Through a Glass Darkly (1961)

AKA Såsom i en spegel

Director:
Ingmar Bergman

Writer:
Ingmar Bergman

The story takes place during a twenty-four hour period while four family members vacation on a remote island, shortly after one of them, Karin (Harriet Andersson), who suffers from schizophrenia, was released from an asylum. Karin's husband Martin (Max von Sydow) tells her and Minus's father, David, that Karin's disease is almost incurable. Meanwhile, Minus tells Karin that he wishes he could have a real conversation with his father, and cries because he feels deprived of his father's affection. David (Gunnar Björnstrand) is a second-rate novelist who has just returned from a long trip abroad. He announces he will leave again in a month, though he promised he would stay. The others are upset, and David gives them bad, last-minute presents. He leaves them and sobs alone for a moment. When he returns, the others cheerfully announce that they too have a "surprise" for David; they perform a play for him that Minus has written. David takes offense (although approving on the outside) at the play, which can be interpreted as an attack on his character.

That night, after rejecting Martin’s erotic overtures, Karin wakes up and follows the sound of a foghorn to the attic. She faints after an episode in which she hears voices behind the peeling wallpaper. David, meanwhile, has stayed up all night working on his manuscript. Karin enters his room and tells him she can't sleep, and David tucks her in. Minus asks David to come with him out of the house, and David leaves. Karin looks through David's desk and finds his diary, learning that her disease is incurable and that her father has a callous hunger to record the details of her life.

The following morning, David and Martin, while fishing, confront each other over Karin. Martin accuses David of sacrificing his daughter for his art, and of being a self-absorbed, callous, cowardly phony. David is evasive, but admits that much of what Martin says is true. David says that he recently tried to kill himself by driving over a cliff, but was saved by a faulty transmission. He says that after that, he discovered that he loves Karin, Minus and Martin, and this gives him hope.

Meanwhile, Karin tells Minus about her episodes, and that she is waiting for God to appear behind the wallpaper in the attic. Karin has repeatedly teased Minus sexually, in a subtle way, and Minus is somewhat sexually frustrated. When Karin sees that a storm is coming, she runs into a wrecked ship and huddles in fear. Minus goes to her and she grabs him. There are strong hints that they have sex, but it is unclear whether they do. Given the hints in the movie, it is possible that Minus is homosexual.

Minus tells the other men about the incident in the ship and Martin calls for an ambulance. Karin asks to speak with her father alone. She confesses her misconduct toward Martin and Minus, saying that a voice told her to act that way and also to search David's desk. She tells David she would like to remain at the hospital, because she cannot go back and forth between two realities—she must choose one. While they are packing to go to the hospital, she runs to the attic, where Martin and David observe her actions. She says that God is about to walk out of the closet door, and asks her husband to allow her to enjoy the moment. The ambulance, a helicopter, flies by the window, making a lot of noise and shaking the door open. Karin moves toward the door eagerly, but then she runs from it, terrified, and goes into a frenzy of panic. Karin vanishes, and, reappearing in a frenzy, is sedated. When she stands, she tells them of God: a stone-faced spider who tried to penetrate her. She looked into God's eyes, and they were "cool and calm," and when God failed to penetrate her he retreated onto the wall. "I have seen God," she announces.

Karin and Martin leave in the helicopter. Minus tells his father that he is afraid, because when Karin had grabbed him in the ship, he began leaving ordinary reality. He asks his father if he can survive that way. David tells him he can if he has "something to hold on to." He tells Minus of his own hope: love. David and his son discuss the concept of love as it relates to God, and the factor of human father-child relationships in the perception of God, in the stretching final chapter of the film. Minus seems relieved, and is tearfully happy that he finally had a real conversation with his father: "Father spoke to me."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055499/

Kids (1995)

Directed by
Larry Clark

Writing credits
Larry Clark

Harmony Korine

Seventeen-year-old Telly (Leo Fitzpatrick) and an unnamed 12-year-old girl (Sarah Henderson) are kissing. Telly convinces the girl, who is a virgin, to have sex with him. Afterwards, he meets his friend, Casper (Justin Pierce). Telly tells Casper about his sexual experience in graphic terms. They go inside a local store, and Casper shoplifts a bottle of malt liquor as Telly distracts the cashier. They then steal a peach, using the same set-up just outside the store from a sidewalk display. Looking for drugs and food, they head to their friend Paul's apartment, though they express dislike of him on the way there. They arrive at Paul's house, talk about sex and smoke marijuana while watching a skate video (Video Days) (Casper inhales nitrous oxide out of balloons, which Telly considers dangerous). The scene intercuts with a group of girls, among them Ruby (Rosario Dawson) and Jenny (Chloë Sevigny), talking about sex and smoke--each gender contradicting what the other gender says, especially about oral sex.

Ruby and Jenny mention that they were recently tested for STDs at Ruby's request. Ruby's test is negative, though she has had multiple sexual encounters, many of them unprotected. Jenny tests positive for HIV. She says she has had sex only once, with Telly. Jenny spends the rest of the film trying to find Telly, who has taken to only having sex with virgins on the premise that he cannot get STDs this way. Telly and Casper walk to Telly's house and steal money from Telly's mother. They go to Washington Square Park and buy a "dime bag" of marijuana from a Rastafarian. They then meet up with a few friends, one of whom gives a blunt-rolling tutorial, to talk and smoke. Casper rides on a skateboard and carelessly bumps into a man (Ellsworth "Cisco" Davis), who furiously threatens him. He pushes Casper, but is struck in the back of the head with a skateboard by Harold (Harold Hunter), a friend of Telly and Casper's, causing him to collapse. A number of other skaters join in, beating, stomping, and hitting the man with skateboards, until he is unconscious.

Telly and some of the group from the park pick up a 13-year-old girl named Darcy (Yakira Peguero) while discussing whether or not they killed the man at the park. She is the younger sister of an acquaintance and Telly wants to have sex with her because she is a virgin. He convinces her to go with them to a pool. The other girls engage in pseudo-lesbian kissing and flirtation, but Darcy is restrained, though not shocked by the others' behavior. Telly and the group go to another friend, Steven's, house to smoke, drink and talk about sex. Meanwhile, Jenny goes to a rave club called NASA trying to find Telly. She runs into "Fidget" (Harmony Korine), who gives her a pill: which he refers to as "a euphoric blockbuster drug that is supposed to make 'special K' look weak". It turns out to be a depressant (a downer). She eventually finds out that Telly is at what has become a party at Steven's house.

Jenny arrives at the party to discover Telly having sex with Darcy, thus exposing her to HIV. Exhausted by her ordeal and with the drugs still affecting her, Jenny passes out on a couch among the other sleeping party-goers. A drunken Casper proceeds to rape Jenny as she sleeps, unknowingly exposing himself to HIV as well. The film ends with a soliloquy by Telly about how without sex he would have nothing to live for, as well as a poignant look at several early-morning junkies in the streets of New York. The final scene features a naked Casper looking at the camera and saying "Jesus Christ, what happened?"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113540/

The Seventh Seal (1957)

AKA Det sjunde inseglet

Director:
Ingmar Bergman

Writers:
Ingmar Bergman

Antonius Block (Max von Sydow), a knight, returns disillusioned, with his squire Jöns (Gunnar Björnstrand), from a Crusade and finds that his home country of Sweden is being ravaged by the plague. To his dismay, Death (Bengt Ekerot) has come for him, as well. He challenges Death to a chess match. Death agrees to the terms: as long as Block resists, he lives. If he wins, he shall go free.
The iconic scene of Death and Antonius Block in a chess game

Master and squire ride across a mossy heath beyond which the sea lies shimmering in the white glitter of the sun. Jöns seeks directions from a man who appears to be sleeping, but is actually dead. An actor, Jof, is shown sleeping in a wagon with his wife, Mia (who is also an actress), their son, Mikael and their manager, Skat. He wakes, ventures outside alone, and sees a vision of the Virgin Mary amongst the wind in the trees; however, when he tells his wife of this encounter, she appears not to believe him.

The knight and squire enter a grey stone church in a strange white mist where a fresco of the Dance of Death is being painted. Jöns discusses the plague with the painter, then draws a small figure to represent himself. "This is squire Jöns. He grins at Death, mocks the Lord, laughs at himself and leers at the girls. His world is a Jöns-world, believable only to himself, ridiculous to all including himself, meaningless to Heaven and of no interest to Hell." The knight Block approaches a priest in the confessional booth: "My life has been a futile pursuit, a wandering, a great deal of talk without meaning. I feel no bitterness or self-reproach because the lives of most people are very much like this. But I will use my reprieve for one meaningful deed." He goes on to confess his doubts about the existence of God, and, by consequence, his fear that life is ultimately pointless. The knight tells the priest that he is playing chess with Death and reveals his strategy, only to find that the priest is Death, hidden in the shadows. Upon exiting the church, Block sees a girl in chains who has been condemned for being a witch in league with the devil and is to be taken away and burnt at the stake. He asks her if she is really familiar with the Devil, but she does not answer.

Shortly thereafter, Jöns walks into an abandoned farm looking for water, where he saves a servant girl (Gunnel Lindblom) from being raped by a robber. He recognises the robber as Raval, a theologian (Dr Mirabilis, Coelestis et Diabilis) who ten years ago had convinced the knight, his master, to leave the wife he loved and join "a better-class crusade to the Holy Land." Jöns threatens to brand Raval on the face if he catches him again. Shaken, the girl agrees to come along with Jöns as his house keeper. Block and Jöns ride into town, where Jof and Mia are performing in front of a crowd, although their performance is interrupted by the arrival of a group of flagellants. In the confusion, Skat comes across a woman from the village, and is persuaded to run off with her.

Later, at a public house, Jof comes across Raval and Plog, a blacksmith, who is grieving because his wife had recently left him for an actor (later revealed to have been Skat). Knowing that Jof is an actor, Raval accuses him of being the one, and attempts to humiliate the innocent performer by forcing him to dance on the tables like a bear. However, Jöns appears and stays true to his word, dealing a rough justice by cutting Raval with a knife from forehead to cheek. Jöns then consoles Plog, and convinces the smith to come along with him.

The knight and Death continue their game, but Block sees the evening light move across a wagon to the actress Mia and her little child. He walks over. She tells him that the actor Skat has run off and left them and that they plan to visit the saint's feast at Elsinore. He warns them against this as "the plague has spread in that direction...people are dying by the tens of thousands." When Mia's husband Jof returns, the knight finds solace in a quiet, pleasant picnic of milk and wild strawberries with the family. Antonius Block explains how much he loved his own wife before he left her for the Crusades. He also shares with Mia his ongoing burden, the burden of faith, which he describes as loving someone in the dark who never comes. However, it is the simple and harmonious moments like this in which he states he is able to find comfort and which he wishes to remember: "I'll carry this memory between my hands as if it were bowl filled to the brim with fresh milk...And it will be an adequate sign-it will be enough for me." He invites them to his castle, where they will be safe from the plague.

Block, Mia, Jof, Mikael, Jöns and Plog head through the forest, and along the way they come across Skat and Lisa (Plog's wife). After being threatened by an enraged Plog, Lisa quickly leaves Skat and returns to him. Skat then stabs himself to avoid receiving the brunt of Plog's wrath. Shaken by the actor's sudden suicide, the group moves on; once they have gone, Skat sits up, unharmed, having faked the stabbing with a trick knife.

Death finds the missing actor Skat hiding up a tree and begins sawing it down. Skat protests but Death insists his time is up. "No, I have my performance", says Skat. "Then it's been cancelled because of death", is the reply. "Aren't there any special rules for actors?" "No, not in this case."
The final scene depicting "dance of death".

They next come across the young girl from the church, who had been declared a witch. The Knight demands of the monk: "What have you done with the child?" Jöns' conscience is sympathetic to the girl and he contemplates killing her executioners, but decides against it as she is almost dead anyway. Block asks her again to summon Satan for him; he wants to ask the Devil about God. The girl, in a state that Block describes as her "terror", claims already to have done so, but Block (and the audience) cannot see him. He gives her an herb which he says will take away her pain, and then leaves, his dilemma unanswered.

The robber Raval that Jöns branded later appears dying of the plague, pleading for water. The mute servant girl attempts to bring him some, but is stopped by Jöns, who exclaims, "It's meaningless. Can't you hear that I'm consoling you?" The robber then dies. Jof, the actor tells his wife Mia that he can see the Knight playing chess with Death and decides to immediately escape with his family.

Antonius Block pretends to be clumsy and knocks the chess pieces over, distracting Death long enough for the family of actors he has befriended to slip away. Once the pieces have been replaced on the board, Death then places the knight in checkmate, winning the game, and announces that when they meet again Block's time—and the time of all those still travelling with him—will be up. Before departing, Death asks if Block has accomplished his one "meaningful deed" yet; Block replies that he has. The knight is reunited with his wife at his castle, she having waited there alone for him. The party shares one "last supper" before Death comes for them through the twilight of the "large, murky room where the burning torches throw uneasy shadows over the ceiling and walls." At the final moment, Block pleads to God: "Have mercy on us, because we are small and frightened and ignorant." Jöns's girl, on her knees, smiles and announces, "It is finished."

Meanwhile, the little family of actors and jugglers have endured a strange light and roar in the forest which the father, Jof, interprets to be "the Angel of Death and he's very big." They now awaken listening to the rain tapping on the wagon canvas and crawl out, noticing "the dark retreating sky where summer lightning glitters like silver needles" over the ridges, forests, wide plains and sea. Jof, with his second sight, sees a vision of the knight and his followers being led away over the hills in a solemn dance of death. "They dance away from the dawn and it's a solemn dance towards the dark lands, while the rain washes...and cleans the salt of their tears from their cheeks." His wife, Mia, turns to him and says "You with your visions and dreams."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050976/

Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)

AKA Werckmeister harmóniák

Directed by
Béla Tarr
Ágnes Hranitzky

Writing credits
László Krasznahorkai (novel "The Melancholy of Resistance")
László Krasznahorkai (screenplay)
Béla Tarr (screenplay)
Péter Dobai (additional dialogue)
Gyuri Dósa Kiss    (additional dialogue)
György Fehér (additional dialogue)

The story takes place in a small provincial town on the Hungarian Plain. The weather is bitterly cold (seventeen degrees Celsius below zero) but no snow has fallen. Despite this, hundreds of bewildered men stand around a circus trailer (or corrugated iron box) in the main square, waiting to see the main attraction - the stuffed carcass of a whale. The men composing this faceless, ragged crowd have come from distant parts of the country as well as neighbouring settlements, and the strange state of affairs — the presence of strangers, the extreme cold — is disturbing the order of the small town. Relationships are changing, and some ambitious people feel they can take advantage of the situation; while others who are more passive fall into even deeper uncertainty. The unbearable tension is brought to a head by the figure of the Prince, a disfigured, Slovak speaking figure, who is hiding behind the whale; his mere appearance is enough to unleash destructive emotions. The ensuing apocalypse spares no one.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0249241/

The End of Summer (1961)

AKA Kohayagawa-ke no aki

Director:
Yasujirô Ozu

Writers:
Kôgo Noda
Yasujirô Ozu

 

Manbei Kohayagawa (Ganjiro Nakamura) is the head a small sake brewery company at Kyoto with three daughters. His eldest and youngest daughters, Akiko (Setsuko Hara) and Noriko (Yôko Tsukasa), stay together in Osaka. Akiko is a widow who helps out at an art gallery and who has a son. Noriko, unmarried, works as a salaried office worker. Manbei's second daughter, Fumiko (Michiyo Aratama), lives with him. Her husband helps at the brewery and they have a young son.

Manbei asks his brother-in-law Kitagawa (Daisuke Katô) to find Akiko a husband, and Kitagawa lets Akiko meet a friend Isomura Eiichirou (Hisaya Morishige), a widower, at a pub. Isomura is enthusiastic about the match but Akiko is hesitant. Manbei also asks Kitagawa to arrange a matchmaking session for his youngest daughter, Noriko.

During summer Manbei sneaks out constantly to meet his old flame, a former mistress by the name of Sasaki Tsune (Chieko Naniwa). Sasaki has a grown-up, rather Westernized daughter Yuriko who may or may not be Manbei's own daughter. When Fumiko finds out Manbei has been seeing Sasaki again, she is angered and confronts her father, but Manbei denies the whole affair.

The Kohayagawa family meets for a memorial service for their late mother at Arashiyama. After returning, Manbei has a heart attack but survives. Akiko asks Noriko about her matchmaking session with a man with a voracious appetite, but it appears Noriko is more inclined towards a friend Teramoto (Akira Takarada), a lecturer who has just moved to Sapporo as an assistant professor.

In a secret trip out with Sasaki to and back from Osaka, Manbei has another heart attack, and dies shortly after. Sasaki informs the daughters of what happened. The ailing Kohayagawa brewery is to be merged with a business rival's, while Noriyo decides to go to Sapporo to search out Teramoto. At the film's end, the Kohayagawa family gathers and reminisces about Manbei's life as his body is cremated.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055052/

The Isle (2000)

AKA Seom

Director:
Ki-duk Kim

Writer:
Ki-duk Kim

Seo Jeong plays the mute Hee-jin, who operates a fishing resort, where she rents out small floating cottages and ferries her customers back and forth between land and the floats, controlling the only means of transport around. She also dispassionately takes care of her customers' needs by selling supplies, providing prostitutes from a local tabang or occasionally acting as one herself. However, when a man running from the law, Hyun-shik (Kim Yu-seok), comes to the resort, a bond starts to form between them.

At the start of the film, Hyun-shik arrives at the resort and is ferried to his float by Hee-jin. There is nothing unusual about their business relationship from the onset, but eventually Hee-jin is intrigued by Hyun-shik's obviously troubled past. When visiting his float one time, Hee-jin still resists Hyun-shik's forceful advances but does call in a prostitute to service him. Hyun-shik, however, only wants companionship from the prostitute and a relationship starts to form between them.

The two developing relationships between Hyun-shik and the prostitute and Hyun-shik and Hee-jin move the plot. Hee-jin looks after Hyun-shik, even saving him from two suicide attempts, the second one accomplished gruesomely by swallowing a string of fish hooks. The prostitute continues to take more and more time off her schedule to visit Hyun-shik, oblivious to his troubles and eventually Hee-jin becomes jealous. During one visit, Hee-jin ferries the prostitute to an empty float instead of Hyun-shik's, ties her up and duct tapes her mouth shut, which eventually leads to her death as she falls into the water. The prostitute's pimp, who comes to find out what's happening, is also killed by Hee-jin.

After the murders, Hyun-shik's and Hee-jin's relationship stalls. Hyun-shik wants to leave the resort, but Hee-jin, who controls the only boat won't let him. When he attempts to swim out, Hee-jin has to save him and take him back to his float. Hyun-shik takes the boat and is set to leave. Hee-jin apparently attempts suicide in an effort to stop him by stuffing fish hooks into her vagina and falling into the water. This time it's Hyun-shik's turn to save her, by reeling her in with the still attached hooks.

Hyun-shik and Hee-jin continue their troubled relationship. A prostitute accidentally kicks a man's rolex into the water, infuriating him. He calls divers to have them retrieve the watch. The divers discover the bodies of the prostitute and the pimp while Hee-jin and Hyun-shik wordlessly take off on his float. The film concludes in enigmatic fashion.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0255589/

Songs from the Second Floor (2000)

AKA Sånger från andra våningen

Directed by
Roy Andersson

Written by
Roy Andersson

A man is standing in a subway car, his face dirty with soot. In his right hand he carries a plastic bag with documents, or rather, the charred leftovers of them. In a corridor a man is clinging desperately to the legs of the boss who just fired him. He is screaming: "I've been here for thirty years!" In a coffee shop someone is waiting for his father, who just burned his furniture company for insurance money. Traffic jams and self-flagellating stock brokers are filling up the streets while an economist, desperate for a solution to the problem of work becoming too expensive, gazes into the crystal ball of a scryer. Everything and everyone is going somewhere but their goal and its meaning have disappeared along the way.

The film presents a series of disconnected vignettes that together interrogate aspects of modern life. The film uses many quotations from the work of the Peruvian poet César Vallejo as a recurring motif.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120263/