siddhartha's - Rented List
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Monster (2023)Kaibutsu
When her young son Minato (Soya Kurokawa) starts to behave strangely, single mother Saori (Sakura Andô) knows that there is something wrong. Discovering that one of his teachers might be responsible, she storms into the school demanding answers. But as the story unfolds through the eyes of mother, teacher and child, shocking truths begin to emerge. - Director:
- Hirokazu Koreeda
- Cast:
- Sakura Andô, Eita, Soya Kurokawa
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Vienna, winter. Johann, a guard at the grand Kunsthistorisches Art Museum encounters Anne, a foreign visitor called to Austria because of the poor health of a friend. Never having been to Austria and with little money, she wanders the city in limbo, taking the museum as her refuge. Johann, initially wary, offers help, and they're drawn into each other's worlds. Their meetings spark an unexpected series of explorations - of their own lives and the life of the city, and of the way artworks can reflect and shape daily experience. - Director:
- Jem Cohen
- Cast:
- Steve Crilley, Mary Margaret O'Hara, Bobby Sommer
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The Club (2015)El Club
Four ageing men live together in a secluded house on a windswept Chilean coastline. Each has been sent there to purge sins of the past, adhering to a strict regime under the watchful eye of a female caretaker. This fragile stability is disrupted by the arrival of a newly disgraced companion - bringing with him the past they thought they had left behind... - Director:
- Pablo Larraín
- Cast:
- Alfredo Castro, Roberto Farías, Antonia Zegers
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Diary of a Country Priest (1951)Journal d'un curé de campagne
Based on a novel by George Bernanos, 'Diary of a Country Priest' marked the first in Director Robert Bresson's so-called "prison trilogy" (followed by 'Pickpocket' and 'A Man Escaped'). The film begins with the arrival of a young, sickly priest (Claude Laydu) at the godless parish of Ambricourt in Northern France. Here he becomes drawn into the complex domestic life of a wealthy Count (Jean Riveyre), his tormented wife, his manipulative daughter and his mistress, Miss Louise (Nicole Maurey). Narrated by excerpts of the priest's diary, the film follows his efforts to awaken the villagers from their spiritual lethargy, with their struggles, suffering and triumphs representing in a microcosm those of humankind itself. Bresson's intensely personal style, minimalist approach to dialogue and music, and use of non-professional actors marked a new kind of filmmaking, which was to influence such diverse directors as Paul Schrader, Richard Linklater and Andrei Tarkovsky. - Director:
- Robert Bresson
- Cast:
- Claude Laydu, Nicole Ladmiral, Jean Riveyre
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Fallen Leaves (2023)Kuolleet Lehdet / Dead Leaves
Fallen Leaves is a timeless, hopeful and ultimately satisfying love story about two lonely souls' path to happiness - and the numerous hurdles they encounter along the way. Set in contemporary Helsinki, and shot through with Kaurismaki's typically playful, idiosyncratic style and deadpan humor, this tender romantic tragicomedy is a timely reminder of the potency of movie-going from one of cinema's living legends. - Director:
- Aki Kaurismäki
- Cast:
- Alma Pöysti, Jussi Vatanen, Janne Hyytiäinen
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Edinburgh, 1932. The world is on the cusp of change and at the forefront, leading the charge is the estimable Miss Brodie, teacher at the Marcia Blaine School for girls. As a new term begins for Miss Brodie, she is fully prepared. For whatever the subject, Miss Brodie is adept at bringing it around to the experiences girls should look forward to when they too are in their prime. Meanwhile Miss Brodies personal life is not so clear cut, torn as she is between the passionate advances of a young married artist, and the more conservative desires of a mature associate, she nevertheless manages to walk a strident path somewhere between the two. But Miss Brodies philosophy for living rubs up against the schools rigid moral standards, and when one of her young charges is inspired into a tragic act of foolhardy bravery, an act of almost religious betrayal follows that will shake the firm convictions of Miss Brodie to the core. - Director:
- Ronald Neame
- Cast:
- Maggie Smith, Gordon Jackson, Robert Stephens
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Ida (2014)Sister of Mercy
From acclaimed director Pawel Pawlikowski comes "Ida", a poignant and powerfully told drama about 18-year-old Anna, a sheltered orphan raised in a convent, who is preparing to become a nun when she discovers that her real name is Ida and her Jewish parents were murdered during the Nazi occupation. This revelation triggers a heart-wrenching journey into the countryside, to the family house and into the secrets of the repressed past, evoking the haunting legacy of the Holocaust and the realities of postwar Communism. Powerfully written and eloquently shot, "Ida" is a masterly evocation of a time, a dilemma, and a defining historical moment. - Director:
- Pawel Pawlikowski
- Cast:
- Agata Kulesza, Agata Trzebuchowska, Dawid Ogrodnik
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Touch of Spice (2003)Politiki kouzina
Fanis is a man torn between his Greek ethnicity and his emotional roots in Turkey, the country of his birth. Using the device of cuisine as a metaphor for national identity and personal feelings, we see Fanis grow from a boy whose grandfather imparts culinary and philosophical expertise from the Aladdin's cave of his spice shop, to a young man with a true passion for food. Deported to Greece with his family as a young boy, Fanis returns home after 35 years for an emotional reunion with his grandfather... and his first love. A bitter sweet journey of the senses, set against the historical backdrop of the deportation of thousands of Greeks from Istanbul, this is one of the biggest Greek films of all time. - Director:
- Tassos Boulmetis
- Cast:
- Georges Corraface, Ieroklis Michaelidis, Renia Louizidou
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"The Old Oak" is a special place. Not only is it the last pub standing, but it's also the only remaining public space where people can meet in a once thriving mining community that has now fallen on hard times after 30 years of decline. TJ Ballantyne (Dave Turner) the landlord hangs on to 'The Old Oak' by his fingertips, and his predicament is endangered even more when the pub becomes contested territory after the arrival of Syrian refugees who are placed in the village without any notice. In an unlikely friendship TJ meets a curious young Syrian Yara (Ebla Mari) with her camera. Can they find a way for the two communities to understand each other? So unfolds a deeply moving drama about their fragilities and hopes. - Director:
- Ken Loach
- Cast:
- Dave Turner, Ebla Mari, Claire Rodgerson
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The Wild Pear Tree (2018)Ahlat Agaci
Sinan (Dogu Demirkol) returns from his studies in the city of Canakkale to his parents' home in the small rural town of Can. He hopes to publish a book of essays and short stories (or what he describes as a "quirky auto-fiction meta-novel"). But his teacher father Idris (Murat Cemcir) is an addictive gambler, so much so that his mother and sister have become reluctantly accustomed to making do without food or electricity. And so Sinan, with his writing dreams, worrying that we will be reduced after army service to teaching in the remote East, wanders around town, visiting his grandparents, encountering old friends, all the while looking for funding for his book. - Director:
- Nuri Bilge Ceylan
- Cast:
- Murat Cemcir, Bennu Yildirimlar, Dogu Demirkol
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Wayne left home because of an argument about pies. Cyril would like to machine gun the Royal family. Rupert and Laetitia Boothe-Brain play yuppie sex games, while deep in suburbia Valerie fails to arouse her husband Martin with a suggestion that he be Michael Douglas and she a virgin. Mrs Bender gets locked out of her house and is criticised by her neighbour for selfishly occupying a whole house in an increasingly fashionable area. And Cyril's girlfriend Shirley wants to start a family, but gets no encouragement from Cyril, who feels that the world should be spared more babies until everyone already here has a job, a place to live and enough to eat. - Director:
- Mike Leigh
- Cast:
- Phil Davis, Ruth Sheen, Edna Doré
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Elle (2016)Oh!
From legendary filmmaker Paul Verhoeven, 'Elle' is a gripping psychological noir thriller. Starring iconic actress Isabelle Huppert in a career-defining role, 'Elle' follows Michele LeBlanc (Huppert), founder and CEO of a successful video game company, who is attacked in her own home. Upending our expectations, Michele begins to track down her assailant, and soon they are both drawn into a curious and thrilling game, one that at any moment may spiral out of control. - Director:
- Paul Verhoeven
- Cast:
- Isabelle Huppert, Oury Milshtein, Laurent Lafitte
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Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow (2004)Trilogia: To Livadi Pou Dakryzei
The unmistakable vision of Greek cinema master Theo Angelopoulos, 'The Weeping Meadow' is the first part in a celluloid trilogy that spans a wide-ranging historical panorama. In 1919, as Greek refugees flee Odessa and the invading Red Army for their homeland, the story of the forbidden love affair between the beautiful young Eleni and Alexis begins. After giving birth to twin sons, the couple elope to Thessaloniki in an attempt to start anew. But their lives are shattered by the country's political turmoil and such calamitous events as World War II and the Greek Civil War. Angelopoulos' sweeping epic is a magnificent, visually stunning reflection on the turbulent history of Greece in the 20th Century. - Director:
- Theodoros Angelopoulos
- Cast:
- Alexandra Aidini, Nikos Poursanidis, Giorgos Armenis
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Long Day's Journey Into Night (2018)Di qiu zui hou de ye wan
Luo (Jue Huang) returns to Kaili, the hometown from which he fled many years before. Luo recalls the death of an old friend, Wildcat (Hong-Chi Lee), and searches for his lost love Wan Qiwen (Wei Tang) who continues to haunt him. Bi's film sculpts time and space with huge virtuosity. With talismanic cues and motifs of uncanny doubling, the film is bisected, its first half recast in the second through a vertiginous, trance-inducing, hour-long single take in 3D. A hypnotic study of hazy memory, lost time, and flight, 'Long Day's Journey into Night' take you on a nocturnal, labyrinthine voyage. - Director:
- Gan Bi
- Cast:
- Wei Tang, Jue Huang, Sylvia Chang
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Daisies (1966)Sedmikrásky
A satirical, subversive, surreal and irreverent story of rebellion, Vera Chytilova's classic film is arguably the most adventurous and anarchic Czech movie of the 1960's. Two young women, both named Marie, revolt against a degenerate and decayed society by attacking symbols of wealth and bourgeois culture in hilarious and mind-warpingly innovative ways. Defiant feminist statement? Nihilistic, avant-garde comedy? Refreshingly uncompromising, Daisies is a riotous, punk-rock poem of a film that remains a cinematic enigma and continues to provoke, stimulate and entertain audiences and influence filmmakers even today. - Director:
- Vera Chytilová
- Cast:
- Jitka Cerhová, Marie Cesková, Ivana Karbanová
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