|
Foreign Films February 2020
|
|
|
|
|
Alphaville (French)
American secret agent Lemmy Caution is sent to the distant space city of the film's title where he must find a missing person and kill the inventor of fascist computer Alpha 60. Anna Karina and Akim Tamiroff co-star in this cockeyed fusion of science fiction with pulp characters and surrealist poetry. Godard's irreverent journey to the mysterious city remains one of the least conventional films of all time.
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Starring: Eddie Constantine, Anna Karina, Akim Tamiroff, Jean-Pierre Leaud
|
|
|
Boat is Full (German)
A ragtag band of exiles from Germany sneak into Switzerland seeking asylum. They are allowed to stay at an isolated inn as long as they pretend to be a family. In order to maintain this deception they must communicate with a young French-speaking boy, who cannot understand the rest of the German-speaking refugees. They must impress upon him the importance of remaining silent, or else their plan, and their lives, could fall apart.
Director: Markus Imhoof
Starring: Tina Engel, Hans Diehl, Curt Bois
|
|
|
An Elephant Sitting Still (Mandarin)
While protecting his friend from a school bully, sixteen-year-old Wei Bu pushes the bully down a staircase. He later learns that the bully is hospitalized, gravely injured. Wei's neighbor, 60-year-old Wang Jin, decides to join him as does Huang Ling, Wei's classmate. Together, they decide their only hope is to flee town. They board a bus to Manzhouli, where it is a rumored that a circus elephant is said to be sitting still, seeming oblivious to pain and tribulations of the world at large.
Director: Bo Hu
Starring: Yu Zhang, Yuchang Peng, Uvin Wang, Congxi Li
Quotes: "[Hu] has given us a triumph of bold sociopolitical critique and intimate human portraiture, and a reminder that you rarely encounter the one without the other." - Los Angeles Times
"An act of solemn, disciplined and passionate protest." - New York Times
"One of the great achievements of recent cinema." - The New Yorker
|
|
|
A Faithful Man (French)
Eight years after she left him for his best friend, journalist Abel gets back together with his recently widowed old flame Marianne. It seems to be a beautiful new beginning, but soon the hapless Abel finds himself embroiled in all sorts of drama: the come-ons of a wily Jeune femme, the machinations of Marianne's morbid young son, and some unsavory questions about what exactly happened to his girlfriend's first husband.
Director: Louis Garrel
Starring: Louis Garrel, Laetitia Casta, Lily-Rose Depp, Joseph Engel
|
|
|
The Ground Beneath My Feet (German)
Lola managers her personal life the same ruthless efficiency she uses to succeed in the business world. But when she receives the news that her older sister Conny has attempted suicide, Lola's secrets begin to unravel into the workplace. As she tries to do what's best for her sister without jeapardizing all she's worked hard for, Lola slowly finds her own grip on reality slipping away.
Director: Marie Kreutzer
Starring: Valerie Pachner, Pia Hierzegger, Mavie Hörbiger
Quotes: "This is crafty, first-rank filmaking" - New York Times
"[A] gem of a movie..It's as 21st century as portrayals get, and it's a knockout" - Los Angeles Times
|
|
|
Long Day's Journey into Night (Mandarin)
A noirish stunner about a lost soul on a quest to find a missing woman from his past. Following leads across Guizhou province, the man crosses paths with a series of colorful characters, among them a prickly hairdresser. When the search leads him to a dingy movie theater, the film launches into an hour-long, gravity-defying 3D sequence shot that plunges its protagonist, and viewers, into a dreamlike, labyrinthine cityscape.
Director: Bi Gan
Starring: Wei Tang, Jue Huang, Sylvia Chang, Lee Hong-Chi, Chen Yongzhong
|
|
|
Mom + Mom (Italian)
It is the story of two women who love each other and of their desire to have a child together. Karole and Ali still don't know that the enthusiasm of this first attempt will be followed by many vicissitudes, but when the desire becomes stronger than the pain and fatigue, miracles can happen. Based on the true story of the director.
Director: Karole Di Tommaso
Starring: Linda Caridi, Maria Roveran, Andrea Tagliaferri, Silvia Gallerano, Stefano Sabelli, Anna Bellato
|
|
|
Octav (Romanian)
An elderly man returns to his childhood villa in Romania with the intention of selling it. Arriving there after a decades-long absence, Octav wanders through the atmospheric house and undulating grounds that surround it, and is confronted and transformed by the memories of his youth.
Director: Serge Ioan Celebidachi
Starring: Marcel Iures, Andi Vasluianu, Dana Rogoz
|
|
|
Pain And Glory (Spanish)
A renowned film director in declining health reflects on his life.
Director: Pedro Almodovar
Starring: Antonio Banderas, Penelope Cruz, Asier Etxeandia, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Nora Navas, Julieta Serrano, Cesar Vicente, Asier Flores
Quotes: "It's one more example here of Almodóvar's ability to take pairs - not just people, but concepts (like, say, present and past, or pain and glory) - and happily join them." - Boston Globe
"Emotions and eye-popping colors tell the director's deeply personal story, with Antonio Banderas front and center." - Chicago Sun-Times
"'Pain and Glory' can be achingly sad, but its pleasures, rainbow hues and humor keep it (and you) aloft." - New York Times
|
|
|
Rojo (Spanish)
Set in Argentina during the Dirty War of the mid-seventies, on the eve of the nation's descent into a military dictatorship, Benjamín Naishtat's hypnotic neo-noir drama follows Claudio, a renowned lawyer living a seemingly picture-perfect life in a deceptively quiet provincial city. One night, a stranger starts insulting Claudio in a restaurant for no apparent reason. Later that night, the stranger intercepts Claudio and his wife Susana.
Director: Benjamin Naishtat
Starring: Dario Grandinetti, Andrea Frigerio, Alfredo Castro
|
|
|
The Simple Heist Series 2 (Swedish)
After pulling off a bank robbery in series one, series two sees Jenny and Cecilia tackle another classic heist: art theft. Where banks were the target in series one, their focus has now shifted to the rich tax-evading men earning big money at the taxpayers’ expense. This is Kalmar, Sweden’s local aristocracy, who play bridge at the gentlemen’s club and only watch out for each other.
Starring: Sissela Kyle, Lotta Tejle, Tomas von Bromssen
|
|
|
Too Late to Die Young (Spanish)
Chile 1990. At the end of Pinochet's dictatorship, a group of adolescents living in a commune attempt to make sense of their own burgeoning desires and tangled relationships while the adults prepare for the first New Year's Eve under the promise of democracy.
Director: Dominga Sotomayor Castillo
Starring: Demian Hernandez, Antar Machado, Magdalena Totoro
|
|
|
Mercer County Library System 2751 Brunswick Pike Lawrenceville, NJ 08648 Phone: (609) 882-9246 E-mail: nrsupprt@mcl.org |
|
|