monsieurk's - Rented List

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Two classics from famous Finish director Aki Kaurismäki.

The Man Without a Past (2002)

Following 'Drifting Clouds', this is the second part of Kaurismdki's Finland trilogy. A man arrives in Helsinki only to be severely beaten and mugged. He sustains some head injuries which means he's lost his memory and so has no choice but to start a completely new life, almost literally.
Lights in the Dusk (2006)
A naive security guard becomes involved with a beautiful and mysterious woman who may have motives that are not so wholesome. The final part of the Finland trilogy.

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Horror author Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow) is missing. As crowds turn violent waiting for copies of his latest book, Cane's publishers enlist insurance investigator John Trent (Sam Neill) to find him.

With Cane's editor, Linda Styles (Julie Carmen), Trent sets off in search of the elusive author and finds himself trapped in Hobb's End, a town that should only exist within the author's books. As fiction and reality blur, Trent begins to realise that between the lines, beyond the page, somewhere out there in the dark, something evil is waiting to break through.

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The film that made Francesco Rosi's international reputation, this Citizen Kane-style investigative portrait was originally called Sicily 1943-60, as Rosi sought not so much to depict Giuliano himself as the society from which he sprang, in which the police, the Carabinieri and the Mafia all have

strong vested interests. Filming in the exact locations and utilising court reports as primary source material, Rosi mainly cast local Sicilians, some of whom knew Giuliano personally. The only professional actors were Frank Wolff (Once Upon a Time in the West} and Salvo Randone (L'Assassino).

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Sabine (Béatrice Romand), a 25 year old arts student, is having an affair with a married man, Simon (Féodor Atkine). When she realises that he will never leave his wife for her, Sabine decides to go out and find herself a husband.

At a wedding party, her friend Clarisse (Arielle Dombasle) introduces her to a 25 year old lawyer named Edmond (André Dussollier). In an instant, Sabine decides that Edmond is the man she will marry, but he disappears before they have a chance to speak properly together. Obsessed with the idea of marrying Edmond, Sabine repeatedly calls him, not realising that marriage is the last thing on Edmond's mind....

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In eighth-century Tang China, widowed Emperor Hsuan-tsung (Mori Masayuki) reigns alone, devoting his life to the composition of music.

When he meets and falls in love with a beautiful young woman (Kyo Machiko), who will become his imperial concubine, a tale of political intrigue and rival dynasties is set in motion, with ultimately tragic consequences.

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Days before a general election a young girl is raped and murdered. Bizanti (Gian Maria Volonté), the editor of a right-wing newspaper uses the story to help the conservative candidate his paper supports.

The tumultuous time of Italy's 'Years of Lead' are captured in Marco Bellocchio's powerful political drama which directly addressed topics of its day and even prefigured the creation of the right-wing paper 'Il giornale', which came into being two years after this film. In an age of media manipulation 'Slap the Monster on Page One' has never been more relevant and stands proudly alongside such Italian activist classics as 'We Still Kill the Old Way' and 'The Mattei Affair'.

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Having grown up in a devout Christian family, Yu (Takahiro Nishijima) has always been a well-behaved kid. After his mother dies, his priest father is seduced by a woman who breaks his heart, causing him to torment Yu by forcing him to confess his sins on a daily basis.

Of course, being a fairly normal kid, Yu has no legitimate sins to confess. To appease his increasingly demanding father, Yu is determined to become a true sinner, eventually training to become an expert at sneak upskirt photography. Pornography being the one sin no priest can overlook, Yu gets the attention he's been so desperately seeking from his dad. One day while hanging out with his fellow sinner pals - but dressed like Sasori as punishment for being on the losing end of a bet - Yu meets a beautiful girl named Yoko (Hikari Mitsushima). Their first meeting is a glorious one, beginning with an all-out street brawl and ending with a kiss. There are only two problems: she thinks he's a woman and a devious cult leader named Aya (Sakura Ando) is carefully manipulating both of their lives.

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One of the towering masterpieces of Japanese and world cinema, this three-part war epic has rarely been seen in the UK, at least partly because of its dauntingly gargantuan nine-hour length.

Director Masaki Kobayashi (Harakiri) was attracted to Junpei Gomikawa's source novel because he recognised himself in the character of the protagonist Kaji, an ardent pacifist who came of age during the aggressively militaristic 1930s and 40s. In part one, 'No Greater Love', Kaji is relocated to a mine-supervising job in Manchuria, where he is horrified by the use of forced labour. Part two, 'Road to Eternity', sees him conscripted into the Japanese army and forced to fight in the name of an aggressively imperialist cause. Part three, 'A Soldier's Prayer', deals with the consequences of Japan's defeat, not least for Kaji himself. Throughout, Kobayashi unflinchingly examines the psychological toll of appallingly complex decisions, where being morally 'right' risks outcomes ranging from ostracism to savage beating to death. As Kaji, Tatsuya Nakadai (Sanjuro) is in virtually every scene, providing a rock-solid emotional anchor - and a necessary one in Japan, where the film was hugely controversial for being openly critical of the nation's conduct during WWII. But it's this willingness to confront national taboos head-on that makes it such a lastingly powerful experience.

After two men are killed, a lonely professor (Gian Maria Volonté), takes it upon himself to investigate, as his search intensifies, politics and the Church become implicated in a complex conspiracy.

On the mean streets of Rome, eponymous pimp (Franco Citti) leads a hand-to-mouth existence on the very margins of society: prostituting, scrounging, exploiting. When his prize prostitute Maddalena is arrested and jailed, the pimp's fortunes dwindle, and he is forced to confront his own existence.

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Sammy Prescott (Laura Linney / Whitney Vance) is a single mother who has lived all her life in Scottsville, New York. Now she's raising her 8-year-old son there, enjoying the peace of the family home and security of her job at the bank, blotting out any memories of Rudy's father.

But the illusion of perfection is shattered when her charmingly self-destructive brother Terry (Mark Ruffalo) comes home for a visit.