The Wind That Shakes the Barley: Ireland, 1920. Damien and Teddy are brothers. But while the latter is already the leader of a guerrilla squad fighting for the independence of his motherland, Damien, a medical graduate of University College, would rather further his training at the London hospital where he has found a place. However, shortly before his departure, he happens to witness atrocities committed by the ferocious Black and Tans and finally decides to join the resistance group led by Teddy. The two brothers fight side by side until a truce is signed. But peace is short-lived and when one faction of the freedom-fighters accepts a treaty with the British that is regarded as unfair by the other faction, a civil war ensues, pitting Irishmen against Irishmen, brothers against brothers, Teddy against Damien.
The Crocodile: The film-in-the-film is centered on the figure of Italy’s prime minister and media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, a subject so controversial that even the public television refuse to produce it. While Bonomo’s private life collapses piece by piece, as he’s divorcing from his wife, and the bank is pressing him hard to pay back his long-standing debts, he finds out that struggling to get this movie filmed is the only thing that keeps him alive.
Chronicle of Escape: In 1977, the goalkeeper of the Almagro team is illegally kidnapped from his home, arrested by the government forces and sent blindfolded to Sere Mansion, a clandestine detention center. His acquaintance, who had been tortured for a long period, had falsely accused Claudio of being a revolutionary. Along the months, Claudio is kept nude and handcuffed together with other prisoners and submitted to all sort of humiliations and tortures, until the night they decide to escape from their imprisonment in the old mansion.
Colossal Youth: This is scrambled story telling in slow motion. Often I found myself thinking about Beckett. The dialogs appear irrelevant, having to do with mundane personal life experiences, friends and relatives. These are poorly educated people after all. In fact one better pay close attention to the prate. It is through small revelations and asides in conversations that we pick up the clues to the life of Ventura and those close to him. The quiet and unpretentious acting, the extended takes, the absence of broad movements, the occasional lengthy silence, all can be soporific. Yet one needs to listen carefully.
Friend of the Family: Geremia, an aging tailor/money lender, is a repulsive, mean, stingy man who lives alone in his shabby house with his scornful, bedridden mother. He has a morbid, obsessive relationship with money and he uses it to insinuate himself into other people’s affairs, pretending to be the “family friend”. One day he is asked by a man to lend him money for the wedding of Rosalba, his daughter. Geremia falls in love at first sight with the bewitching creature and and soon indulges in a “beauty and the beast” relationship.
Flanders: In a gray and un-charming part of France, these farming people live. Life is quiet. You start a relation with the girl in the neighbor house. Life would have remained quiet if it wasn’t for war. There’s a shocking contrast here, between the silent life and the brutal battles in Africa. It directly affects also life at home, in an almost as brutal way. Can the things we’ve done, those wounds, be healed? Maybe they can after all. A very tense drama, which is sometimes hard to watch. Well acted, and very far from mainstream action, especially when it comes to psychological violence.
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