djaybee's - Favourites List
-
Wayward Cloud (2005)Tian bian yi duo yun
Taiwan is beset by a terrible water shortage. TV stations are advising the population to economise drastically, and to drink watermelon juice. But, as always, people are finding their own solutions to the drought. Shiang-Chyi secretly fills discarded bottles in public toilets, while Hsiao-Kang takes midnight baths in rooftop storage tanks. They drift like clouds, never touching. Survival is hard, but loneliness is impossible to bear. Shiang-Chyi finds a watermelon, and on the same day encounters Hsiao-Kang. She remembers buying a watch from him when he worked as a street vendor. He's a porno actor now, but she doesn't know that yet... - Director:
- Ming-liang Tsai
- Cast:
- Kang-sheng Lee, Shiang-chyi Chen, Yi-Ching Lu
- Formats:
-
-
I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (2006)Hei yan quan
After being robbed and attacked one night in Kuala Lumpur, Hsiao-Kang (Lee Kang-Sheng), a homeless Chinese man, is rescued and taken in by some itinerant workers. One of them, Rawand, lets him sleep beside him on an old mattress that he had found on the street. Later, when Chyi, a waitress at a coffee-shop, meets Hsiao-Kang, she is filled with lustful desire. As Hsiao-Kang slowly recovers, he finds himself caught between Rawang and Chyi - as well as Chyi's female boss. Meanwhile, a heavy haze descends on the city. These men and women and the old mattress lose their way in the haze but find one another.. - Director:
- Ming-liang Tsai
- Cast:
- Kang-sheng Lee, Shiang-chyi Chen, Norman Atun
- Formats:
-
-
Although Jean Vigo died at the age of 29 having made just four films - of which two are undisputed masterpieces - he is unquestionably one of the great masters of French cinema. From his inventive early short films Taris' and 'A Propos de Nice', to the anarchic tale of student rebellion, 'Zero de Conduite', and, finally, the extraordinarily lyrical romantic yearning of 'L'Atalante', Vigo's body of work has been celebrated the world over for its consummate artistry and far reaching influence. - Director:
- Jean Vigo
- Cast:
- Michel Simon, Jean Dasté, Louis Lefebvre
- Formats:
-
-
La Strada (1954)La strada
Sold by her impoverished mother to Zampano (Anthony Quinn), a brutish fairground wrestler, waif-like Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina) lives a life of drudgery as his assistant. After taking to the road with a travelling circus, a budding relationship with II Matto/The Fool (Richard Basehart), a gentle-natured, tightrope walking clown, offers a potential refuge from her master's clutches. Trapped by her own servile nature, Gelsomina waivers, and Zampano's volcanic temper erupts with tragic consequences. Characteristically mingling elements of biography with metaphor and symbolism, 'La Strada' also combines an easygoing charm with a far harder edged realism in the form of domestic violence and decaying, desolate towns. Masina - Fellini's wife - is astonishing in the central role and what with the evocative Nino Rota score and Otello Martelli's ravishing photography, it's little wonder that 'La Strada' was the winner of the first official Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. - Director:
- Federico Fellini
- Cast:
- Anthony Quinn, Giulietta Masina, Richard Basehart
- Formats:
-
-
I Vitelloni (1953)I vitelloni
The film is essentially a rites of passage story involving a group of friends growing up together in a small provincial town. This seemingly aimless fraternity is led by Fausto in their daily routine of hanging around in bars and wasting their days whilst dreaming of breaking free of their parochial chains to taste the adventure the world has to offer. Events force the womanising Fausto to choose between responsibility and freedom which in turn prompts the other members of the group to look at their own futures in a new light. - Director:
- Federico Fellini
- Cast:
- Alberto Sordi, Franco Fabrizi, Franco Interlenghi
- Formats:
-
-
In this wonderfully affectionate and satirical 1986 film, Italian cinematic maestro Federico Fellini celebrates the legacy of Rogers and Astaire - and sends up tacky television - with this touching tale of two elderly dancers who model themselves on cinema's greatest dance duo, and who reunite after 30 years for one final TV dance spectacular. - Director:
- Federico Fellini
- Cast:
- Marcello Mastroianni, Giulietta Masina, Franco Fabrizi
- Formats:
-
-
Four directors tell tales of Eros fit for a 1970's Decameron. Working-class lovers, Renzo (Germano Gilioli) and Luciana (Marisa Solinas), marry but must hide it from her employer; plus, they need a room of their own. A billboard of Anita (Anita Ekberg) provocatively selling milk gives a prudish crusader for public decency more than he can handle. The wife of a count whose escapades with call girls make the front page of the papers decides to work to prove her independence, but what is she qualified to do? A buxom carnival-booth manager who owes back taxes offers herself for one night in a lottery: a nerdy sacristan and a jealous cowboy make for a lovers' triangle. In each, women take charge, but not always happily. - Director:
- Vittorio De Sica
- Cast:
- Anita Ekberg, Sophia Loren, Romy Schneider
- Formats:
-
-
Sátántangó (1994)Satan's Tango
Internationally acclaimed filmmaker Bela Tarr's epic rendering of Laszlo Krasznahorkai's novel, about the decline of Communism in Eastern Europe, is a unique and visionary masterpiece that defies classification and transcends genre. Set in a struggling Hungarian agricultural collective, a group of lost souls reeling from the collapse of their Communist utopia face an uncertain future, until the arrival of a charismatic stranger in whom they believe lies their salvation. The collective's individual experiences and fates are gradually revealed in Tarr's immaculately composed, brilliantly photographed and bleakly comic tour-de-force, which confirmed his place as one of contemporary cinema's few genuine auteurs. - Director:
- Béla Tarr
- Cast:
- Ferenc Kállai, Mihály Vig, Putyi Horváth
- Formats:
-
-
Shoplifters (2018)Manbiki Kazoku
After a successful shoplifting spree, Osamu (Lily Franky) and his son rescue a little girl in the freezing cold and invite her home with them. Osamu's wife Nobuyo (Sakura Ando) reluctantly agrees to shelter her. Although the family is poor, they live happily together until an unforeseen incident upsets the delicate balance they have created, revealing long-buried secrets... - Director:
- Hirokazu Koreeda
- Cast:
- Rirî Furankî, Sakura Andô, Mayu Matsuoka
- Formats:
-
-
Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, an ageing silent film queen, and William Holden as the struggling writer who is held in thrall by her madness, created two of the screen's most memorable characters in Sunset Boulevard. Winner of three Academy Awards, director Billy Wilder's orchestration of the bizarre tale is a true cinematic classic. From the unforgettable opening sequence through the inevitable unfolding of tragic destiny, the film is the definitive statement on the dark and desperate side of Hollywood. Erich von Stroheim as Desmond's discoverer, ex-husband and butler, and Nancy Olson as the bright spot in unrelenting ominousness, are equally celebrated for their masterful performances. - Director:
- Billy Wilder
- Cast:
- William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim
- Formats:
-
-
Through Joshua Oppenheimer's work filming perpetrators of the Indonesian genocide, a family of survivors discovers how their son was murdered and the identity of the men who killed him. The youngest brother is determined to break the spell of silence and fear under which the survivors live, and so confronts the men responsible for his brother's murder - something unimaginable in a country where killers remain in power. - Director:
- Joshua Oppenheimer
- Cast:
- Anonymous
- Formats:
-
-
Tropical Malady (2004)Sud pralad
Garlanded with awards, Apichatpong's visionary film exists in dual realms, exploring connected themes of love and desire in a radically different way. A fractured love story is interrupted by a feverish night-time odyssey into the heart of the jungle where shape-shifting spirits and tigers abound. The conscious and the subconscious, the modern and the ancient, reality and myth; all become magically entwined in this hypnotic, mysterious drama. - Director:
- Apichatpong Weerasethakul
- Cast:
- Banlop Lomnoi, Sakda Kaewbuadee, Huai Dessom
- Formats:
-
-
The Naked Island (1960)Hadaka no shima
Filmed on the virtually deserved Setonaikai archipelago in south-west Japan. The Naked Island tells the story of a small family unit and their subsistence as the only inhabitants of an arid, sun-baked island. Daily chores, captured as a series of cyclical events, result in a hypnotizing, moving, and beautiful film harkening back to the silent era. - Director:
- Kaneto Shindô
- Cast:
- Nobuko Otowa, Taiji Tonoyama, Shinji Tanaka
- Formats:
-
-
Onibaba (1964)Devil Woman / The Demon / The Hole / The Ogress / The Witch
Onibaba is set during a brutal period in history, a Japan ravaged by civil war between rival shogunates. Weary from combat, samurai are drawn towards the seven-foot-high susuku grass fields to hide and rest themselves, only to be ambushed and murdered by a ruthless team of mother (Nobuko Otowa) and daughter-in-law (Jitsuko Yoshimura). When Hachi (Kei Sato), a neighbour returning from the wars, brings bad news, he threatens the women's partnership. - Director:
- Kaneto Shindô
- Cast:
- Nobuko Otowa, Jitsuko Yoshimura, Kei Satô
- Formats:
-
-
Kuroneko (1968)Yabu no naka no kuroneko
A Japanese box-office sensation in 1968, Kuroneko is a sparse, atmospheric horror story, adhering to Kaneto Shindo's philosophy of using beauty and purity to evoke emotion. Eccentric and more overtly supernatural than its breakthrough companion piece, Onibaba (1964), Kuroneko revisits similar themes to reveal a haunting meditation on duty, conformity and love. In this magnificently eerie and romantic film - loosely based on the Japanese folktale The Cat's Return - a mother and daughter-in-law (Nobuko Otowa and Kiwako Taichi) are raped and murdered by pillagers, but return from the dead as vampiric cat spirits intent on revenge. As the ghosts lure soldiers into the bamboo groves, a fearless samurai, Gintoki (Kichiemon Nakamura), is sent to stop their reign of terror. - Director:
- Kaneto Shindô
- Cast:
- Kichiemon Nakamura, Nobuko Otowa, Kei Satô
- Formats:
-