Early Summer (1951)

AKA Bakushû

Director:
Yasujirô Ozu

Writers:
Kôgo Noda
Yasujirô Ozu

Noriko (Setsuko Hara), a secretary in Tokyo, lives in the extended Mamiya family at Kamakura, Kanagawa, which includes her parents Shukichi and Shige (Ichirô Sugai and Chieko Higashiyama), her elder doctor brother Koichi (Chishu Ryu), his wife Fumiko (Kuniko Miyake), and their two young sons Minoru (Zen Murase) and Isamu (Isao Shirosawa).

An elderly uncle (Kokuten Kodo) arrives from the provinces to visit Tokyo, and reminds everyone that Noriko is at an age where she should marry. At work, Noriko's boss Satake (Shûji Sano) recommends a match for her involving a forty-year-old friend, Mr Manabe, who is a businessman and an avid golfer. Her other friends are divided into two groups—the married and the unmarried—who tease one another endlessly, with Aya Tamura (Chikage Awashima) her close ally in the unmarried group.

The Mamiya family applies gentle pressure on Noriko to accept the match proposed by Satake. However, when childhood friend Kenkichi Yabe (Hiroshi Nihonyanagi), a doctor widower with a young girl, is posted to Akita, his mother Tami (Haruko Sugimura) impulsively asks Noriko to marry Kenkichi and follow them in their northward resettlement. To Tami's surprise, Noriko agrees. When Noriko reveals her decision to her family, the Mamiya family is quietly devastated. Unable to pressure her into dropping the match, which they think is a poor one owing to Kenkichi's widower status, they have to slowly re-adjust themselves to this decision.

The family now accepts Noriko's choice with quiet resignation and before Noriko moves on, the family has a last photoshoot together. Noriko's parents console themselves that Noriko and Kenkichi will move back to Tokyo in a few years' time, and the family will be reunited. Meanwhile, the parents shall move to a rural region to stay with Noriko's elderly uncle. The movie ends with a shot of a barley field ripening, which signifies the season the film is set in, early summer.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043313/

Dolls (2002)

AKA ドールズ (Dōruzu)

Director:
Takeshi Kitano

Writer:
Takeshi Kitano 

The film features three primary sets of characters, each within their own distinct story:

-A young man (Matsumoto, played by Hidetoshi Nishijima) who rejects his engagement to his fiancée (Sawako, played by Miho Kanno) to marry the daughter of his company's president. When his former fiancée attempts suicide and ends up in a semi-vegetative state, he takes her out of the hospital and they run away.

-Another young man (Nukui, played by Tsutomu Takeshige) is obsessed with the pop-star Haruna (played by Kyoko Fukada); he blinds himself when she is involved in a disfiguring car accident.

-An aged yakuza (Hiro, played by Tatsuya Mihashi), who tries to meet a girlfriend from his youth (played by Chieko Matsubara).

These stories do have some incidental visual cross-over with each other in the film, but are mostly separate. The first story is the one the film centers on. The film leads into it by opening with a performance of Bunraku theatre, and closes with a shot of dolls from the same. The performance is that of "The Courier for Hell" by Chikamatsu Monzaemon, and it alludes to themes that reappear later in the film. Because the rest of the film itself (as Kitano himself has said) can be treated as Bunraku in film form, the film is quite symbolic. In some cases, it is not clear whether a particular scene is meant to be taken literally. The film is also not in strict chronological order, but there is a strong visual emphasis on the changing of the seasons and the bonds of love over the progression of time (Matsumoto and Sawako spend most of the film physically connected by a red rope).

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0330229/

Vive L'Amour (1994)

AKA 愛情萬歲 (Aiqing wansui)

Directed by
Ming-liang Tsai

Writing credits
Ming-liang Tsai        
Yi-chun Tsai        
Pi-ying Yang

Hsiao-kang (Lee Kang-sheng), a young salesman, discovers a key to an apartment in its lock and takes it. He soon moves into one of the bedrooms, and one night he attempts to commit suicide by slitting his wrists while lying on the bed.

Meanwhile, Ah-jung (Chen Chao-jung) is drinking coffee at a cafe when a beautiful real estate agent, May Lin (Yang Kuei-Mei), sits at the table next to his. Intrigued, he follows her as she walks down the street. Lin catches on and eventually joins him. She leads him to a vacant apartment that she is trying to sell — the same apartment that Hsiao-kang is staying in — and they have sex in one of the bedrooms. Hsiao-kang hears them and stops the bleeding from his wrists.

Ah-jung steals the key to the apartment from Lin and later returns with his belongings. He moves into one of the adjoining bedrooms. That night, he and Hsiao-kang encounter each other in the apartment and have a short argument.

May Lin spends her day trying to sell property. While taking a break, she returns to the apartment when Hsiao-kang and Ah-jung are both there. The two sneak out quietly together and soon form a friendship.

One night, Hsiao-kang goes out for a walk and meets Ah-jung selling dresses on the street. May Lin walks past but does not notice them. Soon, Ah-jung joins her at a food stand and the two return to the apartment and sleep together in the same room as they did the first time. Unbeknownst to them, Hsiao-kang is hiding under the bed as they arrive, and he masturbates as the bed creaks above him.

The next morning, May Lin gets dressed and leaves. Hsiao-kang lies next to the sleeping Ah-jung and kisses him before slowly pulling away. Lin goes to her car but cannot start it and instead walks on a pathway near some construction sites. She then sits down on a bench and starts to cry uncontrollably.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109066/

Landscape in the Mist (1988)

AKA Τοπίο στην ομίχλη (Topio stin omichli)

Directed by
Theodoros Angelopoulos        

Writing credits
Theodoros Angelopoulos
Tonino Guerra        
Thanassis Valtinos

The movie portrays the journey of two children in search of their father who they believe lives in Germany. On the way they meet many people- including a troupe of actors, and encounter dangers. Eventually they cross a river to reach their hoped for destination.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096288/

Visitor Q (2001)

AKA ビジターＱ, Bijitā Kyū

Directed by
Takashi Miike

Written by
Itaru Era

The film's plot is often compared to Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema, in which a strange visitor to a wealthy family seduces the maid, the son, the mother, the daughter, and finally the father, before leaving a few days after, subsequently changing their lives.

The film starts off with a question: "Have you ever done it with your Dad?"; the viewer then sees Miki Yamazaki, a young prostitute, trying to persuade her father, Kiyoshi, into having sex with her. Her father is videotaping the scene for a documentary he is preparing on Japanese youths. Once it appears the father is letting himself be persuaded, she tells him the price (50,000 Yen). They have sex, the father ejaculates after a very short time and the disappointed daughter informs him it will be 100,000 Yen now, because of this. The father then realizes the camera has been on all along.

In the next scene, called "Have you ever been hit on the head?", a man (the visitor) hits the father over the head with a rock for no apparent reason.

The film then moves on to a scene titled "Have you ever hit your mom?" In this scene, the mother is working on a jigsaw puzzle, and her hands are shown to have red marks, showing where she was beaten. Her young son, Takuya, comes in and starts throwing things at the already broken apartment walls because he is unhappy with the toothbrush his mother bought him. He then hits his mother with a rug beating stick. Later, bullies from the son's school come to the front of the house and shoot fireworks through the son's bedroom window. The mother is later seen injecting heroin. It does not seem to have a huge effect on her, though, suggesting she is a regular user.

On his way back from work, the father is yet again hit on the head by the same man. They both arrive at the father's home and the mother serves them dinner. The son comes down while they are eating and starts beating the mother again. This does not surprise or bother the father, or the visitor. Later, the father is seen watching one of his old tapes, and it turns out that he was raped by a group of teenagers.

The next day, the father is on his way to work when he sees his son being beaten and robbed by some children from school. He films it from a distance and appears very pleased with the footage.

The mother, meanwhile, is getting ready for work. The viewer discovers her body is covered in marks from where the son has hurt her. She also has a limp.

The father meets with a female co-worker who believes he is going too far in his work. The mother, working as a prostitute, is whipping a customer with a belt (at his request). She then goes to buy some drugs.

When she gets home, she discovers the pieces from her jigsaw have been arranged so as to form a trail through the house and ending at a photograph of her daughter. The visitor is at home and he introduces her to lactation sex (squeezing her nipples to make her lactate, a recurring theme in this film). The son sees this while hiding behind the door.

At dinner, the mother is much happier than usual, and has prepared a nice meal. The son, however, is sullen and throws a bowl of hot soup at her face. The wife—instead of being downtrodden, as usual—comes back with a carving knife and throws it at the head of her son, who dodges just in time. Everyone is very pleased, except the son. However, the father becomes exhilarated when the schoolchildren start attacking his house with fireworks again, which he videotapes. Meanwhile, the mother and the visitor continue to eat peacefully.

Next day, the son is bullied again. The father is taping his son from his car with the visitor and his female co-worker. The co-worker gets fed up with the father and tries to leave. The father follows her on foot and sexually assaults her while the visitor, emotionally neutral, tapes the scene. The father unintentionally chokes his victim to death.

He takes her body back home and puts her in the greenhouse. The visitor is still taping, at the father's instruction. The father sends the visitor to get garbage bags from the mother. But when the visitor asks her for them she takes her clothes off and reveals she is dressed in a garbage bag. She then makes herself lactate and produces a rain of human milk that covers the floor while the visitor watches from underneath an umbrella.

During this time, the husband is drawing on the woman’s body to mark the best places to cut it up so the smaller pieces will fit in the bags. He tapes this for his documentary. Becoming aroused, the father has sex with the dead body. He then notices she is getting wet and is amazed that this is possible for a dead woman. When he brings his hand up, however, it is covered in feces. He then discovers that his penis is stuck inside the corpse due to Rigor mortis. The mother comes out to help and rushes to the shop to buy lots of oils and vinegar. She empties the bottles into the bath with her husband and the corpse. This does not help, though, so she gives him a shot of heroin, which frees him. They are both exhilarated.

The visitor has filmed the whole scene.

Later on, the couple is having fun dismembering the female co-worker's corpse when the son turns up in the front yard with the same children beating him. The parents rush out and with great pleasure they finally kill all the bullies using the axes and knives they were using to cut the co-worker's body to pieces. Later, their son is shown lying on the floor in the puddle of maternal milk. He thanks the visitor for the chaos he brought to their family which helped them become closer than ever.

The visitor leaves the family. Afterwards, finding the prostitute daughter on the street, he hits her in the face with a rock. Beaten and bleeding, she comes back home to the family and finds the father suckling on the mother's breast in the garden. The final shot of the movie is of the daughter suckling on her mother's other breast, symbolizing the return of family order. All scars on the mother have disappeared, as have those on the daughter, shown seconds before (caused by being hit with the rock), suggesting a symbolically healed family.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290329/

Caligula (1979)

AKA Caligola

Directed by
Tinto Brass

Writing credits
Gore Vidal

Caligula (Malcolm McDowell), the young heir to the throne of the syphilis-ridden, half-mad Emperor Tiberius (Peter O'Toole), thinks he has received a bad omen after a blackbird flies into his room early one morning. Shortly afterward, Macro (Guido Mannari), the head of the Praetorian Guards, appears to tell the young man that his great uncle (Tiberius) demands that he report at once to the Island of Capri, where he has been residing for a number of years with close friend Nerva (John Gielgud), Claudius (Giancaro Badessi), a dim-witted relative, and Caligula's younger stepbrother, Gemellus (Bruno Brive), Tiberius' favorite. Fearing assassination, Caligula is afraid to leave, but his beloved sister Drusilla (Teresa Ann Savoy) convinces him to go.

At Capri, Caligula finds his uncle has become depraved, showing signs of advanced venereal diseases, and embittered with Rome and politics. Tiberius enjoys watching degrading sexual shows, often including children and various freaks of nature. Caligula observes with a mixture of fascination and horror. Tensions rise when Tiberius jokingly tries to poison Caligula in front of Gemellus. After Nerva commits suicide on the prospect of Caligula's rule, Tiberius collapses from a stroke, leaving Macro and Caligula planning a way to hasten the latter's ascent to the throne.

Late one night, Macro escorts all the spectators out of Tiberius' bedchamber to allow Caligula the opportunity to murder his uncle, but when he fails, Macro finishes the deed himself by strangling Tiberius with a scarf. Caligula triumphantly removes the imperial signet from Tiberius' finger and suddenly realizes that Gemellus has witnessed the murder. Tiberius is buried with honours and Caligula is proclaimed the new Emperor, who in turn proclaims Drusilla his equal, to the apparent disgust of the senate. Afterwards, Drusilla, fearful of Macro's influence, convinces Caligula to get rid of him. Caligula obliges by setting up a mock trial, in which Gemellus is intimidated into testifying that Macro alone murdered Tiberius. With the powerful Macro gone, Caligula appoints Tiberius's former adviser Longinus (John Steiner) as his right-hand man, and pronounces the docile Senator Chaerea (Paolo Bonacelli) as the new head of the Praetorian Guard. Drusilla endeavours to find Caligula a wife amongst the priestesses of the goddess Isis, the mystery cult they secretly practice. Caligula only wants to marry Drusilla, but when she refuses because she is actually his sister, he spitefully marries Caesonia (Helen Mirren), a known courtesan, but only after she bears him an heir.

Caligula proves to be a popular, yet eccentric ruler, cutting taxes and overturning all the oppressive laws that Tiberius enacted. The senate begins to dislike the young emperor for his eccentricities and various insults directed towards them. Darker aspects of his personality begin to emerge as well; he rapes a bride and groom on their wedding day because of a minor fit of jealousy and orders the execution of Gemellus merely to provoke a reaction from Drusilla.

After he discovers Caesonia is pregnant, Caligula suffers severe fever, but Drusilla nurses him back to health. Right after he fully recovers, Caesonia bears Caligula a daughter, Julia Drusilla, and Caligula marries her on the spot. During the celebration, Drusilla collapses in Caligula's arms from the same fever he'd suffered. Soon afterwards, Caligula receives another ill omen in the guise of a black bird. He rushes to Drusilla's side and watches her die. Caligula experiences a nervous breakdown, he smashes a statue of Isis and drags Drusilla's body around the palace while screaming hysterically. Now in a deep depression, Caligula walks the Roman streets, disguised as a beggar. After a brief stay in a city jail, Caligula becomes determined to destroy the senatorial class, which he has come to loathe. His reign becomes a series of humiliations against the foundations of Rome; senators' wives are forced to work in the service of the state as prostitutes, estates are confiscated, the old religion is desecrated, and he initiates an absurd war on Britain to humiliate the army. It is obvious to the senators and the military that Caligula must be assassinated, and Longinus conspires with Chaerea to carry out the deed.

Caligula wanders into his bedroom where a nervous Caesonia awaits him. The blackbird makes a final appearance, but only Caesonia is frightened of it. The next morning, after rehearsing an Egyptian play, Caligula and his family are attacked as they leave the stadium in a coup headed by Chaerea. His wife and daughter are brutally murdered and Chaerea himself stabs Caligula in the stomach, to which he defiantly whimpers "I live!"

As Caligula and his family's bodies are thrown down the marble steps and their blood is washed off the marble floor, Claudius is proclaimed the new Emperor.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080491/

Begotten (1990)

Directed by
E. Elias Merhige

Written by
E. Elias Merhige

The story opens with a robed, profusely bleeding "God" disemboweling himself, with the act ultimately ending in his death. A woman, Mother Earth, emerges from his remains, arouses the body, and impregnates herself with his semen. Becoming pregnant, she wanders off into a vast and barren landscape. The pregnancy manifests in a fully grown convulsing man whom she leaves to his own devices. The "Son of Earth" meets a group of faceless nomads who seize him with what is either a very long umbilical cord or a rope. The Son of Earth vomits organic pieces, and the nomads excitedly accept these as gifts. The nomads finally bring the man to a fire and burn him. "Mother Earth" encounters the resurrected man and comforts him. She seizes the man with a similar umbilical cord. The nomads appear and proceed to rape her. Son of Earth is left to mourn over the lifeless body. A group of characters appears, carry her off and dismember her, later returning for Son of Earth. After he, too, is dismembered, the group buries the remains, planting the parts into the crust of the earth. The burial site becomes lush with flowers.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101420/