#135 – Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, (Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios), 1988, Pedro Almodóvar
Pepa resolves to kill herself with a batch of sleeping-pill-laced gazpacho after her lover leaves her. Fortunately, she is interrupted by a deliciously chaotic series of events.
#242 – Viridiana, 1961, Luis Buñuel
Viridinia is preparing to start her life as a nun when she is sent, somewhat unwillingly, to visit to her aging uncle, Don Jaime. He supports her; but the two have met only once. Jaime thinks Viridinia resembles his dead wife. Virdinia has secretly despised this man all her life and finds her worst fears proven when Jaime grows determined to seduce his pure niece. Viridinia becomes undone as her uncle upends the plans she had made to join the convent.
#253 – Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, (ลุงบุญมีระลึกชาติ), 2010, Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Suffering from acute kidney failure, Boonmee has chosen to spend his final days surrounded by his loved ones in the countryside. Surprisingly, the ghost of his deceased wife appears to care for him, and his long lost son returns home in a non-human form. Contemplating the reasons for his illness, Boonmee treks through the jungle with his family to a mysterious hilltop cave—the birthplace of his first life.
#298 – Talk to Her, (Hable con ella), 2002, Pedro Almodóvar
Two men share an odd friendship while they care for two women who are both in deep comas.
#306 – The Spirit of the Beehive, (El espíritu de la colmena), 1973, Víctor Erice
In the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, Ana, a sensitive seven-year-old girl in a rural Spanish hamlet is traumatized after a traveling projectionist screens a print of James Whale’s 1931 “Frankenstein” for the village. The youngster is profoundly disturbed by the scenes in which the monster murders the little girl and is later killed himself by the villagers. She questions her sister about the profundities of life and death and believes her older sibling when she tells her that the monster is not dead, but exists as a spirit inhabiting a nearby barn. When a Loyalist soldier, a fugitive from Franco’s victorious army, hides out in the barn, Ana crosses from reality into a fantasy world of her own.
#358 – The Passenger, (Professione: reporter), 1975, Michelangelo Antonioni
David Locke is a world-weary American journalist who has been sent to cover a conflict in northern Africa, but he makes little progress with the story. When he discovers the body of a stranger who looks similar to him, Locke assumes the dead man’s identity. However, he soon finds out that the man was an arms dealer, leading Locke into dangerous situations. Aided by a beautiful woman, Locke attempts to avoid both the police and criminals out to get him.
#409 – The Executioner, (El verdugo), 1963, Luis García Berlanga
An undertaker gets married to an old executioner’s daughter and, although he doesn’t like it, must continue the profession of his father-in-law after his retirement.
JUMBO CACTUAR APPROVED FILM
#458 – A Fistful of Dollars, (Per un pugno di dollari), 1964, Sergio Leone
The Man With No Name enters the Mexican village of San Miguel in the midst of a power struggle among the three Rojo brothers and sheriff John Baxter. When a regiment of Mexican soldiers bearing gold intended to pay for new weapons is waylaid by the Rojo brothers, the stranger inserts himself into the middle of the long-simmering battle, selling false information to both sides for his own benefit.
JUMBO CACTUAR APPROVED FILM
#460 – For a Few Dollars More, (Per qualche dollaro in più), 1965, Sergio Leone
Two bounty hunters are in pursuit of “El Indio,” one of the most wanted fugitives in the western territories, and his gang.
JUMBO CACTUAR APPROVED FILM
#470 – The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, (Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie), 1972, Luis Buñuel
In Luis Buñuel’s deliciously satiric masterpiece, an upper-class sextet sits down to dinner but never eats, their attempts continually thwarted by a vaudevillian mixture of events both actual and imagined.
Jumbo Cactuar Film Index 