Safe — sometimes written as [safe] or [SAFE] — is a 1995 British/American drama film written and directed by Todd Haynes, and starring Julianne Moore. The story is a character study of a suburban California housewife whose life deteriorates under the stress of “environmental illnesses” and seeks hope from “New Age” practitioners with whom she becomes involved. Safe was voted the best film of the 1990s in the 1999 Village Voice Film Poll.
Set in an affluent neighbourhood of the San Fernando Valley in 1987, the film recounts the life of a seemingly unremarkable homemaker, Carol White who develops multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS, also known as “Twentieth-Century Disease”). MCS is a medically controversial diagnosis in which a person develops mild to severe non-specific symptoms and believes that these symptoms are triggered by chemicals found in everyday household and industrial products.
spacetime coordinate:Christmas season of 1952 – early 1953 / New York City > Waterloo, Iowa
Carol is a 2015 British-American dreamy romantic drama film directed by Todd Haynes. The screenplay, written by Phyllis Nagy, is based on the 1952 semi-autobiographical romance novel The Price of Salt (also known as Carol) by Patricia Highsmith. The film stars Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, Jake Lacy and Kyle Chandler. Set in New York City during the early 1950s, Carol tells the story of a forbidden affair between an aspiring female photographer and an older woman going through a difficult divorce.
Carol was shot on Super 16 millimeter film to resemble the look and feel of photographic film from the late 1940s/early 1950s. The cinematography was influenced by the photojournalism of Vivian Maier, Ruth Orkin, Helen Levitt, and Esther Bubley. Photography by Saul Leiter (known for shooting through windows and using reflection) was a key influence.
Prior to production, director Todd Haynes compiled a playlist of 79 songs and instrumental music that were popular during the period Carol is set in (including songs referenced in the novel “The Price of Salt”) to assist in further understanding the era and mood of the times.
Director Todd Haynes creates image books as a guide to the visual feel of his films, going back to his drama Safe (1995). The compendiums are culled from photographs, film stills, paintings, periodicals and other sources to generate ideas for the film’s style. They are meant initially for the cinematographer. (The books are not to be confused with storyboards, the shot-by-shot breakdowns he has made since his first feature, Poison(1991).) His image books are “a way of communicating beyond words that gets to the crux of what the mood, temperature and stylistic references would be.” For Carol “it becomes great reference for clothes, hair, makeup, the way women carry themselves in the period and the specificity of how they’re being created from the outside in.” The image book includes, for example, references to other films such as: Brief Encounter(1945) and Vertigo (1958) for their sense of period, and The Sugarland Express (1974) for its innovative cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond; Lovers and Lollipops (1956) for the locations and The Pumpkin Eater (1964) for the interiors; and urban photography by Ernst Haas, Helen Levitt and Vivian Maier. Haynes assembles his image books almost as a kind of visual mixtape, pulling photos and movie screen grabs of his inspirations and laying them out in pages of collages to create a kind of virtual movie. Haynes created more than 80 pages of photo collages for “Carol” that served as a road map through the production. It took him two months to compile. [from N.Y.Times 1/28/2016 “Todd Haynes Collects Images to Guide the Feel of His Films”]
Amer is a 2009 Belgian-French thriller horror film written and directed by French directors Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani. The film is a giallo in three parts. The plot of the film follows the sexual development of Ana who lives on the French Riviera. The film focuses on her oppressive teenage years leading to her womanhood.
The 1970 film adaptation of Valerie a týden divů was shot in 1969 starring 13-year-old Jaroslava Schallerová as Valerie, with a supporting cast of Helena Anýžová, Karel Engel, Jan Klusák, Petr Kopriva, among others. It was filmed in the Czech town of Slavonice and surrounding areas. The film portrays the heroine as living in a disorienting dream, cajoled by priests, vampires, men and women alike, and blends elements of fantasy and horror films.
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Promotional trailer advertising the first public screening of a newly discovered print of Jaromil Jire’s legendary erotic horror-fantasy HERE
spacetime coordinate: the north of Germany during the years before World War I
Das weiße Band, Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte (literally, “The White Ribbon, a German Children’s Story”) darkly depicts society and family in a northern German village just before World War I and, according to Haneke, “is about the roots of evil. Whether it’s religious or political terrorism, it’s the same thing.”
The memories of an unnamed elderly tailor form a parable from the distant year he worked as a village schoolteacher and met his fiancée Eva, a nanny. The setting is the Protestant village of Eichwald, Germany, from July 1913 to 9 August 1914, where the local pastor, the doctor and the baron rule the roost over the area’s women, children and peasant farmers.
Carol is a 2015 British-American dreamy romantic drama film directed by 
TimeSpace Warps 