
When former POW, Paolo, returns from India to his middle-class home in Rome at the end of the war, he is relieved to find his wife, Patrizia, and young son alive, managing to get by thanks to Patrizia’s business in lampshades. They also enjoy the moral support of the jovial, elderly Neapolitan widower, who is their new neighbour, Il professore. However disaster strikes when Patrizia commits a murder – her response to a mysterious man’s attempt to blackmail her to have sex with him. Paolo discovers that during his absence, in the face of their son’s desperate need for a life-saving operation, Patrizia prostituted herself once to the murdered man to raise the funds, a sequence revealed through a flashback sequence…
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Monthly Archives: July 2015
Bes vakit / Times and Winds (2006) Reha Erdem, Ozen Ozkan, Ali Bey Kayali, Elit Iscan

A small, poor village leaning over high rocky mountains, facing the immense sea, flanked by olive yards. Villagers are simple and diligent people who struggle to cope with a harsh nature. They earn their living, on a daily survival basis, out of the earth and of a few animals they feed. Just like the animals and trees around them, they have the knowledge of their temporary existence, hence a sober resignation prevails. They live according to the rhythm of the earth, air and water, day and night and seasons. The daily time is divided into five parts by the sound of the call to prayer. Every day, all human events are lived through within these five time slices. In child raising, grownups go on with the practice they have experienced by their parents. They expose their love awkwardly and consider beating a favorable method. Fathers always prefer one of their sons. Mothers command their daughters ruthlessly. Ömer, Yakup and Yildiz, three children of about 12,13 years old, just between …
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Le milieu du monde / The Middle of the World (1974) Alain Tanner, Olimpia Carlisi, Philippe Léotard, Juliet Berto

Paul is married, a successful engineer, and a conservative candidate in an upcoming local election. He falls in love with Adriana, a café waitress from Italy. Paul’s party is very critical of foreign labour and wants to keep Switzerland to the Swiss. Where Paul falls deeper and deeper into the relationship and is ready to leave his wife, Adriana feels the social pressure growing and has to make her own decision.
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Bad Ronald (1974) Buzz Kulik, Scott Jacoby, Pippa Scott, John Larch

A shy teenager accidentally kills a mocking peer, and his mother helps him hide in a spare room in their house. Problems arise when the mother goes for an operation and dies, and the house is sold to a new family, with the teen still living inside.
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Sous les toits de Paris / Under the Roofs of Paris (1930) René Clair, Albert Préjean, Pola Illéry, Edmond T. Gréville

While singing in a lower class quarter in Paris, the street singer Albert falls in love with the Romanian party girl Pola, who is the companion of the gangster Fred. One night, Albert meets with Pola, who has just found that Fred had stolen her key, and his friend Louis proposes to toss to date her. However, Albert brings her to his room and they spend the night together, with Albert sleeping on the floor and Pola on his bed. Early in the morning, the pickpocket Émile brings a bag with stolen pieces and asks Albert to keep the bag for him. When the police busts Albert’s room and finds the stolen goods, he is arrested and sent to jail. Meanwhile Fred travels and Pola seeks comfort with Louis, and they stay together. When Émile is arrested by the police, he confesses that Albert is innocent and he is released and seeks out Pola. Meanwhile Fred returns to Paris and also seeks out Pola that is with Louis.
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As Young as You Feel (1951) Harmon Jones, Monty Woolley, Thelma Ritter, David Wayne

When a gentleman (Monty Woolley) is forced to retire at age 65, he’ll do just about anything to beat the system. Dying his hair black, he poses as the president of his former employer’s holding company. Suddenly free to air his views on everything from company policy to national economics, comic craziness ensues when he meets not only the firm’s top executives, but someone equally impressive – a beautiful secretary, played by Marilyn Monroe, in one of her first and funniest roles.
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Homo Eroticus / Man of the Year (1971) Marco Vicario, Rossana Podestà, Lando Buzzanca, Luciano Salce

Michele is a three-testicle, sexually insatiable man who goes around bedding all women in town (regardless of age), until one day things goes terribly wrong.
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Anna (1967) Pierre Koralnik, Anna Karina, Jean-Claude Brialy, Marianne Faithfull

Anna is a bizarre pop art/comedy/musical filled with bright vibrant colors, strange, hallucinatory scenes and some of the best songs Serge ever wrote. The story is about a man obsessively looking for a woman he saw in a photograph. A truly charming and entertaining movie that every Gainsbourg fan should see.
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Conspiracy of Hearts (1960) Ralph Thomas, Lilli Palmer, Sylvia Syms, Yvonne Mitchell

In wartime Italy nuns in a convent regularly smuggle Jewish children out of a nearby internment camp. The Italian army officer in charge suspects what may be going on but deliberately turns a blind eye. When the Germans take over the camp security the nuns’ activities become far more dangerous.
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Sennosc / Drowsiness (2008) Magdalena Piekorz, Malgorzata Kozuchowska, Michal Zebrowski, Rafal Mackowiak

The film focuses on the fate of three characters whose emotions are numb because of the blows of life and beings around them. None of them has the courage to change their lives, but their mutual encounter give them the chance to get out of this emotional drowsiness.
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