watchlist_extended

"The Family," an album with a velvet cover, is meant to touch the extended family of man. Formal portraits, bookends in this 80-year saga, enclose the central story, which opens with the baptism of Carlo, a baby in his grandfather's lap, and ends with Carlo as a grandfather with a baby in his arms. And never once do we get out of the house, whose rooms provide the film's structure. Comfort or passion? Carlo couldn't really decide until it was too late.

At the time between the World Wars, Japan is involved in empire-building throughout East and Southeast Asia. After a brief career as a low-level military adventurer, Iheiji sets up chains of brothels throughout Asia. As Japan's power in the region grows, so does Iheiji's prosperity and patriotism.

In this highly stylized Brazilian drama a sax player fondly remembers one wonderful night spent with his life's love and decides to find her again. He embarks upon a quest through the wild streets of Rio to find her. Along the way he meets an assortment of odd urban underworld characters.

1987 film by Paul Newman

This suspenseful Italian crime drama is set in a Colombian river town and chronicles the series of events that led up to murder. Based on a novel by distinguished author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the tale begins in the present as a middle-aged doctor returns to the village after a twenty-year absence to investigate the murder that occurred just before he left.

Ten short pieces directed by ten different directors, including Ken Russell, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Altman, Bruce Beresford, and Nicolas Roeg. Each short uses an aria as soundtrack/sound, and is an interpretation of the particular aria.

Two teenage lovers are caught up in the thrill of forbidden love in this tragic romantic drama. Pierre (Jean-Pierre Andre) is a 16-year-old French lad who loves 14-year-old Djemila (Nadja Reski), the offspring of Algerian immigrants. Pierre's father is an Algerian war veteran who tolerates living with the immigrants at the low-income housing project as long as the two factions are separated. Djemila's older brother carries bitter hatred for the French over their invasion of Algeria. Both young lovers fall victim to the intolerance of their families when their relatives discover that the two are engaged in a passionate love affair.

The surprising destiny of Pierre Naboulet, who became a soldier during the terrible war of 1870 that he crossed with a lost child.

This sarcastic drama is taken from the popular Hungarian novel by Tibor Dery. A terminally ill writer (Jozef Kroner) of national prominence watches as family and friends gather like vultures for his imminent demise. Relli (Alexander Bardini) smiles and pretends to be the writer's friend as he tries to get his hands on an unpublished manuscript. The opening scene is the highlight of the film. While the dead writer is being laid to rest in a national funeral, he emerges from the coffin and walks into his own grave while the mourners flee in terror.

Young and recently separated couple meet in a modern house and start discussing their past relationship.

1986 film by Margarethe von Trotta

In the woods, a 13-year-old boy is grabbed by an escaped convict and told to bring money later that day. The boy does as he's told, only to be attacked by the convict's partner. A murder ensues, and through happenstance, the murderer and the boy's mother form an alliance. All this takes place in four days during which the boy has his first communion, his separated parents face each other amidst grandmother's hopes they'll reunite, the grandfather just wants to go fishing, the school's chaplain complains about the boy's behavior, and the convicts' shared girlfriend comes, gun in hand, to help them escape to Tangier. The mother's surprising decisions complete the story.

May is waiting for her boyfriend in a run-down American motel, when an old flame turns up and threatens to undermine her efforts and drag her back into the life that she was running away from. The situation soon turns complicated.

Michel is a bored lonely cheap-thrills-seeker. Everything changes when he finds an unusual bobble head doll in the shape of a pretty woman that can say "I love you" and falls in love with it to the point of obsession.

A turbulent era in Argentine politics is highlighted in this well-wrought drama, set in Buenos Aires at the end of 1945, about Clara (Graciela Borges), a young, half-Jewish woman awakening to the reasons behind the political conflicts of her time and place. Clara's father was a Communist who fought the Nazis in Argentina and possessed a list of the top Nazi exiles and their contacts. Through a former lover, Clara -- a successful broadcast journalist -- begins to see her Jewish roots (and the leftists) in a whole new light. Meanwhile, the political storms sweeping through Argentina are setting the stage for the Peronist government to come.

The story of an Aboriginal family's attempts to forge a new life for themselves within the segregated society. At the urging of headstrong teenager Trilby, the Comeaways relocate from their family camp, to a house in the main town.

Praised for its fine photography and production design if not its narrative, Sergei Bondarchuk directed this adaptation of the tale by Alexander Pushkin. Boris Godunov came to the Czarist throne at the end of the 16th century, after the original heir to Ivan the Terrible had died. At first, things went well for Godunov (played by Bondarchuk), but when the Russian people began to believe he had killed Ivan the Terrible's son in order to gain the throne, an alliance sprang up against the new Czar. Events continued to spin out of control as a young monk was presented as the son Godunov had supposedly killed. Now he was openly accused of failing an assassination attempt, which seems to be even worse than succeeding. In addition to these woes, Boris Godunov began to suffer serious health problems. So much for the joys of kingship.

1986 film by Mrinal Sen

Seen through the filtered lens of boyhood memories, award-winning director Mohamed Lakhdar-Hamina crafted this half-fictional, half-autobiographical account of a brief period in the history of an Algerian village. It is 1940, and the quiet town is ruled by French colonialists appointed by the Vichy government. Algerians are being called up for service in the Vichy military, and Jews in the village are in danger of deportation. A beautiful young schoolteacher named Claire Boyer (Veronique Jannot) arrives in town and turns every male head within miles, including 14-year-old Mouloud (Merwan Lakhdar-Hamina, the director's son). Simon Attal (Michel Boujenah), a fellow teacher and a Jew, is also attracted to Claire, and so is Mouloud's older brother. Suddenly two murders occur in the village, Simon is in danger of being deported, and the tone shifts from the dreams of boyhood to the realities of manhood.

1986 film directed by Franco Zeffirelli