FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE The Naked Island 

During the production of The Naked Island, Kaneto Shindô was on the verge of bankruptcy and must have thought that under these circumstances he could just as well make a pure film without any commercial ambitions. This is exactly what would later save his entire company. We find ourselves on a barren island. A family takes centre stage. Every step on the island is a hardship. Even the simplest tasks there are a dangerous struggle. Then the sons catch a fish and hope to sell it for some extra money. But trader after trader refuses. The father emphasises how hard life is. Every drop of water that falls on the stones of the island evaporates immediately. This is everyday life before something really catastrophic happens... The Naked Island is a beautiful film. Not just visually. The soul of this film is beautiful! If you know a bit about Ozu's dramas, you'll find a lot of them in The Naked Island. The clash between tradition and modernity. Western culture meets Eastern culture and centuries-old traditions are overturned just like that. We experience all of this in The Naked Island and yet it is not a film about its time. It is a universal film for any time.

The Best Christmas Movies Of All Times 

The obese boy gives Santa Claus a carved pickle. Santa Claus complains that it is not green. Bad Santa (Billy Bob Thornton) is a professional burglar and alcoholic. He suffers from depression and seems to end up. The boy, on the other hand, is not one of the cute kids you are used to seeing in Hollywood movies, but an annoying stalker. Then there's the dwarf who has been cracking safes with Santa for years, but is now annoyed by his constantly drunk partner. Like every year they strike on Christmas Eve, disguised as Santa Claus with his elf - but this year Santa Claus is particularly drunk. Terry Zwigoff's Christmas comedy (produced by the Coen brothers) looks like an insane, twisted comic - and we don't have to worry about a conventional happy ending. Every unwritten law of American mainstream cinema (which, for example, prescribes how an initially puking Santa Claus would be purged in the course of the story) - Twigoff's film tramples it underfoot. Billy Bob Thornton is allowed to rage, tear a reindeer to pieces and do it with a woman who suffers from a Santa Claus fetish. Bad Santa isn't only successful because he's different and bizarre, but also because he's funny until the end! Santa Claus (in real life Willy) and the elf (whose real name is Marcus) use the same trick every year. As a Christmas duo they get into shopping malls to break into them. But this year the security boss has his eye on the two of them... Willy is also distracted by his new girlfriend with the Santa fetish. Then there is the lonely fat boy who promises Willy on the head that he is not Santa (but still follows him on his foot from now on). The boy's parents are not present and that makes him unhappy. Probably this is his childhood. The desperate child and the drunken Santa Claus: Imagine families who accidentally end up in this film - frightening children and horrified parents! But what if these families didn't let themselves be shocked, but simply enjoy Santa Claus because it's a successful black comedy?

CINEGEEK.DE Mindgame Movies II 

One of the characters in Sex And Lucia is writing a novel. What he writes also happens to him. Or he imagines it would happen. Him and his girlfriend Lucia. Or both are only in the novel. In any case, we - the audience - soon know connections that the characters on the screen don't even suspect. Additional connections are created because the actor (who embodies the novel author) plays two roles. One is real. And the other, too, I think. You notice that it is simply impossible to summarize such a plot here. Especially since I'm not sure I understood it at all. Is it possible to understand Sex And Lucia completely at all? Or is confusion simply part of the concept? Once Julio Medem staged a film that resembled a palindrome. The plot begins at both ends and meets in the middle. Consequently, its protagonists were Ana and Otto. Medem likes to play with our minds and can do that well. But he is not a boaster. Because it's about more than mere showmanship. And here the plot comes in very rough form: Lucia (Pax Vega), a waitress, receives a phone call which makes her believe that her lover Lorenzo (Tristan Ulloa) has died in an accident. She desperately drives to an island whose surface appears almost white, but under which there are shallows - caves. There Lucia meets the (naked) diver Carlos (Daniel Freire). He offers her a guesthouse near Elena (Najwa Nimri). In the prologue we learned that Elena is the mother of Lorenzo's daughter. Back then, during a magical night, Elena slept with Lorenzo. They never exchanged their names. They never saw each other again afterwards. Six years later Lucia meets Lorenzo. She tells him that she has read his novel. Lucia confesses to Lorenzo that she has fallen in love with him. Now the sex begins - and there are indeed explicit, great sex scenes (which even seem charming!). But then Lorenzo can't finish his second novel. Basically, his second novel is about Lorenzo finding out where his child is. He visits the child who is cared for by the sexy Belen (Elena Anaya). And now attention! There is a dream sequence that is crucial for the film. Look closely! However: Do these scenes only exist in the novel? And is Elena possibly on the island? On the other side? The characters appear in different combinations. Like in a triangle. And they don't know anything about each other. For example, Carlos, the diver, is also Antonio, Belen's mother's friend. So much for the plot. The pictures resemble those of sex films from the 70s. With a lot of nudity and passionate sex! A real adult film. And through the absurd plot the characters are freed, so that we can concentrate much better on them. Sounds crazy, but that's how it is. Until the end there will be so many alternatives in the plot that it would be unnecessary to commit to one. Sex And Lucia is a movie with a hole in the middle. Just like the island. And then it starts all over again. The single parts work, though. The characters anyway, especially Lucia. We like her and we admire how she deals with her grief. Lucia is for me one of the most sympathetic canvas figures ever! Everything around her is light. 

FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Who's Singing Over There 

Here comes one of the films that were most requested by you at the Filmkunstbar Fitzcarraldo. On DVD unfortunately difficult to obtain, but a former employee regularly travels to Belgrade and tries on site. Who's Singing Over There (the film by bus) also runs in good quality with English subtitles on youtube. A drunk with a Slibowitz bottle claims the bus driver could drive this route blind. The guests protest not to provoke him! Bets are accepted. He ties a cloth around his eyes and his bus swings down to a pole. Everything falls and staggers, under and over. Then the provocateur with the Slibowitz bottle: "Did you know that he can drive two kilometres backwards?"... The atmosphere of Ko to tamo peva is just as exuberant and over-excited - and in 1941 we are in the Yugoslavian hinterland. There are no roads here. But passengers who act as a cross section of their time: Lovers, policemen, eccentrics, politicians, a hunter with a shotgun... (every character is embodied by real Yugoslavian movie stars!). Something happens again and again that stops the bus. Whether it's a burst tire or a fluttering bridge. But suddenly: A bomb from the Nazi Germans hits. All passengers except one gypsy couple die. The black comedy by Slobodan Sijan was shot in a very short time and on a correspondingly tight budget. In 1980, the year Tito died. A film from Europe? More likely from another universe!