Tag Archives: 1990s

Une liaison pornographique / An Affair of Love (1999) Frédéric Fonteyne, Nathalie Baye, Sergi López

Une liaison pornographique (1999)
They recount their impressions to the Interviewer. They met through a magazine ad, She and He. They corresponded through the Internet. He responded to her ad seeking someone to fulfil her fantasy for “a pornographic affair”. This is their first meeting in a Paris café. He’s a little reticent. She wants to know whether or not he’s hairy. (He is; he’s Spanish.) They retire to a nearby hotel room. The door of the room closes. Unseen, the affair is consummated… They continue to see one another regularly each week. They find they get along well together. Soon she suggests that they try normal sex the next time…
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Dogfight (1991) Nancy Savoca, River Phoenix, Lili Taylor, Richard Panebianco

Dogfight (1991)
1963, the night before the 18 years old “Birdlace” Eddie and his friends are shipped to Vietnam. They play a dirty game called ‘Dogfight’: all of them seek a woman for a party, and who finds the most ugly one, wins a prize. Eddie finds the lonesome pacifist Rose working in a coffee shop. She’s happy to accompany him – but then she sees through the game. However by this time he already learned to like her, so he follows her home. Will he manage to win her heart despite their differences?
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Tito i ja / Tito and Me (1992) Goran Markovic, Dimitrije Vojnov, Lazar Ristovski, Predrag Manojlovic

Tito i ja (1992)
The story of a ten years old boy who, as most of the children in Yugoslavia of the fifties can hardly imagine his life without the great national leader – marshal Tito. In his school, he wins the contest for the best Tito’s composition. His reward is the participation in “Tito’s native land” march. He claims in his work that he loves Tito more than his Dad and Mom, which makes them desperate. He does not understand what is so confusing and weird in his love towards the leader. This march will be a difficult temptation for him. Unaccustomed to nature, walks and independent living, harassed by the teacher, Stalinist, he fails, gets lost in the mountain and his life changes.
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Ninfa plebea / The Nymph (1996) Lina Wertmüller, Stefania Sandrelli, Raoul Bova, Lucia Cara

Ninfa plebea (1996)
In the World War II, in a small Italian village, Nunziata is an easy woman married with the cuckold tailor Gioacchino. Her teenage daughter Miluzza teases men with her clothes and gets men to lust after her. One day, Nunziata dies while having intercourse with an Italian Corporal at home, and Miluzza finds a job in the factory of the wealthy Don Peppe that rapes her. When Miluzza returns home, she learns that Gioacchino has died in the afternoon. Soon there are rumors that Miluzza had an affair with Don Peppe, but her grandfather protects her. Then Miluzza’s village is bombed, her grandpa dies and she moves to another town to live with a friend. When she finds the Italian soldier Pietro wounded in the leg in her house, Miluzza saves his life and helps him to return to his family. Pietro proposes to marry her, but her mother wants to prove that Miluzza is virgin before blessing the marriage of her son.
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L’assedio / Besieged (1998) Thandie Newton, David Thewlis, Claudio Santamaria, Bernardo Bertolucci

Besieged (1998)
When an African dictator jails her husband, Shandurai goes into exile in Italy, studying medicine and keeping house for Mr. Kinsky, an eccentric English pianist and composer. She lives in one room of his Roman palazzo. He besieges her with flowers, gifts, and music, declaring passionately that he loves her, would go to Africa with her, would do anything for her. “What do you know of Africa?,” she asks, then, in anguish, shouts, “Get my husband out of jail!” The rest of the film plays out the implications of this scene and leaves Shandurai with a choice.
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Submission of a Woman / Al calar della sera (1992) Alessandro Lucidi, Daniela Poggi, Gianluca Favilla, Paolo Lorimer

Al calar della sera (1992)
A woman seeks revenge against a depraved psychopath after surviving a harrowing sexual assault. Luisa and her husband Giorgio are preparing for a weekend retreat when their lives are turned upside down in the blink of an eye. Her husband savagely beaten while she and the babysitter watch in horror, Luisa discovers that her nightmare has just begun when the lecherous madman reveals his true intentions. At the end of the day Luisa is lucky to be alive. By the time she finishes with her attacker, he’ll wish he was never born.
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Hebi no michi / Serpent’s Path (1998) Shô Aikawa, Teruyuki Kagawa, Shiro Shitamoto, Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Hebi no michi AKA Serpent's Path (1998)
Serpent’s Path and its companion piece Eyes of the Spider (Kumo No Hitomi) both start from the same premise: a man taking revenge for the murder of a child. Kurosawa used this premise as the jumping-off point for the two films rather than their definition, resulting in a pair of works which are not so much occupied with revenge, but with the mental processes of human beings in situations that have placed them outside everyday life.
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