745 – Aferim! (2015)

timespace coordinates: 1835 Wallachia

Aferim! (English: Bravo!) is a 2015 Romanian drama/western film directed by Radu Jude. The film is set in Wallachia in the early 19th century, when a local gendarme, Costandin, is hired by Iordache, a boyar, to find Carfin, a Gypsy slave who had run away from the boyar’s estate after having an affair with his wife, Sultana. Aferim! (2015) is only the second Romanian film to address the Roma slavery, which existed in Wallachia for almost 500 years until 1856. (The first one was the silent film Fata tigani in dormitor (1923). It has apparently been lost, with only a few stills surviving.)

The story is fictional, but director Radu Jude said in the NY Times (Sept. 8, 2015) that he drew on the historical record. Before shooting began, he held a script reading with 20 historians and made adjustments in response to their input.Publication The Hollywood Reporter describes Radu Jude’s film as “a harsh lesson of history, relieved by overlooked humor and classic Western elements”. Variety magazine writes that Aferim! is “an exceptional and extremely intelligent insight into a crucial period of history, a film equally inspired and furious” (wiki)

imdb   /   rottentomatoes

0742 – LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE / Ruang rak noi nid mahasan (2003)

timespace coordinates: 2000’s Thailand

Thai filmmaker Pen-ek Ratanaruang directs the character-driven drama Last Life in the Universe, co-written by first-time screenwriter Prabda Yoon. Kenji (Tadanobu Asano) is a Japanese man living in Bangkok. He lives a tidy, silent lifestyle fueled by the detached desire to kill himself. Meanwhile, Noi (Sinitta Boonyasak) is a pot-smoking call girl who lives in a  shabby beachside home outside the city. She tries to teach herself to speak Japanese with hopes of moving to Osaka. One day, Kenji walks into his apartment as his brother Yukio (Yutaka Matsushige) is involved in a gun fight with gangster (yakuza) Takashi (Riki Takeuchi). Then Kenji accidentally witnesses the death of Noi’s lovely sister, Nid (Laila Boonyasak), with whom he first became smitten at the library. Having nowhere to go, Kenji goes to live with Noi for a few days, leading to the development of a strange and sensitive relationship. With cinematography by Hong Kong-based photographer Christopher Doyle. Last Life in the Universe won an Upstream Prize at the 2003 Venice Film Festival. (rottentomatoes)

Last Life in the Universe OST – Untitled [Are you alone? Are you lonely?]

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0737 – Psychokinesis / Yeom-lyeok (2018)

timespace coordinates: 2010’s Seoul

Psychokinesis (Hangul: 염력; Hanja: 念力; RR: Yeom-lyeok) is a 2018 South Korean superhero film written and directed by Yeon Sang-ho. The film stars Ryu Seung-ryong, Shim Eun-kyung, Park Jung-min, Kim Min-jae and Jung Yu-mi in the lead roles. This is director Yeon Sang-ho’s second live action film after Train to Busan in 2016. It is the first South Korean superhero film, and revolves around a bank security guard who gains telekinetic superpowers after drinking water from a mountain spring affected by a meteor, and decides to use them for saving his estranged daughter and her neighbourhood from an evil construction company.

imdb

0735 – Deadpool 2 (2018)

Deadpool 2 is a 2018 American black comedy superhero Self-reflexive vigilante time travel film based on the Marvel Comics character Deadpool, distributed by 20th Century Fox. It is the eleventh installment in the X-Men film series, and a direct sequel to the 2016 film Deadpool. The film is directed by David Leitch from a script by Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, and Ryan Reynolds, with Reynolds starring in the title role alongside Josh Brolin, Morena Baccarin, Julian Dennison, Zazie Beetz, T.J. Miller, Brianna Hildebrand, and Jack Kesy. In the film, Deadpool forms the team X-Force to protect a young mutant from the time-traveling soldier Cable.

The first teaser poster, which pays homage to Norman Rockwell‘s 1943 painting Freedom from Want, was released that November. Justin Carter of Comic Book Resources found it “oddly appropriate for Deadpool 2 to co-opt [this] iconic work for a modern pop culture audience” as it is “true to Deadpool’s incredibly referential nature”.

The first footage from the film debuted at the end of a video where Reynolds (in-character as Deadpool) parodies Bob Ross and his television show The Joy of Painting.

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imdb   /   Céline Dion – Ashes

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018 – X-Men (film series)

618 – Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)

734 – The Giver (2014)

timespace coordinates: futuristic dystopian / utopian society after a calamity, referred to as The RuinThe Giver is a 2014 American social science fiction film directed by Phillip Noyce and starring Jeff Bridges, Brenton Thwaites, Odeya Rush, Meryl Streep and Alexander Skarsgård. The film is based on the 1993 novel The Giver by Lois Lowry.

imdb

0733 – The Lure (2015)

timespace coordinates: 1980’s Warsaw Poland

The Lure (Polish: Córki dancingu – “The Daughters of Dance Party”) is a 2015 Polish horror musical film directed by Agnieszka Smoczyńska. The story is a reworking of The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen, with inspiration from Smoczyńska’s experiences.

Smoczyńska likened the mermaids to immigrants, abused by the locals (used in the sex industry) on their way to their real goal—America. She added they represent innocence, yet their odour and slime recalled girls maturing, “they menstruate, they ovulate, their bodies start smelling and feeling different.” (wiki)

imdb

0732 – The White King (2016)

The White King is a 2016 British sci-fi-drama film written and directed by Alex Helfrecht and Jörg Tittel. It is an adaptation of the 2008 Hungarian novel of the same name written by György Dragomán and follows Djata (Lorenzo Allchurch) growing up in an agrarian totalitarian state, without access to the rest of the world, while dealing with persecution against him and his parents (Agyness Deyn & Ross Partridge) by the government. (wiki)

György Dragomán’s story has been transposed to fictitious near-future dictatorship. Dragomán said this about the film: “In my original novel I wanted to show freedom in a society where freedom should not exist. In their movie Alex and Jörg were brave enough to take my communist childhood tale and adapt it into a modern story, showing us that the threat to freedom is as eternal as our fight for it.”

imdb