West Side Story (1961): Summary & Analysis

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Summary: 

On New York’s West Side, two gangs, the white Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks, fight over turf. At a dance, the tensions are palpable, but Tony, a former Jet, and Maria, the little sister of Bernardo, the Sharks’ leader, fall in love at first sight. While they meet secretly, the Jets and the Sharks agree on a rumble under the highway. Tony gets them to agree not to use weapons, but Maria asks him to prevent the rumble altogether. Things go bad, Bernardo kills Riff, the Jets’ leader, and Tony kills Bernardo. Maria and Tony want to run a way, and Anita wants to help but stops doing so when she is humiliated and aggressed by the Jets. In the end, Maria is left to grieve over Tony’s dead body. 

Analysis: 

Based on the successful Broadway musical first staged in 1957, a modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the musical expressed a number of ambivalences, about youth . . . Read More

WR: Mysteries of the Organism – Summary – Analysis

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Summary: 

The film is a collage of different materials, mainly documentary footage from the US, and fictional events taking place in Belgrade, Serbia. The ‘American’ section also contains various materials: interviews that attempt to shed light on the life and the theories on the relation between sex and politics espoused by psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, reflections by the transvestite Jackie Curtis, and various other pieces of footage. The ‘Yugoslav’ story depicts events surrounding a love affair between Milena, a Yugoslav communist activist and Soviet art ice skater Vladimir Ilyich, which ends with Milena’s brutal death. Without attempting to coherently link these varied events, the movie strives to lead viewers towards abstract conclusions about hidden links between sex and politics. 

Analysis: 

Sex is fun, and sex is funny. This is certainly one of the basic premises of WR: Mysteries . . . Read More

The Ascent (Movie): Summary & Analysis

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Summary: 

The film is set in Nazi-occupied Belarus and follows the story of two partisans (Soviet resistance fighters): Nikolai Rybak (Gostiukhin) and Boris Sotnikov (Plotnikov). A German counterinsurgency detachment surrounds the starving partisans and refugees in a frozen forest. The partisans’ commander sends Rybak to get food for the insurgents from neighbouring farms. Sotnikov volunteers to help Rybak. While the latter is a career serviceman, the former is a school teacher who seems to be unfit for the challenges of the war. After the Germans wound Sotnikov, he and his partner find refuge first in the house of an elderly couple and later in the hut of a widow with three children. The Germans eventually capture Rybak and Sotnikov, sentencing not only them to death but also everyone who gave them refuge. The only way to save one’s life is to agree to serve in a Nazi auxiliary police unit. Interrogated and tortured by the local collaborator . . . Read More

Viridiana (Movie): Summary & Analysis

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Summary: 

Viridiana tells the story of a novice nun who, in the film’s opening scenes, is asked by her Mother Superior to visit her widowed Uncle Jaime. She has not seen him for many years but he has asked to meet her before she takes her vows. Spending the night at the farm where he lives with a handful of servants, she initially gives in to his request that she wears his late wife’s wedding dress, but is horrified when she later discovers that he wants to marry her. He drugs her but cannot go through with his plan to rape her. In the morning he first claims that he has taken her virginity but then admits that this was a lie contrived to force her to stay with him. Faced with her departure and his own disgrace, Jaime hangs himself and Viridiana finds that she has inherited the property along with Jaime’s illegitimate son, Jorge. In an act of Christian kindness Viridiana installs a group of vagrants and beggars in the farm’s outbuildings . . . Read More

The Red Violin (1998 Movie): Summary & Analysis

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Summary: 

The Red Violin was written by François Girard and Don McKellar. Girard also directed this international co-production between Canada, the UK and Italy, which was released in theatres in 1998. The film won an Oscar for Best Original Musical Score, and the Canadian equivalent in the following Genie Awards: Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay, amongst others. It also received numerous international awards and nominations like the Golden Globes (nominated for Best Foreign Language film), the Grammy Awards (nominated for Best Instrumental Composition) and the Tokyo International Film Festival (Best Artistic Contribution Award). This international recognition of The Red Violin reflects the global appeal of the film, which is the result of a co-produced feature with inherent qualities suitable for the international market. The story of The Red Violin spans centuries and many countries: thus, creating a narrative that interweaves . . . Read More

Videodrome (1983): Synopsis & Analysis

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Synopsis: 

Videodrome tells the story of Max Renn (Woods), the sleazy programmer of a soft-core television channel who discovers a mysterious signal broadcasting a snuff TV show called ‘Videodrome’. Increasingly obsessed with tracing the source of the rogue signal, Max crosses paths with media philosophy guru, Professor Brian O’Blivion (Creley) and his daughter Bianca (Smits). After a series of strange encounters and unsettling visions, he learns that ‘Videodrome’ is transmitted via a frequency that induces malignant tumours in the brain, which in turn cause vivid hallucinations that are indistinguishable from reality. The film’s ambiguous ending imagines a violent and visceral takeover of technology by ‘the New Flesh’. The question of what this ‘New Flesh’ might be is at the heart of the film’s philosophical investigations into the influence and effects of media forms. 

Analysis:
. . . Read More

Voyage to the Beginning of the World: Summary & Analysis

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Summary: 

Viagem is a road movie of sorts. Three actors and an aging director, on a day off from making an unnamed film, are being driven across Northern Portugal. Oliveira himself plays their chauffeur. The ostensible reason for their journey is for Afonso, a Frenchman of Portuguese descent, to visit his father’s native village, Lugar do Teso, which Afonso knows only from stories, and meet his aunt, his only direct relative left in Portugal. Afonso’s story, based on that of real-life actor Yves Afonso, only takes centre stage in the second half of the film. The first part is dominated by the experiences of the director Manoel. The group stops at a series of locations that evoke memories of Manoel’s youth, listen to his reminiscences and debate questions of personal and national identity and history. The other two actors are Duarte, prompter of questions and source of information about Portugal and Judite, whose beauty, youth and wilfulness . . . Read More

Variety (1925 Movie): Summary & Analysis

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Summary: 

After many years in prison, with friends and family petitioning for his pardon, Prisoner 28 (Jannings) tells of his crime to a judge. In flashback, we learn that he is Boss Huller and that, years before, he had a carnival trapeze act along with his wife, Berta-Marie (de Putti). Invited to collaborate with Artinelli, a more famous trapeze artist, the Hullers move into the glamorous realms of spectacular variety entertainment. When Huller learns that Artinelli and Berta-Marie’s friendship has turned into an affair, he contemplates murdering Artinelli by ‘accidentally’ dropping him in mid-performance. Instead, he confronts him and in the ensuing struggle, stabs him to death. Having heard Huller’s story, the judge pronounces a pardon and releases him from prison. 

Analysis: 

On its release, E. A. Dupont’s Variety was among the most talked about films in the world, both a box office . . . Read More

The Stolen Death: Summary & Analysis

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Summary: 

In 1905, a young law student, Robert Hedman, belongs a group of Finnish activists striving for independence from the Russian Empire. He purchases weapons for the rebels from a shady businessman called Jonni. Jonni agrees to deliver a machine gun but also plans to blackmail the group. Jonni’s girlfriend Manja and Robert fall in love with each other and Manja volunteers to help the activists to steal the weapon. When Jonni finds out about the theft, he reports the rebels to the Tsarist militia. Robert is imprisoned but escapes and is chased by the military. During the chase, Manja is wounded and dies in Robert’s arms whereas he manages to sail out of the country. 

Analysis: 

When The Stolen Death/Varastettu kuolema was released in September 1938, it was perceived as confusing. The film that had been widely advertised as an experiment within the action genre, an ‘amazing example of . . . Read More

The Gospel According to St. Matthew (Movie): Summary & Analysis

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Summary: 

The film is based on the events related in Saint Matthew’s Gospel. It begins with the angel Gabriel telling Joseph about the Immaculate Conception and goes on to recreate the Nativity, the flight into Egypt and the Slaughter of the Innocents before moving forward to Christ’s baptism by John the Baptist, Christ’s temptation in the wilderness, the gathering of the disciples, the Sermon on the Mount, John’s execution by King Herod, Christ’s miracles and entry into Jerusalem, Jesus in the temple, the anointing, the Last Supper, Christ’s arrest, Crucifixion and finally the Resurrection. 

Analysis:

One of the most important, controversial and divisive figures in post-war Italian culture, Pier Paolo Pasolini was a filmmaker, poet, painter, novelist, cultural theorist and political activist. An agent provocateur par excellence, Pasolini was a committed Communist who was at one point . . . Read More