Summary: Hidden is an art-house thriller which focuses on Georges Laurent, an arts journalist living in Paris, whose family comes under an unexplained threat with the arrival of several videotapes. These are anonymous surveillance tapes of the exterior of the family’s apartment, an unfamiliar Paris street and the farmhouse where Georges grew up. The investigation…
Tag: Movies
Pandora’s Box (Film): Summary and Analysis
Summary: Lulu is a beautiful woman with a mysterious past. Raised by the drunkard Schigolch, a pimp and possibly her father, she becomes the mistress of a wealthy and respectable newspaper editor, Dr Ludwig Schön (Fritz Kortner). Schigolch introduces Lulu to Rodrigo Quast, who offers her a role in his variety show. Dr Schön gets…
Boudu Saved From Drowning: Summary and Analysis
Summary: After losing his dog, the tramp Boudu tries to drown himself in the Seine. He is rescued by a Parisian bourgeois antiquarian bookseller, Lestingois. Insisting Lestingois is now responsible for his welfare Boudu is brought back to the Lestingois apartment. It is not long before Boudu’s anarchic behaviour clashes with the prim and proper…
Bob le Flambeur: Synopsis and Analysis
Synopsis: Bob is an ageing, former gangster turned gambler in Montmartre (Paris), leading a pleasant if unconventional life with his friend Roger, his protégé, Paolo, and a young woman, Anne, who he has picked up on the street and who he helps out. After a spell of bad luck, he’s running out of money and…
The Blue Angel (1930): Summary and Analysis
Summary: Professor Immanuel Rath strictly enforces discipline in his high-school classroom. That is, until his curiosity leads him to his students’ hangout: The Blue Angel club. There he falls in love with and sleeps with performer Lola Lola, an ordinary city girl with an extraordinary penchant for attracting men. When he returns to school, Rath…
Blade Runner (1982, 1992): Summary and Analysis
Summary: 2019, a chaotic, decaying Los Angeles afflicted with crime and perpetual rains brought on through climate change. Anyone who has the means has fled to off-earth settlements and space colonies. Three androids designed for strictly extraterrestrial use have escaped and returned to LA to track down their genius inventor; they intend to have their…
Birth Of A Nation (1915): Summary and Analysis
Summary: A US Civil War (1861–65) drama, Birth of a Nation centres on two white families, the Camerons from the South and the Stonemans from the North. Before the war, during a visit of the Stonemans to the Camerons, Ben Cameron falls in love with Elsie Stoneman, and Phil Stoneman with Margaret Cameron. The war,…
The Battle of Algiers – Summary and Analysis
Summary: Battle of Algiers starts with Ali La Pointe’s arrest in 1957, before a flashback cuts to 1954 when Ali was still a small-time thug. Radicalised in jail, he joins the National Liberation Front (FNL), becoming a key player in the battle for Algerian independence. Using Ali as a way to connect different events, the…
Bashu, The Little Stranger – Summary and Analysis
Summary: The film begins in the war-torn south of Iran, and the opening sequence unfolds like an action film. Bombs hit homes and other civilian buildings, date trees disappear amidst smoke, and a woman who has been set on fire because of the explosions spins in vain to extinguish the flames. Rather incredibly, a trucker…
The Pope’s Toilet (El bano del papa): Summary and Analysis
Summary: A poor Uruguayan town on the Brazilian border awaits the visit of Pope John Paul II. This means pilgrims will arrive in need of food and drink, paper flags, souvenirs and commemorative medals. Brimming with anticipation, the locals hope not only for blessing but also a small share of material happiness. Analysis: Produced in…