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German cinema is booming, and rarely have themes such as identity and German history been explored so frequently! And it is above all female filmmakers such as Valeska Grisebach, Jenny Erpenbeck and Mascha Schilinski who have been instrumental in the success of recent years.
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There are backwoods sheriffs, mechanics, remote cabins and - most importantly! - cars. The characters, of course, serve neither purpose nor meaning in U-Turn. Take Sean Penn's Bobby, who is missing two fingers and is dogged by bad luck. When he leads his Mustang into town from Ariz, he meets the loathsome Darrell (Billy Bob Thornton). A mechanic from the backwoods. Full of inbreeding, of course. And while the vile Darrell is wrenching on the Mustang, Bobby goes to town, where everyone is evil and cruel. and narrow-minded and hateful and over-sexualized. In short, the city is hell. He quickly meets the feisty Grace (Jennifer Lopez), who invites him home (so he can fix her curtains). Already, husband Jake (Nick Nolte) storms in with bloodshot eyes. The obligatory argument ensues before Jake asks Bobby to do a contract killing on Grace.... U-Turn spins on and on, offering great actors and mannered images popular in the 90s. As befits a good B-movie, we quickly discover that the characters are not driven by their character, but serve the plot alone. U-Turn is a comic in this sense.
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British humour is baffling to us, yet it works with compelling logic: you put a few characters in a series of situations and ask yourself: how might they really have reacted? Take *Life of Brian*: what would have happened during a typical pre-Christian stoning? What if Pontius Pilate had had a lisp?
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Where are the limits of the good or on New-German of the do-gooder? That's the test arrangement of Anders Thomas Jensen's Adam's Apples (which, by the way, ranks third in our list of the most rented DVDs in our video store!!!). At least on the surface. Performance by the neo-Nazi Adam (Ulrich Thomsen), who just got out of prison and was assigned to the local priest for his rehabilitation. You can't expect much from Adam, who exchanges the crucifix in his sleeping chamber for a portrait of Adolf Hitler. In his file he is described as EVIL in capital letters. But I don't think that the priest Ivan (Mads Mikkelsen) even accepts this term EVIL. In Ivan's world there is only GOOD. A pathological optimist. For the priest it is clear that Adam needs a goal in life. That's why he gives him the first task: Adam is to bake an apple pie and pick the apples from the tree in front of the church. But this apple tree is first attacked by crows, then gnawed up by worms and finally struck by lightning. A sign from God?
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There was no Nouvelle Vague in Spain after the Second World War. On the contrary, Spanish cinema was virtually non-existent during the Franco dictatorship. After Franco’s death and the end of his regime, it was all about La movida madrilena – across every cultural sphere! Cinema flourished, discovering eccentrics and madmen. To this day, it seems that the Spanish have not forgotten what life is like under a fascist dictatorship. Unlike other European countries, Spain has no extreme right-wing parties vying for power, and has been producing excellent films for many decades.
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Takashi Mike's beautiful film is about real wonders and finding yourself in one of the strangest places in the world: where people can fly. Where life was spared from the intervention of modernity. The Japanese sales representative Wada (Masahiro Motoki) is to travel to China on behalf of a colleague. The destination of his journey are jade deposits in a small village - somewhere in the hinterland of China. The guide Shen (Mako) agrees to escort Wada there, but there is another companion; the violent Yakuza Ujiie (Renji Ishibashi). He pursues Wada because his company borrowed money from the Mafia and demands his share of the find. The three undertake a wondrous journey through the mountains of China. The best idea is to move around in a raft pulled by turtles. However, the original mission falls behind after legend has it that there is a village of flying people in the province. It was the grandfather of the beautiful Yan Si-chang (Li Li Wang), who once flew free like a bird to the sky. He was also the one who built a school of flying for the children. Although there is no proof that the people there are actually flying, Wada and Ujiie are less and less able to escape the fascination of this place. Especially Ujiie seems to fly over this view, to change more and more... To the geeks among you, the work of Takashi Miike impresses above all because of his taboo breaks. When we put The Bird People In China on our video shelves, however, completely different customers were suddenly interested in Miike: those who liked "Arthaus" above all! The work of the tireless Miikes, comprising more than 70 films, no longer comprised exclusively controversial shockers. Miikes Road Movie offers visually stunning nature shots, a few laughs and a lot of fantasy! And even an unobtrusive love story! Freedom and self-discovery are the themes of The Bird People In China. The conflict between tradition and modernity. Miike philosophizes about the effects of modern life and technology on us. The complex questions are much more interesting than possible simple answers!
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Eraserhead plays in a grim, strange world. Probably in the post-apocalypse. At the center of the film is Henry Spencer (Jack Nance), who wears his hair as if he had just reached into the socket. One evening Henry returns to his shabby apartment to find out that he was invited to dinner by the parents of his girlfriend Mary X (Charlotte Stewart). The worst possible family scene! Mary's mother even lets Henry answer particularly unpleasant questions twice and licks his face after a certain point in time. The grandmother is sitting in the corner. Maybe she is already dead. The father boasts in a good mood that his left arm is deaf. The dinner consists of chickens, which secrete disgusting mass, one cuts into it. And Mary gave birth to a child! A premature birth. But nobody is sure if it is a baby at all? Anyway, the parents insist on a marriage. And what does the baby look like? Like a tormented exorcist worm that permanently segregates innards. A tortured creature that whines and moans. Mary flees and Henry remains alone with the worm. Driven by hallucinations, a prostitute appears to the young father. His baby screams and pukes purulent phlegm. In order to save himself, he is forced to do something terrible... Eraserhead - as we can read - was shot by David Lynch in stages over years. Nevertheless, the film is harmonious and in an uncanny way even beautiful. Eraserhead stubbornly resists any explanation. There is something like a narrative structure, but in the course of the events it is lost in avant-garde experiments. For me it was always important: I had something to hold on to. And that is increasingly losing itself. It's precisely this residual logic that I miss in so many experimental films.
