Stranger Than Paradise (1984)

Directed by
Jim Jarmusch

Written by
Jim Jarmusch

The film is a three-act story about self-identified "hipster" Willie (John Lurie), who lives in New York City, and his interactions with the two other main characters, Eva (Eszter Balint) and Eddie (Richard Edson).

In the first act, Willie's cousin Eva comes from Hungary to stay with him for ten days because Aunt Lotte, whom she will be staying with, will be in the hospital. Willie at first makes it clear that he does not want her there, but soon begins to enjoy her company. This becomes especially true when Eva steals food items from a grocery store and gets a TV dinner for Willie. He ends up buying her a dress, which she later discards. After ten days, Eva leaves, and Willie is clearly upset to see her go. Eddie, who had met Eva previously, sees her right before she goes.

The second act opens with a long take showing Willie and Eddie winning a large amount of money by cheating at a game of poker. Willie decides, because of all the money they now have, to leave the city. They decide to go to Cleveland to see Eva. However, when they get there they are just as bored as they were in New York. For example, they end up tagging along with Eva and a friend, Billy, to the movies. They eventually decide to go back to New York.

The final act begins with Willie and Eddie, on their way back to New York, deciding to go to Florida. They turn around and "rescue" Eva. The three of them get to Florida and get a room at a hotel. They end up losing all of their money on dog races. At this point, they decide to go back and bet on horse races. Willie refuses to let Eva come along, so she goes out on the beach for a walk. She ends up being mistaken by a drug dealer, and is given a large sum of money. She goes back to the hotel, leaves some of the money for Willie and Eddie, and writes them a note explaining that she is going to the airport, and then goes there. When she arrives, she discovers that the only flight to Europe left that day is to Budapest, which is where she originally came from. She decides to wait until the following day, and goes back to the hotel. Willie and Eddie end up winning all of their money back at the horse races. But when they get back, Eva is gone, and Willie reads her note and they go to the airport to stop her from leaving. When they get there, Willie is forced to buy a ticket to get on the plane to find Eva. However, he gets on right before the plane takes off, and ends up going on the flight to Budapest. The second to last shot shows Eddie outside watching the plane leave, and he realizes what has happened. The final shot shows Eva back at the hotel, returning to an empty room.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088184/

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)

AKA Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma

Directed by
Pier Paolo Pasolini        

Writing credits
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Sergio Citti
Pupi Avati

The film is set in the Republic of Salò, the Fascist-occupied portion of Italy in 1944. The story is in four segments loosely parallel to Dante's Inferno: the Anteinferno, the Circle of Manias, the Circle of Shit, and the Circle of Blood.

Four men of power, the Duke (Duc de Blangis), the Bishop, the Magistrate (Curval), and the President (apparently Durcet) agree to marry each other's daughters as the first step in a debauched ritual. With the aid of several collaborator young men, they kidnap eighteen young men and women (nine of each sex), and take them to a palace near Marzabotto. Accompanying them are four middle-aged prostitutes, also collaborators, whose function in the debauchery will be to recount erotically arousing stories for the men of power, and who, in turn, will sadistically exploit their victims.

The story depicts some of the many days at the palace, during which the four men of power devise increasingly abhorrent tortures and humiliations for their own pleasure. In the Anteinferno segment, the captures of some victims by the collaborators are shown, and, later, the four lords examining them. The Circle of Manias presents some of the stories in the first part of Sade's book, told by Mrs. Vaccari (Hélène Surgère). In the Circle of Shit, the passions escalate in intensity from mainly non-penetrative sex to coprophagia. A most infamous scene shows a young woman forced to eat the feces of the Duke; later, the other victims are presented a giant meal of human feces. The Circle of Blood starts with a black mass-like wedding between the guards and the men of power, after which the Bishop has sex with a male victim. The Bishop then leaves to examine the captives in their rooms, where they start systematically betraying each other: one girl is revealed to be hiding a photograph, two girls are shown to be having a secret sexual affair, and finally, a collaborator (Ezio Manni) and the black servant (Ines Pellegrini) are shot down after being found having sex. Toward the end, the remaining victims are murdered through methods like scalping, branding, tongue and eyes cut out as each libertine takes his turn to watch, as voyeur.

The film's final shot portrays the complacency, myopia, and desensitization of the masses: two young soldiers, who had witnessed and collaborated in all of the prior atrocities, dance a simple waltz together.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073650/

In the Realm of the Senses (1976)

AKA 愛のコリーダ 完全ノーカット版 / Ai no Korīda

Director:
Nagisa Ôshima

Writer:
Nagisa Ôshima

In 1936 Tokyo, Sada Abe (Matsuda) is a former prostitute who works as a maid in a hotel. The hotel's owner, Kichizo Ishida, molests her, and the two begin an intense affair that consists of sexual experiments, drinking, and various other indulgences. Ishida leaves his wife and family to pursue his affair with Abe. Abe becomes increasingly possessive and jealous of Ishida, and Ishida more eager to please her. Their mutual obsession escalates to the point where Ishida finds he is most excited by being strangled during lovemaking, and he is killed in this fashion. Abe then severs his penis and writes "Sada Kichi the two of us forever" in blood on his chest.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074102/

Floating Weeds (1959)

AKA Ukigusa

Director:
Yasujirô Ozu

Writers:
Kôgo Noda
Yasujirô Ozu

The film takes place during a hot summer in 1958 at a seaside town in the Inland Sea. A troupe of travelling theatre arrives by ship, headed by the troupe's lead actor and owner, Komajuro (Ganjiro Nakamura). The rest of the troupe goes around the town to promote their kabuki acts.

Komajuro visits his former mistress, Oyoshi, who runs a small eatery in the town. They have a grown-up son Kiyoshi, who now works at the post office as a mail clerk and is saving up to go to the university. However, he does not know who Komajuro is, thinking he is his uncle. Komajuro invites Kiyoshi to go fishing in the sea.

When Sumiko, the lead actress of the troupe and Komajuro's current mistress, learns that Komajuro is visiting his former mistress, she becomes jealous and makes a visit to Oyoshi's eatery, where Kiyoshi and Komajuro are playing a game of go. Komajuro chases her away before she can say anything destructive, then confronts her in the pouring rain. He tells her to get off her back from her son, and decides to break up with her. Sumiko calls Komajuro an ingrate, and cites examples when she has helped him out in the past.

Backstage one day, Sumiko offers Kayo, a pretty young actress from the same troupe, some money and asks her to seduce Kiyoshi. Although Kayo at first refuses, she gives in after Sumiko's insistence. She goes to Kiyoshi's post office to make him fall for her. However, after knowing Kiyoshi for some time, she falls for him and decides to tell Kiyoshi the truth. Kiyoshi says it does not matter how it all starts. The two then engage in a relationship which only later is found out by Komajuro.

Komajuro confronts Kayo, who tells him of Sumiko's setup, but only after asserting she now loves Kiyoshi and is not doing it for money. Komajuro has a violent confrontation with Sumiko, and refuses to listen to her plea for a reconciliation.

The manager of the troupe has absconded, and business is bad. Komajuro has no choice but to disband the troupe, and they have a last night together. Komajuro then goes to Oyoshi's place and tells her of his troupe's break-up. Oyoshi persuades him to tell Kiyoshi the truth about his parenthood and then stay together her place as a family. Komajuro agrees. When Kiyoshi later comes back with Kayo, Komajuro becomes so enraged to see them together that he beats both of them repeatedly, leading to a physical tussle between Kiyoshi and him. Oyoshi is forced to reveal to him the truth about his birth there, but Kiyoshi refuses to accept it and goes to his room upstairs. Taking in Kiyoshi's reaction, Komajuro decides to leave after all. Kayo wants to join him, but Komajuro asks her to stay to help Kiyoshi out. Kiyoshi later has a change of heart and goes downstairs to look for Komajuro, but his father has already left.

At the train station, Komajuro tries to light a cigarette but has no matches. Sumiko, who is sitting nearby, comes up and offers him a light. Sumiko asks where Komajuro is going, since she has now no place to go. The two reconcile and Sumiko decides to join Komajuro to start anew under another impresario at Kuwana. The last scene of the film shows Komajuro, tended by Sumiko, in a train heading for Kuwana.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053390/

Audition (1999)

AKA オーディション, Ōdishon

Directed by
Takashi Miike

Written by
Ryû Murakami (novel)
Daisuke Tengan (screenplay)

Shigeharu Aoyama (青山 重治 Aoyama Shigeharu) (Ryo Ishibashi), a middle-aged widower of seven years, is urged by his 17-year-old son, Shigehiko Aoyama (青山 重彦 Aoyama Shigehiko) (Tetsu Sawaki), to begin dating again. Aoyama is reluctant. His friend and colleague Yasuhisa Yoshikawa (吉川泰久 Yoshikawa Yasuhisa) (Jun Kunimura), a film producer, devises a mock casting audition in which young women would audition for the "part" of Aoyama's new wife. Aoyama tentatively agrees to the plan. He is immediately enchanted by Asami Yamazaki (山崎 麻美 Yamazaki Asami) (Eihi Shiina). In her audition, Asami says that she was a ballerina but had to give up dancing after an injury. Aoyama is attracted to her apparent emotional depth.

Yoshikawa says that he has a bad feeling about Asami. He cannot reach any of the references on her résumé, and her job history is sketchy. The music producer she claimed to work for is missing. Aoyama is so enthralled by her that he pursues the romance anyway.

She lives in an empty apartment, containing a sack and a telephone. For four days after the audition, she sits perfectly still in the middle of the floor next to the telephone, waiting for it to ring. When it finally does, the sack lurches across the room and makes gurgling sounds. When Asami answers the phone, she pretends to Aoyama that she never expected him to call.

After several dates, she agrees to accompany him to a seaside hotel. Asami reveals that she was abused as a child and shows burn scars on her body. A deeply moved Aoyama pledges his love, and they have sex. In the morning, Aoyama is awakened by a telephone call. It is the front desk inquiring if he will be checking out since his companion has left. Asami is nowhere to be found.

Aoyama tries to track her down using her résumé, but as Yoshikawa warned all of the contacts are dead ends. At the dance studio where she claimed to have trained, he finds only a man with prosthetic feet who shares the name of Asami's childhood abuser. The bar where she claimed to work has been abandoned for a year following the murder and dismemberment of the owner. A passer-by tells Aoyama that the police found three extra fingers, an extra ear, and an extra tongue when they recovered the body.

Meanwhile, Asami goes to Aoyama's house. She finds a photo of his late wife. Enraged, she drugs his liquor decanter and hides. Aoyama comes home, pours a drink, and begins feeling the effects of the drug.

A flashback sequence shows that the sack in Asami's apartment contains a man missing both feet, his tongue, one ear and three fingers on one hand. He crawls out of the sack and begs for food. Asami vomits into a dog dish and places it on the floor for the man. The man sticks his face in the bowl of vomit, and hungrily consumes it.

Aoyama collapses from the drug. Asami injects Aoyama with a paralysis agent that leaves his nerves alert. She tortures him with needles. She tells him that, just like everyone else in her life, he has failed to love her only. She cannot tolerate his feelings for anyone else, even his own son. She claims she is teaching him the meaning of needing someone. She tells him that, "Words create lies, pain can be trusted." She giggles as she cuts off his left foot with a wire saw.

Shigehiko returns home as Asami begins to cut off Aoyama's other foot, and they struggle. Aoyama has a dream that he is waking up after he and Asami made love, and that his ordeal was only a nightmare. He awakes from the dream to see his son still struggling with Asami. Shigehiko kicks her down a flight of stairs, breaking her neck. Aoyama tells his son to call the police. Aoyama stares at the dying figure of Asami. She mutters incoherently about her excitement on seeing him again. He remembers that in the dream, he comforted her by saying, "It's hard to forget about, but someday you'll feel that life is wonderful."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0235198/

The Adventure (1960)

AKA L'avventura

Directed by
Michelangelo Antonioni        

Writing credits
Michelangelo Antonioni
Elio Bartolini
Tonino Guerra

L'Avventura has a narrative structure in which an apparently important central mystery is gradually forgotten and left unsolved.

The story begins as two young women, Anna (Lea Massari) and Claudia (Monica Vitti), meet for a yacht trip. After picking up Anna's lover Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti), the three join two wealthy couples from Rome on the boat and visit "Lisca Bianca," an almost unpopulated volcanic island off the coast of Sicily, where Anna shows her boredom and unhappiness with the sometimes childish Sandro. After napping on the rocks, they awaken to find that Anna has gone without a trace. Annoyed at first, then worried, they search for her, helped by Anna's diplomat father who soon comes to the island with a police ship and helicopter.

Within a few days, they drift back to their lives as the story shifts to a new and somewhat stormy relationship between Sandro and Claudia who is at once happy and wracked with guilt over her missing best friend. On the rooftop of a cathedral, Sandro asks Claudia to marry him, but she is too startled by this to answer in a meaningful way. The two then check into a swank resort hotel near Messina where Sandro's business partner is staying. While Claudia goes to bed, Sandro stays up and wanders among the partying guests. Claudia spends a sleepless night waiting for him to come back to their room and as dawn breaks frantically searches for Sandro throughout the deserted public spaces of the hotel, only to find him on a couch with a costly call girl. Claudia flees them both and breaks down into tears on a vista overlooking the sea. Sandro, seemingly disgusted with himself, catches up to her.

The last scene, which has no dialogue, starkly shows Sandro's almost hopeless weakness and emptiness as he sits in tears before a blank, scarred wall. Claudia stands steadfastly beside him, while Mount Etna broods behind her as if ready to erupt.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053619/

Ecstasy of the Angels (1972)

AKA 天使の恍惚 / Tenshi no kôkotsu

Director:
Kôji Wakamatsu

Writer:
Masao Adachi

A group of militant extremists whom we know only by their code names - the days of the week - realize that they've been betrayed by their own organization when a nocturnal weapons raid on a U.S. Army base goes awry. The delicate internal balance of trust and friendship splinters apart. Their already fragile, idealistic young psyches quickly disintegrate into a morass of sexual paranoia, violent recrimination and sadistic torture that completely destroys their ability to function as an organization.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069358/