Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress today.
https://memora8ilia.com/index.php/2022/12/14/kenneth-angers-scorpio-rising-was-added-to-the/
art film
❝ With Return of the Prodigal Son, [director Evald] Schorm’s apparent risk was not so much that he took his story so far over the edge of believability that he needed to apologize in advance to his audience, but almost precisely the opposite. His trenchant portrayal of the numbing effect of life in contemporary Czechoslovakia, and his lead character’s indifference to the rewards of success that his society offered, was simply too devastatingly accurate, and potentially contagious, if its message were allowed to disseminate without some form of official reprimand hanging over it. Perhaps it was Schorm himself who provided the dismissive foreword, in order to get the censors to back off a bit, after he saw the fate of Daisies and A Report on the Party and Guests when they were both mothballed by government officials immediately upon completion. ❞ *
Návrat ztraceného syna | celý film | Česká filmová klasika
https://memora8ilia.com/index.php/2022/07/08/navrat-ztraceneho-syna-cely-film-ceska-filmova/
The Conversation + Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? + Alphaville = Ucho (The Ear)
A tense, enthralling, and masterful depiction of the entwining of the personal and political as a part of life under a totalitarian regime. Ucho was filmed in 1969 in Czechslovakia and was unsurprisingly banned for 20 years, receiving its first wide release in 1990.
❝ The creation and suppression of The Ear were political events in themselves, and the film refers fearlessly to many taboo subjects of the Stalinist era: Party debauchery, anti-Semitic arrests, favoritism and corruption. But as courageous as is the film’s content, it should not overshadow [director Karel] Kachyňa’s innovative style. The film alternates scenes of the couple at home and flashbacks showing their increasingly sinister evening at the Party soiree. These flashbacks make extensive use of subjective camera from Ludvík’s viewpoint as he tries to find out why the minister he works for, Košara (né Karpeles — a Jewish name), has been arrested, and whether he himself might be next. ❞ *
https://memora8ilia.com/index.php/2022/05/15/the-conversation-whos-afraid-of-virginia-woolf/
Monos (2019)
Another example of the impressive cinematic talent coming out of Latin/South America. This one has touches of the usual suspects — Herzog, Jodorowsky — and, sure, a bit of Apocalypse Now and Lord of the Flies stirred in. But the familiar is wrapped in disarmingly new and fascinating perspectives. Monos comes with multi-layered messages built-in, the most present being how battles are often fought without any clear cause or aim to advantage those who do the fighting. All soldiers are often child soldiers in this regard. The cinematography is gorgeous and the Mica Levi score is used at a minimum for maximum impact. Stunning. *
‘People were dropping like flies’: why Monos was the decade’s most brutal film shoot
