Summary: Set in the turbulent months leading up General Augusto Pinochet’s violent coup on 11 September 1973, the film’s historical events are witnessed by child protagonists, Gonzalo, Pedro and Silvana. Specifically, the film follows Gonzalo as his loyalty is caught between his middle-class, and mostly right-wing family, and his two new friends, Pedro and Silvana,…
Tag: Analysis
The Monkey’s Paw – Analysis
The English author W. W. Jacobs did most of his writing in a fifteen-year period around the turn of the twentieth century. Many of his stories were lighthearted tales about life on the English waterfront. But “The Monkey’s Paw,” first published in 1902 in a collection called The Lady of the Barge deals with the…
Miss Brill – Analysis
Katherine Mansfield, born Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp in 1888 in Wellington, New Zealand, lived a short life, but she established a literary reputation at a young age. Her first published book, In a German Pension, was published in 1911, when she was only twenty-two years old. She became friends with some of the great literary figures…
M (1931 Movie) – Summary & Analysis
Summary: With a child-murderer in their midst the people of a German city are gripped by fear. The police crack down on known criminals in an effort to find the killer. This disrupts crime in the city, and so, the criminal fraternity set out to find the offender themselves. They track him down and the…
Run Lola Run – Summary & Analysis
Summary: Lola receives a phone call from Manni asking for her help to replace 100,000 Marks that he has misplaced on the subway. The money is for his gangster boss, who is certain to kill Manni if he doesn’t receive it. Lola has 20 minutes to find the cash and reach Manni before he resorts…
The Lodger (Movie): Synopsis & Analysis
Synopsis: Adapted from a successful novel by Marie Belloc, the film reinterprets and offers a solution to the story of infamous serial killer Jack the Ripper and reimagines the seedier parts of London in the nineteenth century.1 After an initial sequence that makes clear that the killer known by his calling card as ‘The Avenger’…
Let The Right One In – Summary & Analysis
Summary: Twelve-year-old Oscar (Kare Hedebron), bullied at school, lonely and silently revengeful, befriends his new neighbour, palely androgynous Eli (Lina Leandersson) also twelve. She encourages him to fight back against his schoolboy tormentors, and gradually they realise their love for each other. But her arrival coincides with a series of bloody attacks and murders, and…
The Last Wave – Summary & Analysis
Summary: David Burton (Richard Chamberlain) is a corporate tax lawyer living in middle-class comfort in Sydney, Australia with his wife and two young daughters. His life is turned upside-down when he agrees to defend a group of young aboriginal men who have been accused of murder. He quickly becomes convinced that the motive is ‘tribal’…
The Ladykillers (1955) – Synopsis & Analysis
Synopsis: The eccentric, old-fashioned home of Mrs Wilberforce, in a quiet London cul-de-sac, provides the unlikely venue for the planning of an audacious train robbery. The sinister figure of Professor Marcus takes a lodging room with the seemingly gentle old lady and holds regular musical soirees there with his friends, forming a string quintet. These…
Bicycle Thieves – Summary & Analysis
Summary: In the economic depression of post-Second World War Italy, unemployed Antonio Ricci finally finds some work to support his wife and two children. The condition of the job as a poster hanger is that he needs to have a bicycle, but in order to feed his family Antonio had already pawned his bicycle. Facing…