Underground

Underground, 170 minutes/1995

directed by Emir Kusturica

UNDERGROUND , directed by Emir Kusturica, follows an underground weapons manufacturer in Belgrade during the secondWorld War and evolves into fairly surreal situations. A black marketeer who smuggles the weapons to partisans doesn't mention to the workers that the war is over, and they keep producing. Years later, they break out of their underground "shelter" --- only to convince themselves that the war is still going on.

Emir Kusturica creates a frenetic, delirious, farcical, insightful, and ultimately tragic allegory on the dissolution of a nation in Underground. Using surreal, repeated events that interweave reality and illusion, Kusturica presents an incisive metaphor for the turbulent and often vicious circle of Yugoslavian politics: The prophetic words, "War is not a war unless a brother kills a brother", in the end, becomes a metaphor for the dissolution of a nation through ethnic conflict, an elegy for the fractured soul of a divided country.

Emir Kusturica is a Serbian filmmaker, actor and musician, recognized for several internationally acclaimed feature films. He resides in a village he had built for his film Life Is a Miracle. He won the Palme d'Or at Cannes twice (for When Father Was Away on Busines and Underground). He was awarded the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

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The Bathers

Les baigneuses/ The Bathers/2003/83 minutes/

directed by Viviane Candas

Sexy, gritty and as provocative as a lap dance, The Bathers takes an insider's look at the lives of six women working as dancers at a seedy Parisian peep show. Governed by their overprotective boss, the girls' routine of glittery neon lights and lecherous customers is soon disrupted when an enigmatic stranger enters the scene. Now, drugs, sex and bickering all take a back seat as the girls unite to save this man haunted by a mysterious past and unforgiving demons. A fascinating glimpse into a world of back alleys and primal instincts, The Bathers transports us to a netherworld where the show always goes on.

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The Darjeeling Limited

The Darjeeling Limited/2007/91 minutes

directed by Wes Anderson

In The Darjeeling Limited, directed by Wes Anderson, three American brothers who have not spoken to each other in a year set off on a train voyage across India with a plan to find themselves and bond with each other -- to become brothers again like they used to be. Their "spiritual quest", however, veers rapidly off-course (due to events involving over-the-counter pain killers, Indian cough syrup, and pepper spray), and they eventually find themselves stranded alone in the middle of the desert with eleven suitcases, a printer, and a laminating machine. At this moment, a new, unplanned journey suddenly begins. One can also look at Darjeeling as a movie that acknowledges the struggle of family as community. The entire movie consists of the brothers wrestling with whether they can ultimately trust one another or not.

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Clockwork Orange

Clockwork Orange./1971/136 minutes

directed by Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick's randomly ultra-violent, over-indulgent, graphically-stylized film, Clockwork Orange, is a terrifying, gaudy film adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s 1962 satiric, futuristic novel of the same name. It is a Based on Anthony Burgess's disturbing novel about England in the totalitarian future, Malcolm McDowell portrays Alex, a Beethoven-loving, head-bashing... disturbing movie about England in the totalitarian future, Malcolm McDowell portrays Alex, a Beethoven-loving, head-bashing punk who leads his gang of ‘droogs’ [friends] on ultra-violent assaults--until he is captured by authorities and subjected to nasty behavior-modification therapy. The treatment makes him less than human. He has been conditioned against classical music, his love of which was his one human feature, and apparently all of his sex drive is gone.

Kubrick is widely acknowledged as one of the most accomplished, innovative, and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Even though most of his films were adapted from novels or short stories, his works are noted as some of the "most original, provocative, and visionary motion pictures ever made".

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