ncobb-watched's - Rented List

Show moreShow less

This landmark film by the virtuosic Mikhail Kalatozov was heralded as a revelation in the post-Stalin Soviet Union and the international cinema community alike.

It tells the story of Veronica (Tatiana Samoilova) and Boris (Alexei Batalov), a couple who are blissfully in love until World War II tears them apart. With Boris at the front, Veronica must try to ward off spiritual numbness and defend herself from the increasingly forceful advances of her beau's draft-dodging cousin.

Show moreShow less

Set in German-occupied Belarus in 1942, the interplay of people and events slowly bind the characters into a trap: Sushenya has apparently collaborated with the Germans and is taken off into the woods by two partisans.

Through flashbacks the truth, and the moral complexities behind it, is gradually revealed.

Show moreShow less

In Tokyo, three homeless people's lives are changed forever when they discover a baby girl in a garbage dump on Christmas Eve. As the New Year fast approaches, these three forgotten members of society band together to solve the mystery of the abandoned child and the fate of her parents.

Along the way, encounters with seemingly unrelated events and people force them to confront their own haunted pasts, as they learn to face their future together.

Show moreShow less

A feverish collision of avant-garde aesthetics and grindhouse shocks 'Funeral Parade of Roses' takes us on an electrifying journey into the nether-regions of the late-'60's Tokyo underworld.

In Matsumoto's controversial debut feature, seemingly nothing is taboo: neither the incorporation of visual flourishes straight from the worlds of contemporary graphic-design, painting, comic-books, and animation; nor the unflinching depiction of nudity, sex, drug-use, and public-toilets. But of all the "transgressions" here on display, perhaps one in particular stands out the most: the film's groundbreaking and unapologetic portrayal of Japanese gay subculture. Cross-dressing club-kid Eddie (Pîtâ) vies with a rival drag-queen (Osamu Ogasawara) for the favours of drug-dealing cabaret-manager Gonda Passions escalate and blood begins to flow - before all tensions are released in a jolting climax.

Show moreShow less

The inmates are running the asylum...literally. As a war led by local rebels surrounds their tranquil haven, the patients of a small psychiatric hospital remain blissfully cut off from the raging conflict, safely confined in their own small, restricted world.

But problems ensue as the medical staff abandons the hospital, leaving the residents to fend for themselves. Janna (Julia Vysotsky), a beautiful young patient, takes it upon herself to organize the hapless group as best she can, entertaining them with her accordion and dreaming of the day when her imaginary fiance, pop musician Bryan Adams, will arrive to whisk her off to a better life.

Show moreShow less

Set in a detention camp in Hungary 1869, at a time of guerrilla campaigns against the ruling Austrians, Jancso (János Görbe) deliberately avoids conventional heroics to focus on the persecution and dehumanisation manifest in a time of conflict.

Filmed in Hungary's desolate and burning landscape, Jancso uses his formidable technique to create a remarkable and terrifying picture of war and the abuse of power that is still very relevant today.

Show moreShow less

Andrzej Wajda's dazzling Man of Marble is one of the key films of the 1970s. Often described as the 'Polish Citizen Kane', Wajda's epic masterwork operates as both an electrifying political saga and a compelling analysis of the nature of cinema itself.

Mateusz Birkut, a bricklayer, glorified as a State-promoted 'Worker's Hero' is subsequently removed from all official mention in 1952. In 1976 a young filmmaker, Agnieszka, obsessively pursues his story. Birkut's rise and fall and disappearance into obscurity provides Wajda with a framework for a brave reassessment of the period. Although suppressed by the authorities, Man of Marble became a milestone in Polish cinema and an undoubted influence in the dismantling of the totalitarian system in Poland.

Show moreShow less

On the last day of World War Two in a small town somewhere in Poland, Polish exiles of war and the occupying Soviet forces confront the beginning of a new day and a new Poland.

In this incendiary environment we find Home Army soldier Maciek Chelmicki (Zbigniew Cybulski), who has been ordered to assassinate an incoming commissar. But a mistake stalls his progress and leads him to Krystyna (Ewa Krzyzewska), a beautiful barmaid who gives him a glimpse of what his life could be. Gorgeously photographed and brilliantly performed, 'Ashes and Diamonds' masterfully interweaves the fate of a nation with that of one man, resulting in one of the most important Polish films of all time.

As dark forces gather to hasten the Apocalypse, Hellboy (Ron Perlman) fights fire with fire in this mind-blasting supernatural action-adventure from the visionary director of 'Blade 2'. Based on the celebrated 'Dark Horse' comic book.

Show moreShow less

"Come and See" is one of the greatest war films ever made and one of the finest achievements of Soviet cinema.

A devastating account of the Nazi occupation of Belarussia during World War II, it tells the story of a young boy's abrupt loss of innocence when he joins the Soviet resistance and is thrust headlong into the brutal horrors of combat. Featuring terrifyingly authentic battle scenes and poetic, almost surreal imagery, director Elem Klimov has fashioned a vivid and unforgettably powerful portrait of the terrible atrocities committed by men in the name of war.

Show moreShow less

From acclaimed Mexican horror maestro Guillermo Del Toro comes 'The Devil's Backbone', a truly terrifying spine-tingler combining state of the art special effects with towering performances from a combination of Latin legends.

A deliciously dark horror, 'The Devil's Backbone' tells the tale of a remote Spanish orphanage during the final days of The Spanish Civil War whose young inhabitants are brutally terrorised by Santi, a decomposing spirit who stalks the building's dark decaying hallways. But, as the film builds to a grisly, explosive finale, the children learn the true story of Santi's death and rise up to vow a deadly vengeance on his vicious murderer.

Show moreShow less

A hotel room in the centre of Rome sets the interior scene where two young women, who have just met, go on a physical journey which will touch their souls.

Before they leave to go back to their respective lands, Spanish Alba (Elena Anaya) and Russian Natasha (Natasha Yarovenko) embark with their bodies and souls on an unforgettable one night stand.

Show moreShow less

Shot in the summer of 1975 as General Franco lay dying, Saura's masterpiece takes its title from a sinister Spanish proverb: 'Raise ravens and they'll pluck out your eyes'.

A subtle yet unmistakable indictment of the family as a repressive force in Spanish society, 'Cria cuervos' centres on an eight-year-old orphan (the spellbinding Ana Torrent) who believes herself to have poisoned her cold, authoritarian father (Hector Alterio), a high-ranking military man whom she blames for the death of her adored mother (Geraldine Chaplin).

Show moreShow less

This smash hit futuristic comedy is a fresh and sublimely entertaining tale from French filmmakers, Jeunet (Amelie) and Caro. In a starving, post-holocaust France, a butcher keeps his customers supplied by his cannibalistic tendencies.

But when his daughter falls in love with a circus performer, only an underground band of vegetarian freedom fighters can save her beloved from the meat cleaver.

Show moreShow less

To warm and often hilarious effect, Mungiu combines several urban legends to portray a time during which food was more important than money, freedom more important than love and survival more important than principles.

As he does so, he subtly and comically unseats the propagandist myth that Ceausescu's Romania was the "golden age" of communism.