Tag: rubbish tip

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Features Live Action Movies

Luminous Woman
(Hikaru Onna,
光る女)

Director – Shinji Somai – 1987 – Japan – Cert. 15 – 118m

*****

A Hokkaido farmer comes to Tokyo in search of his vanished fiancée but finds a world he has not expected – on Blu-ray from Monday, Monday, May 20th

At a rubbish tip on the outskirts of Tokyo, a barefoot man (Takeiji Muto) in cheap trousers and top encounters a suave-looking sophisticate (Kei Suma) and a woman opera singer (Michiru Akiyoshi), the latter performing gracefully atop the rubbish heap. The woman is dependent on the sophisticate. The barefoot man has travelled from Hokkaido to find his fiancée Kuriko Sakura, who was supposed to return after studying accounting to help him run a farm.

The sophisticate knows someone of that name, and drives the barefoot man into the city. In his nightclub, he offers the outsider a deal – if he’ll fight the club’s pro-wrestler for ¥100 000, the other will tell him where to find Kuriko. However, she may not be the person he seeks. Out of her boss’ earshot, the woman warns the outsider that the wrestling may be to the death.

In the club she plays the piano while another woman sings opera and, on the circular dias bordered by a water pool, a challenger fights the incumbent wrestler and loses.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

EO
(IO)

Director – Jerzy Skolimowski – 2022 – Poland – Cert. 15 – 88m

*****

Forced to leave his home in the circus, a donkey undergoes a series of adventures – on BFI Player as a Subscription Exclusive along with three other Skolimowski titles on Monday, April 3rd, following its release in UK cinemas on Friday, February 3rd

After an absence of some seven years from the cinema, Skolimowski has chosen to make a movie with an animal as its central character rather than a human being. EO is a donkey (played by some six donkeys over different parts of the film) who undergoes a series of adventures as things happen around him. He starts out as a performer in a circus with a girl called Kasandra (Sandra Drzymalska), who takes good care of him and treats him with genuine affection.

Life is good. But then he finds himself co-opted by (and Kasandra arguing with) another circus person Wasyl (Maciej Stepniak) who uses a whip on him to get him to drive a cart of rubbish to the local tip. These two episodes set the tone for what is to follow: while all the humans here use the animal for their own ends, some treat him with kindness while others don’t, rather using him as a means to an end without any sense of his being a conscious creature.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Winners (Barandeha)

Director – Hassan Nazer – 2022 – UK, Iran – Cert. PG – 85m

****

A missing Oscar statuette is found by two kids in the Iranian provinces who work scavenging rubbish dumps – the UK’s official entry for the 95th (2023) Academy Awards Best International Feature is out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 17th #winnersfilm

An Oscar statuette goes missing in Tehran when the woman charged with bring it to the production company office somewhat foolishly leaves it in the back of a taxi while she nips out at her home to collect something. While she is out of the vehicle, a policeman instructs the driver to move on as he isn’t allowed to stop there. She comes back and the taxi is gone – and the statuette with it.

It ends up in the taxi company’s lost parcel office, where an employee who has no idea what it is decides to borrow it for the evening as it will look good in his home, wrapping it in a towel before placing it in his bag. Travelling through the small town of Garmsar on his motorbike, he is forced by a broken down car blocking the road to take a detour across bumpy, poorly-maintained roads which, in turn, cause the poorly packed statuette to fall off his bike where it is found by a girl, Leila (Helia Mohammad Khani), who hands it to her nine-year old friend Yahya (Parsa Maghami).… Read the rest