#680 – Phoenix, 2014, Christian Petzold
A disfigured concentration-camp survivor, unrecognizable after facial reconstruction surgery, searches ravaged postwar Berlin for the husband who might have betrayed her to the Nazis.
#681: We Need to Talk About Kevin
#681 – We Need to Talk About Kevin, 2011, Lynne Ramsay
After her son Kevin commits a horrific act, troubled mother Eva reflects on her complicated relationship with her disturbed son as he grew from a toddler into a teenager.
#682: Shoeshine
#682 – Shoeshine, (Sciusciào), 1946, Vittorio De Sica
At a track near Rome, shoeshine boys are watching horses run. Two of the boys Pasquale, an orphan, and Giuseppe, his younger friend are riding. The pair have been saving to buy a horse of their own to ride…
#683: The Great Silence
#683 – The Great Silence, (Il grande silenzio), 1968, Sergio Corbucci
A mute gunslinger fights in the defense of a group of outlaws and a vengeful young widow, against a group of ruthless bounty hunters.
JUMBO CACTUAR APPROVED FILM
#684: Late Autumn
#684 – Late Autumn, (秋日和), 1960, Yasujirō Ozu
The great actress and Ozu regular Setsuko Hara plays a mother gently trying to persuade her daughter to marry in this glowing portrait of family love and conflict—a reworking of Ozu’s 1949 masterpiece Late Spring.
#685: The Insect Woman
#685 – The Insect Woman, (にっぽん昆虫記), 1963, Shōhei Imamura
A woman, Tome, is born to a lower class family in Japan in 1918. The title refers to an insect, repeating its mistakes, as in an infinite circle. Imamura, with this metaphor, introduces the life of Tome, who keeps trying to change her poor life.
#686: Tristana
#686 – Tristana, 1970, Luis Buñuel
Tristana is a young Spanish woman left to the care of Don Lope, a protective but impoverished aristocrat. Don sells his possessions to avoid manual labor and champions the causes of the dispossessed and downtrodden of society. He takes advantage of the vulnerable Tristana, who leaves him when she falls in love with Horacio. Unable to commit to him, she returns to Don Lope when she falls ill. He asks for her hand in marriage, and she accepts after losing her leg to cancer. She chooses to remain in a passionless union rather than be subject to the harsh realities of a society that refuses to change to the needs of women. Taken from the novel by celebrated author Benito Perez Galdos.
#687: Carrie
#687 – Carrie, 1976, Brian De Palma
Carrie White, a shy and troubled teenage girl who is tormented by her high school peers and her fanatically religious mother, begins to use her powers of telekinesis to exact revenge upon them.
#688: Audition
#688 – Audition, (オーディション), 1999, Takashi Miike
Seven years after the death of his wife, company executive Aoyama is invited to sit in on auditions for an actress. Leafing through the resumés in advance, his eye is caught by Yamazaki Asami, a striking young woman with ballet training.
JUMBO CACTUAR APPROVED FILM
#689: The Blair Witch Project
#689 – The Blair Witch Project, 1999, Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sánchez
In October of 1994 three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary. A year later their footage was found.
Jumbo Cactuar Film Index 