The story of a private security contractor in Iraq who rejected the official explanation of his friend’s death and sets out to discover the truth.
Read More »
Tag Archives: Belgium
Zwartboek / Black Book (2006) Paul Verhoeven, Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman, Drama, Thriller, War
Israel 1956. Rachel, a Jew, rather unexpectedly meets an old friend at the kibbutz where she is working as a teacher. It brings back memories of her experiences in The Netherlands during the war, memories of betrayal. September 1944. Rachel is in trouble when her hiding place is bombed by allied troops. She gets in contact with a man from the resistance and joins a group of Jews who are to be smuggled across the Biesbosch by boat to the freed South Netherlands. Germans from a patrol boat murder them all however. Only Rachel is able to escape. She is rescued by a resistance group under the leadership of Gerben Kuipers. When Kuipers’ son is captured after trying to smuggle weapons, he asks Rachel to seduce SS-hauptsturmführer Ludwig Müntze. Soon she will find out the attack in the Biesbosch wasn’t a coincidence.
Read More »
Un soir, un train / One Night… a Train (1968) André Delvaux, Yves Montand, Anouk Aimée, Adriana Bogdan, Drama, Fantasy, Mystery
Mathias is a Belgian linguist, living with French theatre producer Anne. After a quarrel about moral questions, they take a train to attend a congress. While Mathias sleeps, Anne disappears. The train stops in the middle of the country and Mathias gets off the train with an older man, Hernhutter, and a young one, Val. The train moves off without them being able to catch it up. They will find a village, but cannot get any help because they do not understand a word of what the inhabitants say…
Read More »
Pasolini (2014) Abel Ferrara, Willem Dafoe, Maria de Medeiros, Riccardo Scamarcio, Biography, Drama
We are with Pasolini during the last hours of his life, as he talks with his beloved family and friends, writes, gives a brutally honest interview, shares a meal with Ninetto Davoli (Riccardo Scamarcio), and cruises for the roughest rough trade in his gun-metal gray Alfa Romeo. Over the course of the action, Pasolini’s life and his art (represented by scenes from his films, his novel-in-progress Petrolio, and his projected film Porno-Teo-Kolossal) are constantly refracted and intermingled to the point where they become one.
Read More »
Belle (1973) André Delvaux, Jean-Luc Bideau, Danièle Delorme, Adriana Bogdan, Drama
The line between fantasy and reality is once more blurred in this Belgian/French drama about a professor of literature who develops an obsession with a beautiful woman he meets (or imagines meeting) in the woods. He has an affair with this woman, but before he can run off with her, his daughter, who is an object of his incestuous desire (as several daydream sequences make clear), kills the stranger. Perhaps, though, his daughter only kills his daydreams when she gets married.
Read More »
Toto le héros / Toto the Hero (1991) Jaco Van Dormael, Michel Bouquet, Mireille Perrier, Jo De Backer, Comedy, Drama
Thomas and Alfred were born around the same time; a fire in the nursery had nurses scrambling to save the newborns. Because he felt that he deserved Alfred’s good fortune at being born into a wealthy family, Thomas conceives the idea that he and Alfred were switched at birth, and he can’t help seeing that his unhappiness should be Alfred’s, from the loss of his sister to his inability to have a relationship with the woman Evelyne. So, as his life is ending, he formulates a plan of revenge against his bitter enemy, his lifetime adversary, the man who stole his existence.
Read More »
Imaginary Heroes (2004) Dan Harris, Sigourney Weaver, Jeff Daniels, Emile Hirsch, Comedy, Drama
The Travis family façade is destroyed by an event incomprehensible to them — an event which will open locked doors and finally reveal the secrets that have haunted them for decades.
Read More »
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (1995) Marion Hänsel, Stephen Rea, Ling Chu, Adrian Brine, Drama
The film tells the story of a strange friendship between an adult, already on the return of his path of life, and a Chinese girl who just begins her path. Nikos is the radio operator of a merchant ship and has just arrived in Hong-Kong. He is tired and wants to forget his problems by smoking opium. Innocence and hope turns to him in the person of Li, a Chinese girl who lives in a Sampan (a houseboat) and has to clean boats and empty trash-cans to survive.
Read More »
Thomas est amoureux / Thomas in Love (2000) Pierre-Paul Renders, Benoît Verhaert, Aylin Yay, Magali Pinglaut, Comedy, Drama, Romance
Thomas is a young agoraphobic man; he’s afraid of coming to any kind of contact with other people, so he lives totally isolated in his apartment. The story takes place in the near future where everything can be done through computers, so Thomas hasn’t left his apartment for eight straight years. However, although his life seems complete, he misses human contact, so his psychoanalyst consults him to meet a woman through some on-line service. Is it possible for Thomas to fall in love with a woman? And if so, is he going to get out of his apartment for that woman?
Read More »
Vinyan (2008) Fabrice Du Welz, Emmanuelle Béart, Rufus Sewell, Petch Osathanugrah, Drama, Horror, Thriller
In Phuket Island, Thailand, the architect Paul Bellmer and his wife Jeanne lost their son Joshua in a tsunami six months ago. Jeanne is disturbed and has not accepted the loss of her beloved son. While watching some footages from Myanmar (former Burma), Jeanne is convinced that a boy wearing a Manchester United shirt in a poor village is Joshua, and Paul accepts to seek out their son in the sea gypsies camp. They hire the trafficker Thaksin Gao and they travel in the boat of master Sonchai to search Joshua. After a series of weird incidents, Sonchai leaves the trio in an abandoned village. They have to walk through the jungle where they face a journey to hell.
Read More »
Odette Toulemonde (2006) Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Catherine Frot, Albert Dupontel, Jacques Weber, Comedy, Drama
Odette dreams of thanking Balthazar Balsan, her favorite writer, for the optimism which she believes emanates from him. The wealthy and seductive writer is going to land in her life in a totally unexpected way. The story of a meeting between two unusual castaways who have nothing in common…
Read More »
Duska (2007) Jos Stelling, Sergey Makovetskiy, Gene Bervoets, Sylvia Hoeks, Drama
An older film critic’s life is interrupted by an unexpected visitor.
Read More »
L’amore nascosto / Hidden Love (2007) Alessandro Capone, Isabelle Huppert, Greta Scacchi, Mélanie Laurent, Drama
The secrets and hidden pain of a woman recovering from a suicide attempt reveal themselves through a series of sessions with her psychiatrist.
Read More »
Une liaison pornographique / An Affair of Love (1999) Frédéric Fonteyne, Nathalie Baye, Sergi López
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…
Read More »
Oorlogswinter / Winter in Wartime (2008) Martin Koolhoven
Near the end of World War II, 14-year-old Michiel becomes involved with the Resistance after coming to the aid of a wounded British soldier. With the conflict coming to an end, Michiel comes of age and learns of the stark difference between adventure fantasy and the ugly realities of war.
Read More »