127 – Mlyn i krzyz (2011)

spacetime coordinates: sixteenth-century Flanders

The Mill and the Cross (Polish: Młyn i krzyż) is a 2011 Polish-Swedish drama film directed by Lech Majewski and starring Rutger Hauer, Charlotte Rampling and Michael York. It is inspired by Pieter Bruegel the Elder‘s 1564 painting The Procession to Calvary, and based on Michael Francis Gibson‘s book The Mill and the Cross.

Variety‘s Dennis Harvey wrote: “While hardly an exercise in strict realism a la The Girl With the Pearl Earring, the pic details rustic Flanders life with loving care, from costuming to simple machinery. Pic’s narrative content … is hardly straightforward or propulsive. … the film is never dull, and frequently entrancing.”

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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1324055/

121 – A Field in England (2013)

spacetime coordinates: 1648 England

A Field in England is a 2013 British historical psychological horror film directed by Ben Wheatley. The film, shot in black-and-white, is set during the mid-17th century English Civil War.

Alex Monzó

Wheatley became interested in the film’s historical setting of the English Civil War when he filmed a documentary about the Sealed Knot, a historical reenactment society. In his research, Wheatley also learned about the use of hallucinogens during the 17th century.

Variety reported that the film was described as “a psychedelic trip into magic and madness”. Wheatley said A Field in England combines “the more psychedelic elements” from his previous films Kill List and Sightseers and “weaves in our take on historical drama”

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2375574/

108 – Manderlay (2005)

spacetime coordinates:  1933 rural Alabama, Manderlay plantation

Manderlay is a 2005 internationally co-produced avant-garde drama film written and directed by Lars von Trier and the second part of von Trier’s projected USA – Land of Opportunities trilogy. It stars Bryce Dallas Howard, who replaces Nicole Kidman in the role of Grace Mulligan. The film co-stars Willem Dafoe, replacing James Caan. Lauren Bacall, Željko Ivanek, Jeremy Davies, and Chloë Sevigny return portraying different characters from those in Dogville. Only John Hurt, Udo Kier, and Jean-Marc Barr reprise their roles.

trailer: https://youtu.be/9h9QykHz4Wg

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0342735/

0083 – Ravenous (1999)

spacetime coordinates: 1840s in the Sierra Nevadas // the Mexican-American War 

Ravenous is a 1999 Czech-American black comedy horror-suspense film directed by Antonia Bird and starring Guy Pearce, Robert Carlyle, Jeffrey Jones and David Arquette. The film revolves around cannibalism in 1840s California and some elements bear similarities to the story of the Donner Party and that of Alferd Packer. Screenwriter Ted Griffin lists Packer’s story, as recounted in a couple of paragraphs of Dashiell Hammett‘s The Thin Man, as one of his inspirations for Carlyle’s character. The film’s darkly humorous and ironic take on its gruesome subject matter have led some to label it simply as a black comedy or a satire. The film’s unique score by Michael Nyman and Damon Albarn generated a significant amount of attention.

watch trailer here

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the wendigo (Algonquian folklore)

imdb

073 – Rain Down From Above (film by Ivan Maximov)

065 – Ida (2013)

spacetime coordinates: 1960s Polish People’s Republic

Ida (pronounced [ˈida]) is a 2013 Polish drama film directed by Paweł Pawlikowski and written by Pawlikowski and Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Set in Poland in 1962, it is about a young woman on the verge of taking vows as a Catholic nun. Orphaned as an infant during the German occupation of World War II, she must now meet her aunt. The former Communist state prosecutor and only surviving relative tells her that her parents were Jewish. The two women embark on a road trip into the Polish countryside to learn the fate of their family.

Called a “compact masterpiece” and an “eerily beautiful road movie”, the film has also been said to “contain a cosmos of guilt, violence and pain”, even if certain historical events (German occupation of Poland, the Holocaust and Stalinism) remain unsaid: “none of this is stated, but all of it is built, so to speak, into the atmosphere: the country feels dead, the population sparse”. ( wiki )

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imdb

0062 – Krabat / Krabat and the Legend of the Satanic Mill (2008)

spacetime coordinates: Europe after the Thirty Years’ War

Krabat is a 2008 German fantasy film directed by Marco Kreuzpaintner from a screenplay by Michael Gutmann and Kreuzpaintner, based on Otfried Preußler‘s novel of the same name. The plot is about a boy, Krabat (played by David Kross), who learns black magic from a sorcerer (played by Christian Redl).

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imdb