
Manu and Nadine lose their last tenuous relationship with main-stream society when Manu gets raped and Nadine sees her only friend being shot. After a chance encounter, they embark on an explosive journey of sex and murder. Perhaps as a revenge against men, perhaps as a revolt against bourgeois society, but certainly in a negation – almost joyful in its senseless violence – of all the codes of a society which has excluded, raped and humiliated them. Controversial for its violence and real sex scenes: a vividly nihilist road movie set in France.
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Author Archives: rarefilm
Anna Karenina (1948) Julien Duvivier, Vivien Leigh, Ralph Richardson, Kieron Moore, Drama, Romance

Stefan and Dolly Oblonsky have had a little spat and Stefan has asked his sister, Anna Karenina, to come down to Moscow to help mend the rift. Anna’s companion on the train from St. Petersburg is Countess Vronsky who is met at the Moscow station by her son. Col. Vronsky looks very dashing in his uniform and it’s love at first sight when he looks at Anna and their eyes meet. Back in St. Petersburg they keep running into each other at parties. Since she has a husband and small son, they must be very discreet if they are going to see each other alone.
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Der Himmel über Berlin / Wings of Desire (1987) Wim Wenders, Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander, Drama, Fantasy, Romance

Visible only to those like them and to human children, Damiel and Cassiel are two angels, who have existed even before humankind. Along with several other angels, they currently wander around West Berlin, generally on their own, observing and preserving life, sometimes trying to provide comfort to the troubled, although those efforts are not always successful. Among those they are currently observing are: the cast and crew of a movie – a detective story set in WWII Nazi Germany – which include a sensitive and perceptive Peter Falk; an elderly man named Homer looking for eternal peace; and the troupe of a financially failing circus, which has closed early for the season because of those financial problems. One day, Damiel tells Cassiel that he wants to become human, to feel not only the sensory aspects of physical beings, but also emotional aspects. He embarks on this thought with the full realization that there is no turning back if he decides to do so. His thoughts are largely …
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Dracula (1958) Terence Fisher, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, Fantasy, Horror

On a search for his missing friend Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen), vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) is led to Count Dracula’s (Christopher Lee) castle. Upon arriving, Van Helsing finds an undead Harker in Dracula’s crypt and discovers that the count’s next target is Harker’s ailing fiancée, Lucy Holmwood (Carol Marsh). With the help of her brother, Arthur (Michael Gough), Van Helsing struggles to protect Lucy and put an end to Count Dracula’s parasitic reign of terror.
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Full Circle / The Haunting of Julia (1977) Richard Loncraine, Mia Farrow, Keir Dullea, Tom Conti, Drama, Horror, Mystery

After the sudden accidental death of her small daughter, Julia Lofting, a wealthy American woman living in London, bolts her unhappy marriage and buys a house in Kensington which is haunted by the ghost of a quite obscenely nasty little girl who died in the 1950s and plans to use Julia as her pawn in a terrible revenge.
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Embrace of the Serpent / El abrazo de la serpiente (2016) Ciro Guerra, Nilbio Torres, Jan Bijvoet, Antonio Bolivar, Adventure, Biography, Drama

The epic story of the first contact, encounter, approach, betrayal and, eventually, life-transcending friendship, between Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman, last survivor of his people, and two scientists that, over the course of 40 years, travel through the Amazon in search of a sacred plant that can heal them. Inspired by the journals of the first explorers of the Colombian Amazon, Theodor Koch-Grunberg and Richard Evans Schultes.
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O diaheiristis / The Building Manager (2009) Periklis Hoursoglou, Evangelia Adreadaki, Efstathia Tsapareli, Drama, Comedy

The story of 50-something Pavlos unfolds in an unspecified modern-day Greek city, portraying the man’s midlife crisis with a light and gently ironic tone. Pavlos takes over custodial duties from his aging mother and immediately has to deal with a disaster involving a sewage pipe. The fix-it job becomes complicated and creates an apt parallel to Pavlos’s increasingly complicated personal circumstances. At heart Pavlos is gracious and kind, and he tries to be a good husband, son, and building manager. But the ensuing state of affairs turns him into a morose and angry man whose nerves sometimes snap. Will Pavlos succeed in fixing the broken sewage pipe before he can fix his own “broken” life? Director and screenwriter Periklis Hoursoglou, who plays the lead role, has shot a drama with comic touches and gentle socio-critical accents. Hoursoglou succeeds in creating a faithful, entertaining, and even touching portrait of “ordinary” interpersonal relations.
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Witchcraft / Myrkrahöfðinginn (1999) Hrafn Gunnlaugsson, Hilmir Snær Guðnason, Hallgrímur H. Helgason, Stefan Jorgen, Drama

The young and fanatical Jon is appointed pastor to a remote church in 17th century Iceland. As is custom, he marries the widow of his predecessor, a woman much older than he is. He is ardent in his fight against Satan, and the villagers don’t dare to question his authority. When he falls for a beautiful young woman, Jon is convinced witchcraft is at work, and his crusade leads to cruel executions of innocent people. The stronger his lust, the deeper his madness drives him in his religious fervor.
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Beyond Tomorrow (1940) A. Edward Sutherland, Harry Carey, C. Aubrey Smith, Charles Winninger, Drama, Fantasy, Romance

Harry Carey Sr., C. Aubrey Smith and Charles Winninger play three wealthy bachelors who have spent their lives wrapped up in themselves. Read More »
L’avventuriera del piano di sopra / The Lady Upstairs (1941) Raffaello Matarazzo, Vittorio De Sica, Clara Calamai, Giuditta Rissone, Comedy

Misadventures of a young lawyer who, left alone at home for the departure of the jealous wife, is having to help a lady living in a top floor apartment, who asks him to host her to save her from the wrath of her husband. The young man offers his bed to the lady, content to sleep on the couch. The next morning, upon awakening, the lady is already gone, but at the same time is also missing a precious necklace of great value.
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