fmj's - Rented List

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During a train journey from Switzerland to Sweden, through war-torn Germany, a married couple are intent on tearing each other apart. Their bitterness is not only the result of his love affairs, but also of her inability to conceive, due to the effects of a previous abortion.

Meanwhile, the husband's former mistress, a widow called Viola, wanders through the city at night. Having been cruelly diagnosed as insane by her psychiatrist, a man who tried but failed to seduce her, she is frightened and alone. By chance, she meets a girl she once knew and goes to her flat. It transpires that the girl is a lesbian and Viola once again becomes the focus of an unforeseen seduction. Intricate and intense, this powerful psychological drama is based on four short stories by Birgit Tengroth (who also plays Viola in the film) and stands as a true Bergman classic. Upon its original release in 1949, the lesbian relationship was cut by censors, but is presented here in a fully uncut version.

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Featuring Hollywood greats Ryan Gosling, Diane Kruger, Jessica Chastain, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Roman Polanski among others, 'Seduced and Abandoned' follows acting legend Alec Baldwin with Oscar-nominated director James Toback (Tyson) as they lead us on a troublesome and often

hilarious journey of raising financing for their next feature film. Moving from director to financier to star actor, the two players provide us with a unique look behind the curtain at the world's biggest and most glamourous film festival, shining a light on the bitter-sweet relationship filmmakers have with Cannes and the film business.

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In 1995, Detectives Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson) and Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey), partners in Louisiana's Criminal Investigation Division, are assigned to a macabre murder by a killer with disturbing occult leanings.

As they attempt to uncover the secrets of this bizarre crime, their own lives collide and entwine in unexpected, sometimes catastrophic ways. In 2012, when a similar case leads to an investigation of the original '95 murder by two new detectives, Marty and Rust separately tell the story of the investigation, their lives, and how they've affected each other as detectives, friends, and men.

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Ballygar, Dublin, Ireland, 1967: close friends Lily (Maggie Smith), Eileen (Kathy Bates), and Dolly (Agnes O'Casey) win the trip of a lifetime - a pilgrimage to Lourdes. With each woman desperately in need of a personal miracle, the trip seems like an answer to all their prayers.

But when they are joined by Chrissie (Laura Linney), returning to Dublin after decades in America, deep wounds from the past are re-opened and bitter truths exposed. As they confront one another and embrace their shared past, the group reckon with revelations that will change them forever. 'The Miracle Club' is a heartfelt story of friendship, family, and forgiveness.

Their re-working of Chaucer's epic fourteenth century tale, largely set in wartime Kent, centres on American army sergeant John Smith, British soldier Dennis Price and landgirl Shiela Sim who, before making a modern-day pilgrimage to Canterbury, solve the bizarre mystery of a man who pours glue over the hair of village girls at night.

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One of Ingmar Bergman's key early works - directed when he was just 30 years old - 'To Joy' explores some of the themes that would come to characterise many of his later films: the incompatibility of spouses, and the responsibility of artists.

Marta (Maj-Britt Nilsson) and Stig (Stig Olin), both play in an orchestra conducted by Sonderby. Their relationship is a happy one, and they soon decide to get married and have children. However, things begin to turn sour when Stig begins a sordid affair that threatens to destroy their marriage and their happiness forever. Moving and evocative. 'To Joy' sees the young Bergman grappling with the complexities of human relations to striking effect, and is an early indication of what the budding director would soon be capable of.

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As Joan (Sylvia Sidney) excitedly awaits the release of her thrice-convicted criminal lover Eddie (Henry Fonda), she has little idea of the tragic consequences that lie in front of them.

Once released, Eddie struggles against a society that refuses to give ex-cons a second chance and before long they are on the run, condemning themselves to an early demise.

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In the summer of 2014, Bernard Jordan (Michael Caine) made global headlines. He had staged a "great escape" from his care home to join fellow war veterans on a beach in Normandy, commemorating their fallen comrades at the D-Day Landings 70th anniversary.

It was a story that captured the imagination of the world as Bernie embodied the defiant, "can-do" spirit of a generation that was fast disappearing. But of course, it wasn't the whole story. It was an inspirational but sanitised retelling of one man's need to come to terms with the lasting trauma of war. Bernie's adventure, spanning a mere 48 hours, also marked the culmination of his 60-year marriage to Rene (Glenda Jackson) - "The Great Escaper" celebrates their enduring love but always with an eye to the lessons we might learn from the Greatest Generation.

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Based in and around a movie studio this experimental and intriguing picture is essentially a film within a film. A director is told by one of his old professors that the world is in the dominion of the devil, and decides to make the claim the subject of his latest picture.

He then passes the idea onto a young journalist who is coincidently going through his own personal hell with his prostitute girlfriend and her violent pimp.

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At the height of the Chinese civil Megan Davis Megan Davis, an American missionary, travelled to Shanghai to marry her childhood sweetheart.

Separated during a raid, Megan is taken prisoner by the local warlord, General Yen (Nils Asther), who, intrigued by her innocence and strength, spirits her away to his summer palace. Initially repulsed by her captor's barbaric behaviour, Megan soon realises that beneath Yen's ruthless demeanor lies the soul of a poet and philosopher. And as war rages around them, these two strangers find themselves hopelessly entangled in a dangerous web of desire, betrayal and unattainable love.

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Unable to live with her mother, Berit is institutionalised for many years. When she is released from the institutions she ends up on the streets of the harbour slums of Gothenburg, and is forced to take a job.

The job is conditional on her living with her mother and she becomes a young woman in deep suicidal despair. One night she escapes her mother's overbearing apartment to go to a dance and, in an effort to lighten her spirits, she meets a sailor and tells her new-found confidante of her troubled past. She starts to spend more time with him and begins to meet others, soon, she discovers that she is not the only one with problems.

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Nora (Greta Lee) and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), two deeply connected childhood friends, are wrest apart after Nora's family emigrates from South Korea.

Two decades later, they are reunited in New York for one fateful week as they confront notions of destiny, love, and the choices that make a life, in this heartrending modern romance.

Kenneth Branagh stars as celebrated sleuth Hercule Poirot in this terrifying mystery set after World War II. Retired and living in Venice, Italy, Poirot reluctantly attends a seance where a murdered guest thrusts the detective into a sinister, shadowy world.

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In 'Young Winston', director Richard Attenborough chronicles the tumultuous rise of one of the greatest public figures of the 20th century - and one of its most complex private men.

Vain, rebellious and fiercely ambitious, Churchill (Simon Ward) is the product of the stormy union between Lord Randolph (Robert Shaw), a political failure, and haughty, Brooklyn-born Lady Jennie (Anne Bancroft). Alienated from them, young Winston pours all his energies into winning love through achievement. Starting as a war correspondent in India, he later becomes a hero in South Africa during the Boer War, before eventually launching a political career which carries him into the halls of Parliament.

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Bergman's third film depicts a powerful love triangle between an abusive sailor, his son and a chorus girl. The captain of a ship where he lives with his wife, hunchbacked son Johannes and small crew, Alexander Blom is a domineering tyrant, who secretly harbours dreams of escape.

Upon receiving the news that he is losing his sight, Alexander recklessly invites his mistress to move aboard. In the midst of this tense environment, an illicit romance develops between Johannes and his father's lover, leading to a confrontation between father and son with tragic consequences.