Author Archives: rarefilm

Fluchtweg St. Pauli – Großalarm für die Davidswache / Hot Traces of St. Pauli (1971) Wolfgang Staudte, Horst Frank, Christiane Krüger, Heinz Reincke, Thriller

hot-traces-of-st-pauli-1971
The dangerous violent criminal Willy Jensen flees from a prison in Hamburg and seeks shelter at his brother Heinz’ apartment. Heinz, an honest taxi-driver, believes in his innocence and helps him – until Willy kills another man in a robbery. After an argument Willy takes his wife Vera, who now lives with Heinz, as hostage on his further flight from the police.
Read More »

Arrebato / Rapture (1979) Iván Zulueta, Eusebio Poncela, Cecilia Roth, Will More, Drama, Horror

arrebato-aka-rapture-1979
Madrid,1980. Jose Sirgado, a labouring bohemian b-movie filmmaker finishes editing the sequel to a previous film. Visibly displeased he journeys home to his girlfriend strung out on heroin. After attempting to tidy his home and taking some heroin himself he opens a mail package from an old acquaintance Pedro P. containing a reel of super-8 film, a cassette tape and a key to his apartment.
Read More »

Wiener Blut / Viennese Spirit (1942) Willi Forst, Willy Fritsch, Maria Holst, Hans Moser, Comedy, Music

wiener-blut-aka-viennese-spirit-1942
Willy Forst of course is famous for looking back on the ‘old Vienna’ in a mixture of nostalgia and gentle irony in his films, but “Wiener Blut” may be the one which most highlights the question of what makes the ‘true’ Viennese style. We get a first answer right at the beginning, when Forst himself masqueraded as a medieval alchemist mixes the ingredients for the brew of this film, which are ‘humour’, ‘frivolity’, ‘heart’, ‘history’ and most of all, ‘music’. And the film gets this mixture right.
Read More »

Abel / Voyeur (1986) Alex van Warmerdam, Henri Garcin, Olga Zuiderhoek, Comedy

Abel (1986)
An extremely weird comedy revolving around the life of 31- year-old Abel, who has never left home (literally). After failing with doctors and psychiatrists, Abel’s father Victor brings home Christine, a friend, in an attempt to teach Abel basic social skills. But Victor’s wife Duif accuses him of having an affair, and in the ensuing row Abel is thrown out into the street. But help is at hand when he runs into kind-hearted stripper Zus – whose show Victor is obsessed with…
Read More »