Part 2, and surely the greatest, of Wajda's trilogy describes the last days of the failed 1944 Warsaw uprising against the Nazis. The imagery of the sewers, to which the Polish fighters retreat, is superbly used to represent both their desperation and their new Soviet prison. Made in 1956 despite Stalinist censorship.
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KWAIDAN (1964)
CertificationPG Our Rating
Kobayashi's remarkable 'ghost' stories are a beautiful amalgam of traditional Japanese art and subtle direction. The four stories are adaptations of 18th century ghost stories by Lafcadio Hearn and are eerily compelling. Their dramatic impact is all due to subtle visual nuances. Excellent.
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L'AVVENTURA (1959)
CertificationPG Our Rating
The catalyst is the mystery disappearance of a young girl on holiday, but the film concentrates on the burgeoning romance between the missing girl's lover and her best friend as the pair embark on a distinctly half-hearted search. Set against a desolate Sicilian landscape, this highly stylised drama was once considered the be all and end all of art house poseur, it's reputation has sunk but it's still a must see film classic.
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L'ECLISSE (1962)
CertificationPG Our Rating
Vittoria has just suffered the break-up of an imperfect relationship with a staunch intellectual when a brash young stockbroker makes his first tentative romantic advances, but the couple's innermost fears prevent their relationship from becoming a pure expression of their love. The winner of a Special Jury prize at Cannes, this exquisitely performed and photographed drama defines Antonioni's thematic preoccupation with the difficulties of communication and the impossibility of love; completing
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LOVE (1971)
CertificationU Our Rating
Two womens' lives have become rituals around an absent man, one is the man's bedridden mother, who believes her imprisoned son is hitting the big time in America, and the other his wife, carefully sustaining the illusion in the old lady.
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MOTHER JOAN OF THE ANGELS (1961)
CertificationPG Our Rating
In the 17th Century a group of nuns claimed to be possessed by the devil with Joan, the convent head, leading the possession stakes with at least 8 demons on her slate. An innocent young priest, the latest in a long line sent to investigate, is going to have to go to hell and back to save her soul. Chronologically the film acts as a sequel to Ken Russell's 1971 shocker 'The Devils', and if you've seen that you'll know what a lying bitch Joan is. Superb black and white photography gives an expres
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THE SEVENTH SEAL (1957)
CertificationPG Our Rating
Bergman's fascinating and acclaimed allegorical search for a meaning for human existance. A disillusioned soldier returns from the Crusades to find plague ravaging Europe. Death arrives in person to take his soul, but by beating him at chess he earns a reprieve. Repressive, dark, medieval and superb!
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WHEN A WOMAN ASCENDS THE STAIRS (1960)
CertificationPG Our Rating
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs might be Japanese filmmaker Mikio Naruse's finest hour, a delicate, devastating study of a woman, Keiko, played heartbreakingly by Hideko Takamine, who works as a bar hostess in Tokyo's very modern post-war Ginza district. Sly, resourceful, but trapped, Keiko comes to embody the conflicts and struggles of a woman trying to establish her independence in a male-dominated society. A profoundly moving masterpiece.
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WOMAN OF THE DUNES (1964)
Certification15 Our Rating
An entomologist, searching for insects in the desert, becomes trapped in a large escape-proof sandpit with a desirable, but inarticulate, woman, and a taught sexual tension gradually builds between them. On such a slight plot the film develops into an exploration of eroticism and the attraction between man and woman. An unusually cruel and suspense filled thriller.
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