Until you turn 30, you have the face God gave you. After that, you have the face you deserve.” The estranged musical comedy that is Gomes’ first feature film seeks to convince its protagonist, Francisco, of that saying/dogma; precisely, during his thirtieth birthday. Or maybe it’s the complete opposite, and that Francisco who dresses up as a cowboy for the school play at the school where he teaches the children he detests, seeks to convince A cara que mereces of the fatality of the little phrase. But Francisco is a trick: he knows he deserves his face and his body because of him being intolerable. And A cara que mereces, hunted hunter, becomes a claustrophobic film that seeks to run away from Francisco using cinephilia as a way of escape; boarding, as Mark Peranson has observed, to the heart of Rivette, to the train (of dreams) of the recent Godard and, finally, to an impossible (but well-deserved) version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
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Tag Archives: french subtitles
Os Imortais / The Imortals (2003) António-Pedro Vasconcelos, Joaquim de Almeida, Emmanuelle Seigner, Nicolau Breyner, Action, Crime, Drama
Every year, four ex-soldiers who call themselves “Os Imortais” (“The Immortals”), get together with four women to celebrate their war deeds and remember the old days, back in the war. On the summer of 1985, tired of their monotonous lives, they decide to rob a bank. Joaquim Malarranha, a chief inspector from the local police force who is about to retire, crosses their path and chooses to spend his last days of duty trying to solve the robbery. But as he carries on with his investigation, he discovers more than he could have ever imagined…
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Man Hunt / Chasse à l’Homme (1941) Fritz Lang, Walter Pidgeon, Joan Bennett, George Sanders, Drama, Thriller, War
On July 29, 1939, renowned British big game hunter Captain Alan Thorndike (Walter Pidgeon) slips through the forest undetected near the Berghof, Adolf Hitler’s residence near Berchtesgaden. Getting the dictator in his telescopic sight, he pulls the trigger on his unloaded rifle and gives a wave. He ponders a moment, then loads a live round, but is discovered at the last second by a guard, and the shot goes wild…
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Leila (1997) Dariush Mehrjui, Leila Hatami, Ali Mosaffa, Jamileh Sheikhi, Drama, Romance
Leila and Reza meet in a kind of celebration and fall for each other. Having discovered their love, they get married soon only to find out the infertility of Leila. That’s when Reza’s authoritative mother starts wheedling Leila to persuade Reza into second marriage for the sake of having a grandchild. Leila accepts at first but is unaware of her own strain threshold.
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L’Ora di Religione / Le Sourire de ma Mère (2002) Marco Bellocchio, Sergio Castellitto, Jacqueline Lustig, Chiara Conti, Drama
Marco Bellocchio’s My Mother’s Smile was deemed blasphemous by the Roman Catholic Church for what the Church referred to as Bellocchio’s “systematic destruction of family and religious values.” Contrary to the Church’s presumptions about Bellocchio, My Mother’s Smile is a fascinating portrait of a man (Sergio Castellitto as Ernesto) who is forced to reconcile with his own atheism after receiving a shocking appeal from the Church requesting his participation in the canonization of his “saintly” mother.
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The Demon of Mount Oe / Ooe-yama Shuten-dôji (1960) Tokuzô Tanaka, Kazuo Hasegawa, Raizô Ichikawa, Shintarô Katsu, Fantasy, Horror
A demon-faced monster seeking revenge appears in the forms of a gigantic ox and a huge spider! The young Genji warrior protects the Fujiwara Clan and the beautiful lady in tragic love! A grand visual epic told with mesmerizing extravagance!
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The Great Flamarion (1945) Anthony Mann, Erich von Stroheim, Mary Beth Hughes, Dan Duryea, Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery
Flamarion, expert marksman, is entertaining people in a show which features Connie, beautiful woman and her husband Al. Flamarion and Connie fall in love and decide to get rid of the alcoholic husband.
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Quem És Tu? / Who Are You? (2001) João Botelho, Patrícia Guerreiro, Suzana Borges, Rui Morisson, Drama, History
Aged 13, Maria Noronha is an estremely pale and fragil girl, sick with tubercolosis. In order to alleviate her suffering, she gathers poppies from her garden, and at night puts them on the pillows on her bed. But the poppies have a devastating effect. Her deep sleep is disturbed by terrible ghosts and hallucinations: about the decadence of the Portuguese XVII century, the Jesuits’s power and the terrible Inquisition.
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Cheob-sok / The Contact (1997) Yun-hyeon Jang, Suk-kyu Han, Do-yeon Jeon, Sang-mi Choo, Romance
The male radio presenter Donghyun and the female TV home shopping phone operator Soohyun are both lonely. While Donghyun is focused on getting back to his ex-girl-friend Younghae who has sent him a special LP, Soohyun is crazy for her friend’s boy-friend. Via Internet and music Soohyun and Donghyun get together in a special way.
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Un été à la Goulette (1996) Férid Boughedir, Sonia Mankaï, Ava Cohen-Jonathan, Sarah Pariente, Comedy, Drama
In La Goulette, a small harbour town in the Tunis suburbs, Youssef, the Muslim, Jojo, the Tunisian Jew, and Giuseppe, the Sicilian Catholic, are as inseparable as their three 16-year-old daughters, Meriem, Gigi and Tina. In a fit of provocation the three girls all swear that they’ll lose their virginity on the day of the feast of the Madonna, each with a boy from a religion different to hers !…
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Monanieba / Repentance (1984) Tengiz Abuladze, Avtandil Makharadze, Ia Ninidze, Zeinab Botsvadze, Comedy, Drama
The villainous mayor of a small town in Georgia, Varlam (Avtandil Makharadze), responsible for Stalin-like terror in his megalomania, dies and is given a pompous burial. Problem arises when the attractive Guliko (Iya Ninidze), someone whose two daughters were persecuted by the mayor, keeps digging up his grave and placing it somewhere else. She is arrested after telling authorities Varlam has no business being buried with such honor. During her trial, the story of the evil mayor is told in flashback, using the power of symbols and surreal dream images to bring back the recollections of that nightmarish regime.
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Atlantic Rhapsody – 52 myndir úr Tórshavn (1990) Katrin Ottarsdóttir, Páll Danielsen, Erling Eysturoy, Elin Brimheim Heinesen, Comedy, Drama
Presents a day in the life of a few inhabitants of Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands: A father and his daughter are having breakfast when the fire-brigade drive by. A woman and her child are looking at the fire and meet a married couple. The couple say hello to a man who is going out with his boat… and so on.
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Liliom (1930) Frank Borzage, Charles Farrell, Rose Hobart, Estelle Taylor
Liliom, a merry-go-round barker at a Budapest amusement park, becomes enamored of Julie, a servant girl Read More »
Sea Wife (1957) Bob McNaught, Joan Collins, Richard Burton, Basil Sydney, Drama, Thriller, War
In 1942, a cargo ship jammed with British evacuees from Singapore is sunk by a Japanese sub. A small lifeboat carries a beautiful woman, an army officer, a bigoted administrator, and a black seaman. Only the seaman knows the woman is a nun. The men reveal their true selves under the hardships of survival. Told in a too-long flashback frame.
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Osobisty pamietnik grzesznika przez niego samego spisany / Memoirs of a Sinner (1986) Wojciech Has, Piotr Bajor, Maciej Kozlowski, Janusz Michalowski, Drama
The 18th century tale of a youngster whose memories, recounted after death, are a long series of wrong moral choices ending up with his killing his evil alter-ego, that is committing suicide.
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