Irreversible (2002)

AKA Irréversible

Directed by
Gaspar Noé

Writing credits
Gaspar Noé

Irréversible contains thirteen scenes presented in reverse chronological order. The film begins with two men in a small apartment suite. One of them is the "Butcher", the protagonist of Noé's previous film, I Stand Alone. In a drunken monologue, the Butcher reveals that he was arrested for having sex with his daughter. Their philosophical musings shift to the subject of a commotion in the streets outside, which is derisively attributed to the patrons of a nearby homosexual S&M nightclub called The Rectum. Minutes earlier, two men named Marcus and Pierre are escorted out of that nightclub by the police. Marcus is on a stretcher, apparently injured, and Pierre is in handcuffs. Men on the streets shout homophobic insults at them. Earlier that evening, Marcus and Pierre arrived at the club in a frantic search for somebody nicknamed le Tenia — "the Tapeworm". Marcus finds the man believed to be le Tenia and attacks him. The man pins Marcus down, then breaks his arm and attempts to rape him. Pierre rescues Marcus by bludgeoning the attacker's face using a fire extinguisher, fatally crushing the man's skull after repeated blows. Before entering the club, it is learned that Marcus and Pierre went in search of le Tenia after questioning several prostitutes. Apparently their goal is retribution for someone's rape. They track down a transsexual prostitute named Concha who identifies the rapist as le Tenia after Marcus threatens to slash her with a piece of broken glass. Concha also reveals that the rapist is likely to be found at a nightclub called The Rectum. Marcus and Pierre were aided in their search by a street thug named Mourad and his friend Layde. Mourad promised to help them find le Tenia for money so that Marcus could have his revenge, rather than leave the matter to the police. It is revealed that le Tenia anally raped Marcus' girlfriend Alex, and beat her so severely that she fell into a coma. The rape takes place after Alex encounters le Tenia beating Concha in a pedestrian underpass. Le Tenia then turns his attention on Alex and threatens her with a knife to her throat. He then proceeds to rape Alex, pinning her down on her stomach and threatening her. After raping Alex, le Tenia brutally beats her. From this scene, it becomes clear that Pierre and Marcus attack the wrong man later in the story. Le Tenia was in fact standing right next to the man Pierre killed in club Rectum. In the next scene, we see Alex, Marcus, and Pierre at a party. Alex is annoyed by Marcus' unrestrained use of drugs and alcohol and his flirtatious behavior with other women, and consequently decides to leave the party. The next scene shows the trio discussing sex in a metro station and in the train. It is revealed Pierre used to be Alex' lover. The penultimate scene shows Marcus and Alex lying in bed after sex. Alex reveals she might be pregnant, and Marcus is pleased with the possibility. To prepare for the party, Marcus leaves to buy wine and Alex has a shower. Alone, Alex uses a home pregnancy test that confirms she is now carrying a child, for which she is elated. She is shown sitting on the bed clothed, with her hand on her belly. A poster for Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, with the tagline "The Ultimate Trip", is above the headboard. The final colorful scene shows Alex reading An Experiment with Time by John William Dunne in a park, surrounded by playing children. Beethoven's 7th Symphony is heard in the background. The camera spins around faster and faster until it blacks out into a strobe effect, accompanied by a pulsing, roaring sound. A rapidly-spinning image of the cosmos can be dimly perceived. The final title card reads: "Time destroys everything" — a phrase uttered in the film's first scene by one of the men in the apartment.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290673/

Autumn Sonata (1978)

AKA Höstsonaten

Director:
Ingmar Bergman

Writer:
Ingmar Bergman

 

The plot focuses on a prominent concert pianist, Charlotte Andergast (Ingrid Bergman), who has been neglectful and dismissive of her children, whom she has not seen in over seven years. Charlotte decides to make a visit to her eldest daughter, Eva (Liv Ullmann) at her remote house, where she lives with her husband, Viktor (Halvar Björk). Upon arrival, Charlotte discovers that her other daughter, Helena (Lena Nyman), who is mentally and physically disabled (and was placed in an institution by Charlotte) is living with and being taken care of by Eva. Wounded by the neglect and selfishness of her mother, Eva begins to spill all of the things she has ever wanted to say to Charlotte, and as the evening progresses, the tension culminates to a wave of harsh words and exposure of true feelings that change their mother-daughter relationship forever.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077711/

Eureka (2000)

Directed by
Shinji Aoyama

Writing credits
Shinji Aoyama

 

Eureka is a drama, set mainly in rural Japan, and is mostly shot in sepia tone. It tells the story of a young boy and girl, Naoki Tamura and Kozue Tamura who are on a bus when it is hijacked by a crazed killer. They, along with the bus driver, Makoto Sawai, are the only survivors and flee together. But upon their attempted return to their normal lives, Makoto becomes a suspect in a series of murders and the children become orphaned. These numerous unfortunate events bring the three, along with the orphans' cousin, Akihiko, back together, forming a family and working toward reconciliation from the shared hijacking experience.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0243889/

Tokyo Twilight (1957)

AKA Tôkyô boshoku

Director:
Yasujirô Ozu

Writers:
Kôgo Noda
Yasujirô Ozu

Akiko Sugiyama (Ineko Arima) is a young college graduate girl learning English shorthand. Her elder sister Takako (Setsuko Hara), running away from an unhappy marriage, has returned home to stay with Akiko and their father Shukichi (Chishu Ryu) in Tokyo, together with her toddler girl. Akiko has a relationship with her college boyfriend Kenji, which results in an unwanted pregnancy. Later, Akiko has an abortion on learning her boyfriend is avoiding her.

While going to a mahjong parlour to look for Kenji, Akiko comes across its proprietress Kisako (Isuzu Yamada), who seems to know a lot about her family. Back at home, Takako hears about Kisako from Akiko, and pieces together the fact that she is their long-lost mother. Takako visits the parlour to ask Kisako not to reveal to Akiko who she really is – but the plan backfires. Akiko learns of her visit and goes to confront Takako. Takako then discloses to her Kisako is their mother, who has run away with another man when Akiko was still a toddler. Shaken, Akiko goes to confront Kisako to ask if she is the daughter of her father. She leaves in a huff, angered by Kisako abandoning her as a child, then goes to a Chinese noodle shop for some sake. Her boyfriend Kenji enters, and the two has a tiff. Akiko leaves angrily, but is hit by a train at an intersection just outside the shop.

Akiko is badly injured and she expresses the wish to live and start life over again in the presence of her father and sister. In the next scene however, in one of Ozu's famous ellipses, a bitter Takako goes to visit her mother to tell her the news of Akiko's death. Kisako is distraught, and agrees with her new husband that she will leave Tokyo for his new assignment. She goes to the Sugiyamas to offer her last condolescence, and to tell Takako of her decision. Unfortunately, Takako does not go to send her off at the railway station.

In the last scene of the film, Takako reveals to her father that she is going back to her husband to try to make their marriage work again. She does not want her toddler daughter to follow in the path of Akiko, who lacks the love of one parent. Shukuchi agrees with her decision.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051093/

El Topo (1970)

Director:
Alejandro Jodorowsky

Writer:
Alejandro Jodorowsky

The movie takes place in two parts. The first half resembles a western; albeit a surreal one. The second is a love story of redemption and rebirth.

The first half, set in an unnamed desert, opens with El Topo (played by Jodorowsky himself) traveling with his naked young son. They find a town whose citizens have been slaughtered and El Topo hunts down and kills the outlaws and their leader, a fat balding Colonel. El Topo abandons his son to the monks of the settlement's mission and rides off with a woman whom the Colonel and his outlaws had kept captive as a slave. The woman, whom El Topo names Mara, convinces him to defeat the four great gun masters to become the greatest gunman in the land. He duels each of them and during each duel, El Topo emerges victorious through trickery or luck.

After the first duel, an unnamed woman with a male voice finds the couple and offers to serve as a guide. Her involvement will prove El Topo's downfall. Ridden with guilt, El Topo destroys his own gun and revisits the places where he killed those masters. The unnamed woman then confronts El Topo and shoots him multiple times in the manner of stigmata. Mara then betrays him and rides off with the woman after shooting El Topo.

The second half of the movie takes place years later, after El Topo is rescued by a band of deformed outcasts. In their underground community he meditates on the "four lessons" and when he awakes, he is 'born again'. He decides to help the outcasts escape their subterranean prison and, together with a dwarf girl who becomes his lover, performs for the depraved cultists of the neighbouring town to raise money to buy dynamite for this cause.

At the same time, a mysterious monk arrives in town and becomes the new priest. It is revealed that the new priest is actually El Topo's own son. He threatens to kill El Topo, but decides to spare El Topo's life until he finishes digging the escape for the underground people. With the help of his girlfriend and son, El Topo digs an exit out of the cave. Just as the exit appears, the underground people flee the mountain and are massacred by the cultists.

El Topo helplessly witnesses his community being murdered by the cultists and is shot himself. He ignores his wounds and massacres the cultists in the town. After all are killed, El Topo takes an oil lamp and immolates himself. El Topo's son and girlfriend survive the massacre and make a grave for his remains, which becomes as much a beehive as the first gun master's grave. His dwarf girlfriend gives birth to their child at the same time as his death, and the son of El Topo, now dressed in his father's garments, the dwarf, and the child ride off on a horse in the same fashion that the Son of El Topo and El Topo had in the beginning of the film.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067866/

Cries and Whispers (1972)

AKA Viskningar och rop

Director:
Ingmar Bergman

Writer:
Ingmar Bergman

Cries and Whispers takes place in a lavish mansion in the 1800s, filled with red carpets and white statuary. It depicts the final days of Agnes (Harriet Andersson), who is near-death with cancer. Her sisters Maria (Liv Ullmann) and Karin (Ingrid Thulin) have returned to the family home to be with her. They remain distant and awkward, and struggle to comfort their sister, while dealing with shock and the fear of mortality her death is bringing to them. The deeply religious maid Anna (Kari Sylwan), whose own daughter died young, is able to comfort her. At length, Agnes dies, and a priest (Anders Ek) arrives at her death bed she returns to the living for a short moment. In a dream-like sequence she asks her family for love and care. For a moment Karin, Maria and the dead Agnes are getting closer to each other, only to be even more distant shortly afterwards. Only Anna is able to embrace and mourn the dead. The film is characterized by flashbacks that return to the life of the protagonists and their memories, tracing each woman's personality to the childhood they spent together. Maria remembers her failed marriage; Agnes remembers her unrequited devotion to their distant mother; Karin struggles with self-harm.

The last flashback, from the deceased Agnes' point of view, is narrated with her diary, and shows her sisters descending upon the house clad in white, like angels. The last words are Agnes whispering "Come what may, this is happiness. I cannot wish for anything better. Now, for a few minutes, I can experience perfection. And I feel profoundly grateful to my life, which gives me so much."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069467/

A City of Sadness (1989)

AKA 悲情城市 (bēiqíng chéngshì)

Directed by
Hsiao-hsien Hou

Writing credits
T'ien-wen Chu
Nien-Jen Wu

The film depicts the Lin family's experiences during the White Terror. The eldest brother Wen-Heung (Sung Young Chen) is murdered by a Shanghai mafia boss, the middle brother Wen-Leung (Jack Kao) suffers a traumatic brain injury in a KMT jailhouse, and the youngest brother Wen-Ching (Tony Leung Chiu Wai), who is both deaf and mute, hopes to flee to the mountains with his friend to fight in the anti-KMT resistance movement. By the end of the film even the photographer Wen-Ching has been arrested by the authorities, leaving only his wife to tell the story of the family's destruction.

Wen-Ching's deafness began as an expedient to disguise Tony Leung's inability to speak Taiwanese (or Japanese - the language taught in Taiwan's schools during the 51 year occupation), but wound up being an effective means to demonstrate the brutal insensitivity of Chen Yi's ROC administration.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096908/