#820 – V for Vendetta, 2005, James McTeigue
In a world in which Great Britain has become a fascist state, a masked vigilante known only as “V” conducts guerrilla warfare against the oppressive British government. When V rescues a young woman from the secret police, he finds in her an ally with whom he can continue his fight to free the people of Britain.
JUMBO CACTUAR APPROVED FILM
#839 – Underground, (Podzemlje), 1995, Emir Kusturica
Black marketeers Marko and Blacky manufacture and sell weapons to the Communist resistance in WWII Belgrade, living the good life along the way. Marko’s surreal duplicity propels him up the ranks of the Communist Party, and he eventually abandons Blacky and steals his girlfriend. After a lengthy stay in a below-ground shelter, the couple reemerges during the Yugoslavian Civil War of the 1990s as Marko realizes that the situation is ripe for exploitation.
#859 – Die Nibelungen: Siegfried, 1924, Fritz Lang
Siegfried, son of King Siegmund of Xanten, travels to Worms, capital of the Burgundian kingdom, to ask King Gunther for the hand of his sister, the beautiful Kriemhild.
#866 – Die Nibelungen: Kriemhilds Rache, 1924, Fritz Lang
When Kriemhild, thirsty for revenge, marries to Etzel, king of the Huns, she invites King Gunther and his court to visit them, intending to finally take the life of the man responsible of her disgrace.
#894 – Mädchen in Uniform, 1931, Leontine Sagan & Carl Froelich
A sensitive girl is sent to an all-girls boarding school and develops a romantic attachment to one of her teachers. One of the earliest narrative films to explicitly portray homosexuality. Based on “Gestern und Heute” by German playwright Christa Winsloe.
#903 – The Meetings of Anna, (Les Rendez-vous d’Anna), 1978, Chantal Akerman
Anna is a film director whose job takes her all over western Europe. In each place she either already has some intimate connection, or readily makes one. People seem drawn to her, but inevitably insist on sharing their inmost secrets and discontents with her, despite her obvious and profound lack of interest in these revelations. This does not deter Anna from continuing to meet people, and she genuinely connects with them occasionally, as when she sees her mother briefly in Brussels.
#963 – The Piano Teacher, 2001, Michael Haneke
Erika Kohut, a sexually repressed piano teacher living with her domineering mother, meets a young man who starts romantically pursuing her.
#985 – The Bridge, (Die Brücke), 1959, Bernhard Wicki
A group of German boys are ordered to protect a small bridge in their home village during the waning months of the second world war. Truckloads of defeated, cynical Wehrmacht soldiers flee the approaching American troops, but the boys, full of enthusiasm for the “blood and honor” Nazi ideology, stay to defend the useless bridge.
Jumbo Cactuar Film Index 