
An English mother and teenage son spend a week in the South of France breaking up a summer home that has become one of the casualties of the boy’s parents’ crumbling marriage. Matters only become more complicated when an enigmatic local boy enters their lives.
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Author Archives: rarefilm
Mentiras y gordas / Sex, Party and Lies (2009) Alfonso Albacete, David Menkes, Mario Casas, Ana de Armas, Yon González, Comedy, Drama

A youth group is preparing for what the summer of their lives will be, including secrets, lies, pickups, sex, confusion, and especially great night party. Most teenagers are not aware that once you begin this journey of initiation, you can not turn back, and often the lies will become increasingly large, and sometimes love means to hurt.
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The Monster and the Girl (1941) Stuart Heisler, Ellen Drew, Robert Paige, Paul Lukas, Crime, Drama, Horror

Scot Webster tries to save his sister Susan from the clutches of gangster W.S. Bruhl. When Scot comes to Bruhl’s rented room, one of the gangster’s henchmen collapses into his hands, killed by a gunman. The murderer tosses his gun to Scot and disappears. Since all the evidence points at him, Scot is arrested, tried and sentenced to death. A mad scientist uses his brain to transplant it into a gorilla. After the operation Scot wakes up in the body of a gorilla, eager to get his revenge…
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La persona de Leo N. / The Person de Leo N. (2005) Alberto Vendemmiati, Documentary

As a twelve-year-old boy, Nicola de Leo already knew she wanted to become a woman. Today, the now forty-year-old transsexual lives in Venice and has changed her name to Nicole. She has undergone a hormone treatment and grown breasts, but she still lives inside the body of a middle-aged man, including a penis, a beard and a substantial Adam’s apple. This is why Nicole is applying for a sex change through official channels. ‘I never thought it would be so hard. I thought making the decision was enough,’ she says. During five tense years, Nicole fights her emotional and physical struggle in the presence of director Alberto Vendemmiati’s camera. Working as an actress, a seller of carnival masks and a prostitute, she finances her cosmetic treatments and looks forward to the subsidised sex change operation. Meanwhile, she turns to her elderly mother for support, who has a hard time accepting that her son will soon be a daughter.
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Les yeux clairs / Pale eyes (2005) Jérôme Bonnell, Nathalie Boutefeu, Marc Citti, Judith Rémy, Drama

Fanny lives with her brother and his girlfriend in their long time dead parents’ house. Fanny needs some medication so that her behaviour doesn’t bring too much tension to herself and to closed ones.
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Les Gants blancs / The White Gloves (2014) Louise Traon, Luís Miguel Cintra, Documentary

Louise Traon never films Manoel De Oliveira directly. Instead, she chooses to avoid him, skirt round him, skim past him and keep her distance, yet all the while drawing close to the art of cinema itself, homing in on its very essence. Her film tells the story of a girl who grew up with the images of an old gentleman, and who now wants to show her own images. This touching self-portrait gives insight into a man who appears to have lived many lives, showing his work through a remarkable link with time.
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Far North (2007) Asif Kapadia, Michelle Yeoh, Michelle Krusiec, Sean Bean, Crime, Drama, Romance

In an indefinite time somewhere in the Arctic with Soviet soldiers, the nomads Saiva and her stepdaughter Anja are permanently moving seeking a safe place in the arctic tundra. They camp in a remote area far north where Saiva believes they will be safe and survive fishing and hunting reindeer and small animals. Their lives change when Saiva finds Loki, a frozen stranger that is dying in the ice. Saiva brings him to their tent and recalls when she met her boyfriend and his tribe; how soviet soldiers have slaughtered them and raped her; and how she rescued Anja and killed the aggressors. When Loki is recovered, he and Anja fall in love with each other, affecting her relationship with Anja.
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Yoyo (1965) Pierre Étaix, Claudine Auger, Philippe Dionnet, Comedy, Drama, Family

A man has everything: dozens of servants, a palace, vast woods, gardens, a lake, mechanical toys, private entertainment troupes of musicians and dancers. He has it all – but love. When alone, he sits at a desk, sighing, and looking at a photograph of a pretty girl. One day, the circus descended onto his palace, and amidst all the fun it brought, he recognized the Amazon on the white horse – the girl in the photograph. The girl is now the mother of a small boy, Yo-Yo, whom she considers that looks like the millionaire, even under a clown’s make-up. The boy will spend some time in the palace, in awe of so much riches, but he will leave (in a dream-like scene) on the tusks of the elephant. Time passes – and one day Yo-Yo will be the owner of his father’s palace in decay. Starting from scratch, he will rebuilt it, and be praised as a great clown, an artist, a film-maker, a millionaire.
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The Messiah (2007) Nader Talebzadeh, Drama

The story of Jesus Christ told from an Islamic perspective.
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Electroma (2006) Thomas Bangalter, Guy-Manuel De Homem-Christo, Peter Hurteau, Michael Reich, Helena Stoddard, Drama, Sci-Fi

Daft Punk’s Electroma is an odyssey of two robots who journey across a mythic American landscape of haunting, surreal beauty on a quest to become human. Their symbolic quest, which takes them from endless two lane highways to small idyllic towns to the arid desert, finds Daft Punk once again resisting conformity and developing new ways to highlight their inventive vision. A silent feature-length film that made its international debut at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, Electroma will interest Daft Punk fans and film enthusiasts alike. With its breathtaking cinematography, innovative filming techniques, and above all its underlying search for humanity within a dystopian environment, Daft Punk have delivered a film that finds a common thread with their previous work while exploring new horizons as directors of their first feature film.
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