
Frenchman Abel Tiffauges loves kids, and would like to protect them against the grown-ups. Read More »
Tag Archives: Volker Schlöndorff
Die Fälschung / Circle of Deceit (1981) Volker Schlöndorff, Bruno Ganz, Hanna Schygulla, Jean Carmet, Drama, War

Laschen, a German journalist, travels to the city of Beirut during the fights between Christians and Palestinians to produce an essay about the situation. Read More »
Homo faber / Voyager (1991) Volker Schlöndorff, Sam Shepard, Julie Delpy, Barbara Sukowa, Drama, Romance, Art-house

Having recently survived a plane crash, American engineer Walter Faber (Sam Shepard) decides to forgo flying and cross the Atlantic Ocean via ship. Read More »
The Handmaid’s Tale (1990) Volker Schlöndorff, Natasha Richardson, Faye Dunaway, Aidan Quinn, Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi

Set in a Fascistic future America, The Handmaid’s Tale tells the story of Kate, a handmaid. In this America, the religious right has taken over and gone hog-wild. Read More »
Die Blechtrommel / The Tin Drum (1979) Volker Schlöndorff, David Bennent, Mario Adorf, Angela Winkler, Drama, War

Danzig in the 1920s/1930s. Oskar Matzerath, son of a local dealer, is a most unusual boy. Equipped with full intellect right from his birth he decides at his third birthday not to grow up as he sees the crazy world around him at the eve of World War II. So he refuses the society and his tin drum symbolizes his protest against the middle-class mentality of his family and neighborhood, which stand for all passive people in Nazi Germany at that time. However, (almost) nobody listens to him, so the catastrophe goes on…
Read More »
Death of a Salesman / Mort d’un Commis Voyageur (1985) Volker Schlöndorff, Dustin Hoffman, Kate Reid, John Malkovich, Drama

Willy Loman, a salesman based in New York City, returns home from a trip to Yonkers where his sons, Biff and Happy, and his wife, Linda, greet him. Biff, who had been working on a farm in Texas, talks to Happy about working outside, and how this house brings back bad memories, and boxes him in. Willy goes outside and flashes back to Biff’s childhood: Biff is the star quarterback of his high school football team, and the Lomans’ neighbor, Bernard, advises him to study math, but Biff and Happy ignore him and carry on playing football. Later on in the flashback, Willy goes inside, where Linda talks to him about their budget. Willy is reminded of an encounter he had with The Woman, during which he gave her some red silk stockings, with lettering along the sides that said “scarlet’s dream”, and when he returns from the flashback, he sees Linda mending some stockings and snatches them away in guilt. Later, he and Charley engage in a card game (casino), during which Willy is reminded of his brother Ben. Ben begins a dialogue with him, and Willy contemplates why he
can’t become successful.
Read More »
Baal (1970) Volker Schlöndorff, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Sigi Graue, Margarethe von Trotta, Drama

Baal explores the cult of the genius, an anti-heroic figure who chooses to be a social outcast and live on the fringe of bourgeois morality.
Read More »
Swann In Love / Un amour de Swann (1984) Volker Schlöndorff, Jeremy Irons, Ornella Muti, Alain Delon, Drama, Romance

Elegant and educated bachelor, Charles Swann, moves in the most powerful and fashionable circles of Paris in the 1890’s. When he falls in love with Odette de Crecy, a courtesan, his friends warn him against marriage. Proving himself a silly and socially-foul goose, Swann ducks his social responsibilities, Odette ensnares him, and he is gently but firmly cast out of society amidst everyone’s great politeness.
Read More »