged through conflict only to emerge with complicated,specific victory. The director has something deeper than shock effects in mind. His theme is natural instinct versus social convention, and his approach is original. However, it puts forward a strangely subversive view of "modern" Japan.
In the first scene, firemen break down the front door of a Paris apartment. Michael Haneke's 'Amour' is devastatingly original and daring in the way it examines the effect of love on death.
Georges(Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne ( Emmanuelle Riva) have been married many years, and have grown old together. Both of them are retired piano teachers. One morning, they are eating breakfast together and Anne goes silent. She doesn't respond to Georges as she sits in a confused state. Georges tries to get her attention but she doesn't answer anything. Anne needs to undergo surgery on a blocked artery, but the surgery goes wrong leaving her partially paralyzed. She makes Georges promise not to send her back to the hospital. Their daughter Eva (Isabelle Huppert) wishes for her mother to go into care ,but Georges doesn't want to break the promise he made to Anne.
Georges and Anne are played magnificently by Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva. Both of them make the pain and sorrow of their rapidly deteriorating lives very believable to the viewer. Isabelle Huppert also gives a good performance in a short role. This is a straight story of a couple who face the trials of their advanced age with indifference but also humanity.
However this film is not so simple as it is a Michael Haneke film after all. What Haneke's story and screenplay brilliantly achieved is to be able to say so much without saying much at all, making it a very fulfilling experience watching. It has all the stamps of the Haneke cinema- the long stills, the quiet camera movements, the absence of music,the sense of mystery. There are a handful of sequences that cross the metaphysical plane of the film,including the quietly interpolated view of various landscape paintings. Above all,it is the normality that hits hardest. We all know what is going to happen to all of us yet none of us is prepared for it.
Unknown Pleasures is a 2002 Chinese film directed by Jia Zhangke. The film focuses on several young people, members of China's "new" generation. Nineteen year old Bin Bin lives with his mother , in a small apartment near Datong's textile mill. His close friend, the reckless Xiao Ji, lives in a small apartment with his father. Both of them face considerable problems in their love-life. Bin Bin's girlfriend is an ambitious student planning on studying business at a university. He, on the other hand does nothing apart from watching television on most days. Two friends eventually meet Qiao Qiao , a young singer and dancer working for the Mongolian King Liquor company. Xiao ji sets his sights on Qiao Qiao . She is outwardly tough and determined . However she eventually turns to prostitution . When an explosion rocks textile mill, the characters are briefly pushed into action.
The two boys are only interested in movies (such as Pulp Fiction) , pop music and girls. Both the boys are aimless ,young people with no future. The overlapping stories of the two friends develop a common theme of loneliness and yearning on the edges of a rapidly changing society. From China joining the World Trade Organization to Beijing getting selected to host the 2008 Olympic Games , the most important events in "Unknown Pleasures" take place on tv, each one a new promise that meaningful change will soon follow. But future of the protagonists is cloudy and uncertain. It is an infinitely sad, unpredictable but ultimately very meaningful film.
