Summary: Born in 1918, Tome is the daughter of an economically poor, dysfunctional family in early twentieth-century rural Japan. While working as a servant to the owners of the land her family tends, Tome is raped by the landlord’s son and falls pregnant. After the war has ended, leaving the child behind in the care…
Tag: Movies
Night Of The Living Dead (1968): Summary, Analysis
Summary: When the recently deceased begin to rise from the dead to feast upon the flesh of the living, a small group of embattled survivors attempt to stave off destruction by taking refuge in an abandoned western Pennsylvania farmhouse. They face the ghoulish threat of the living dead from without, but also increasing tension from…
My Life Without Me – Synopsis & Analysis
Synopsis: In My Life Without Me, Catalan director Isabel Coixet offers the story of a young woman’s diagnosis of terminal cancer. Ann (Polley) spares her family and friends the knowledge of her illness. As she is dying, she experiences a sensual awakening and transforms the lives of those around her. Analysis: My Life Without Me,…
The Headless Woman – Synopsis & Analysis
Synopsis: While Verónica, a white, provincial middle-class dentist, is driving along a rural road, she hits something or someone, a dog or a dark-skinned child – neither she nor the viewer can be sure – but doesn’t stop to find out what it is. In the days following the accident, she is confused and emotionally…
Mother India (Film) – Story & Analysis
Story: Set in rural India in the years surrounding India’s independence (1947), Mother India tells the story of Radha, a poor, illiterate villager who struggles to care for her family. Radha’s husband Shyamu is forced to pawn the gold bangles which come in her dowry (known as stree dhan or the woman’s wealth), their land,…
Mon Oncle (My Uncle, 1958 Movie) – Summary & Analysis
Summary: The young Gérard Arpel (Bécourt) lives with his mother and father in their ultramodern villa on the edge of Paris. Gerard finds it hard to adapt to the monotony and regimented routine of this life. The father (Zola) works for a large plastic pipe factory, while his mother (Servantie) cleans the house all day…
Modern Times – Summary & Analysis
Summary: The Little Tramp’s final film strings together Depression-era vignettes. In an 83-minute film,the Tramp is arrested five times and works at four different jobs. He begins the film as an assembly line-worker but a nervous breakdown sends him to the hospital. After his release, he is arrested and imprisoned for allegedly leading a communist…
The Misfits (1961 Movie) – Summary & Analysis
Summary: Roslyn, a former burlesque dancer, has travelled to Reno, Nevada, to obtain a ‘quickie’ divorce. Shetakes up with Gay, an elderly cowboy, who persuades Perce, a struggling rodeo rider, to join him in rounding up some of the last feral mustangs of the region. Assisted by Guido, a freebooting pilot, they manage to capture…
Mildred Pierce (1945 Movie) – Summary & Analysis
Summary: In contrast to the novel on which it is based, the film is structured as a fragmented flashback which gradually unravels the story of a murder. The deliberate omission of a standard reverse shot that would have clarified the situation, tricks the viewer into thinking there is no ambiguity regarding the identity of the…
Man Without A Past – Summary & Analysis
Summary: Man without a Past follows the noirish travails of its protagonist M, who, in the film’s first sequence, arrives in the city on the train with a modest suitcase in tow, only to be mugged and beaten in a city park. Having sustained a gruesome head injury, M suffers from amnesia that has him…