Description

A widely acclaimed critical favorite honored with a Golden Globe nomination as Best Foreign Language Film, ARTEMISIA is the highly provocative true story of a young woman whose bold pursuit of artistic freedom and physical desire threatened the elite powers of her time! Artemisia Gentileschi, the beautiful and talented daughter of one of Italy's greatest painters, is forbiden to fully pursue her own passion for painting. When she convinces a renowned and unconventional artist to tutor her, however, he not only liberates her in the world of art, but initiates her into the treacherous world of sex and love! Following the controversy of a theatrical release that saw the original NC-17 rating overturned on appeal, Miramax Films is proud to present this important and powerful motion picture complete and unedited! ... Read more

Description

Praised by critics and audiences alike, Nada represents a shift in style for Claude Chabrol, from the provincial study of intense relationships to the violent political thriller."Nada" named after a gang of Spanish anarchists, is a small, confused band of French terrorists.They kidnap the American ambassador after one of his regular visits to an exclusive brothel.The gang starts to quarrel amongst themselves as to the diplomat's fate, while the police purge suspects in their attempts to destroy the Nada faction.As the violence escalates on both sides, the States and the terrorists are forced to use one another's methods in an increasingly desperate and relentless conflict ... Read more

Reviews (3)

A good political French new wave kidnapping drama...
NADA, a French terrorist group, kidnaps the American Ambassador to France as they want to put some pressure on the French conservative government. The Interior branch of French government is offended by the actions of the NADA fraction and want to find a quick solution to the problem. The solution leads to increasingly brutal conduct by the French police, which forces the NADA fraction toward more radical action. Chabrol directs a good political French new wave film that bluntly depicts how violence breeds violence as the audience is allowed to follow two sides of the story.

excellent plot, thin characters
Most of Claude Chabrols films are about the bored bourgeoisie and their marital infidelities which inevitably lead to murder. Plot wise the stories sound like standard murder mysteries but Chabrol's main weapon "irony" is used in such an interesting way that he often seems to be challenging our conventional notions of just why people are so fond of cheating and just why it inevitably leads to murder. Nada is Chabrols only flirtation with the political thriller genre and Chabrols irony again is what singles this film out from any other in the genre.

One of the members of the Nada gang is a university lecturer who is not so much a revoltionary as a social discontent, who is disgusted with the bourgeoisie conventions of his life. He is the most unlikely member of the Nada gang and the one Chabrol focuses on more than any other. The other members are your usual revolutionary suspects. Although one revolutionary immediately strikes you for his resemblance to Clint Eatwood, he even wears a poncho and cowboy hat. Chabrol is perhaps less interested in the political positions of his revolutionaries than he is with the reasons behind their social discontent. In his other films his discontents are married and infidelity and murder seem the only means of escape from the stifling nature of bourgoisie life so in this respect the film is a variation on Chabrols favorite themes but in Nada instead of turning to marital infidelities the bored bourgeoisie turn to revolution. In fact there are bourgeoisie on both sides of the law. The police chief and the politicians on the right are seen to be as bored with bourgeoisie life as are their counterparts on the left so it is another instance of Chabrols famous irony to have the ultimate battle be not so much about revolutionary politics but about bored bourgeoisie squaring off against each other to alleviate the tedium of their respective existences. The revolutionaries hatch a kidnapping plan in which they heist the America ambassador out of that most bourgeoisie of institutions, the brothel. From there things quickly escalate until the right and left square off like two armies at a farmhouse. Both sides seem to be engaged in a huge bit of folly and as the bodies pile up its obvious whatever intentions either side had have been lost sight of when the guns start blazing. Miraculously the lecturer and the Eastwood character escape but soon one is captured and used as bait to get to the other. Chabrol drives the political thriller to its conclusion with one last irony and thats that the Eastwood character unlike everyone else in the film actually does believe in something but its too little too late. In the end we are left with a political thriller and vision of humanity that will please the bored bourgeoisie anarchist in everyone.

All of Chabrols films have the air of formal exercises and everything that happens has an air of inevtability to it that makes Chabrol seem to be a fatalist. What makes his best pictures memorable are his characters which seem to realize their lives are determined by forces they do not control and this realization as much as anything else leads them to act with abandon. Nada comes close, the ideas are there in the plot, but no one character really captures our interest and so the film is curiously lacking in that psychological dimension that makes Chabrols best films so compelling.

Excellent thriller, from the French master
Claude Chabrol's 1974 Nada is in some ways a change of pace for the master of the corrupt bourgeois, yet in others is true to form. While the focus of the plot is the kidnapping of the American ambassador to France by disaffected French leftists and anarchists, the emphasis on their personal psychologies is as pointed as ever from the perspective of a film director who has made a career of juxtaposing the haves and the have-nots, those who sit back and bask in their wealth and those who have to resort to other means to attain it--usually criminal. Or those who just plain resent the wealthy and do something about it, even if the resenters don't become wealthy themselves.

The action here is very well paced and the acting is exactly what it should be from a great cast including Fabio Testi and Mariangela Melato (from the great Lina Wertmuller film Swept Away). Rather than lampooning the police as he did in Innocents with Dirty Hands, Chabrol here presents them as brutal workers who do everything possible to get information. The kidnappers are all disaffected, but in different ways. One is a dedicated Marxist. One is a leftist-anarchist. One is essentially a professional radical mercenary. One is a complete anarchist prone to getting drunk.

Chabrol delights in contrasting those who view activity as a luxury and those who know it is a duty--and the performance of that duty by the latter is often done with enough intensity to become violent, quite easily in fact. The Justice Minister, for example, sleeps in opulent surroundings and has a wife looking suspiciously like Marie Antoinette. Likewise the ambassador dallies in a brothel with a whore wearing flimsy garments. Meanwhile the cops and the kidnappers do the dirty work that forms the meat of the story.

An interesting film by the great Claude Chabrol who does have his occasional slipups (Innocents with Dirty Hands, The Swindle, e.g.) but who in this film proves he can tell a tale that veers from his typical fare--and do it quite well indeed. Definitely recommended. ... Read more

Description

The legendary diva Umm Kulthum stars in this classic film about a poor nurse who falls in love with the son of one of her wealthy patients.Abandoned by her husband while pregnant, she must fight her husband's wealthy and powerful family in court.A rare treat, this film features nine of Umm Kulthum's most famous songs by composers Mohamed Al Asabgui and Riad Al Sunbati. DVD EXTRAS include English and French subtitles, scene access and filmographies. ... Read more

Description

For one brief weekend, their love was all that mattered. It is 1944, Normandy, and British commandos are advancing across France. Camped outside a small town during a lull in the Allied progress, platoon leader Saul (Gabriel Byrne) wanders into the surrounding countryside with his trusted corporal, Charlie (Paul Wyett). Spotting an isolated farmhouse, they come upon a strikingly beautiful woman, Belle (Marianne Basler). Belle coldly rejects Saul's obvious advances. Her discomfort turns to terror with the approach of three armed Frenchmen, who prove to be members of the Resistance. They claim she is a traitor, responsible for the deaths of many Resistance fighters. As they take her away, Saul decides to protect her, turning his gun on the Frenchmen. While the men wait, Saul realizes the hopelessness of his desire to save Belle from the Resistance--and he realizes that he has only one option left to keep Belle safe. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Helvio Soto's dramatic re-creation of the military overthrow ofChile's freely elected leftist government in 1973 is a cousin to AlainResnais's La Guerre Est Finie, Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers, and Costa-Gavras's Z and Missing; it's an unapologetically angry piece of political cinema decrying the brutal suppression of human freedom. Beginning with Allende's 1970 election, Soto painstakingly documents the conspiracy to end Chile's social reforms with a military coup headed by General Augusto Pinochet. It's hardly subtle: The pure-of-heart Marxist activists, idealistic students, and salt-of-earth working-class peasants heroically stand up to a conspiracy of corrupt businessmen, fascist military officers, and the American CIA in a fight that, we know from history, dooms them to martyrdom. Soto's tangled narrative timeline jumps back and forth without warning, a confusing design to say the least, and his portraits of the heroes and villains are little better than agitprop. Then again, this is less a history lesson than a political statement, and he pulls no punches in his damning accusations, from the greed of multinationals and American interests to the vicious executions of leftists, intellectuals, and artists in the wake of the coup. It's a gripping true story that will have most viewers just as angry by the final frames. As the ailing Pinochet tries to sidestep responsibility of human-rights violations under his rule, the film couldn't be more timely. The title, by the way, is a code used by the leftist defenders. --Sean Axmaker ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Interesting - parallels to Venezuela, Haiti, ... are current
Interesting portrayal of the military coup by the military supported by the CIA.

Sentimentally aligned with the ordinary people, unionized workers, university students, and economic populists of Allende's Chile. It may invoke an interest to research how this history has evolved since the events of the movie. Pinochet's fall from grace via CIA collaborated murders in Washington?

To the extent it is truly a documentary, it tended not to emphasize the degree to which Pinochet and his allied officers were schooled in the School of the Americas. Strangely missing much on the involvement or non-involvement of the Church in the takeover by a wealthy military secretive subset of society in a largely catholic country.

Re-opens chapters I had forgotten, and aspects I never knew. The relevance to recent events in Venezuela and Haiti cannot be far from your mind as you watch.

Another Communist Liar
First of all I'm Chilean and only have words of Gratitude for General Pinochet.

In this film they show the Chilean military killing Allende. That is just a lie. Even Allende's own daughter recognized that he killed himself. So, more than the scenery or the acting it is important to point out that this film is mere propaganda.

To a review below that claims Pinochet is a fascist, please go read a book. Ohh, but Pinochet killed and tortured. So I guess Robespierre, the Che Guevara and Osama Bin Laden are all fascistas?

Pinochet is a Capitalist, funadamentalist if you want, but not a fascist. Of course these days everyone that doesn't agree with marxixst/liberals is a fascist. Wether it is Pinochet, Bush or Thatcher.

Please, when you libs come up with more prejudice, try to make sure you do it with some historical accuracy. I'm still waiting to see more fascists implement completely free markets policies like Pinochet.

You left dinosours are so lost these days you just don't know what else to invent.

Coup in Chile
This film is a straight forward quasi-documentary of the events of Sept. 11, 1973 when the democratic government of Chile was overthrown by A. Pinochet aided to some extent by the CIA. I found the film of interest, but it lacks the drama and emotion of the 'Battle of Algiers.' Allende is killed by the Chilean army in the film, which may or may not be historically accurate. The film is in the French language, so it's not suitable for most Spanish language classrooms.

Fascism Retakes Chile
"It's raining on Santiago and Easter Island," the early morning radio proclaimed on September 11, 1973, a perfectly clear day. Over and over this mysterious announcement repeated between peaceful, upbeat music. Although it never rained in Chile on that day, a political storm enveloped the nation as the fascist forces of Augusto Pinochet executed a coup d'etat against the democratically elected socialist government of Salvador Allende. This movie is an attempt to tell the story of that coup.

Although the movie is a pseudo-documentary, the story-telling style is somewhat disorienting. It assaults the viewer with multiple points of view without a consistent narrator. It leaps back and forth through time, sometimes with only subtle cues on which to orient. Although this makes the story harder to follow, it makes the movie more impactful, helping to convey a sense of the chaos of the coup. This is a French movie with English subtitles--which makes for the interesting experience of "Chileans" speaking French and reading French signs!

The film consistently juxtaposed the personal and the political. As the coup is unfolding, we see tearful good-byes as men leave their wives to defend the democratically elected government from fascist thugs. I don't think I'm particularly sentimental, but I found myself tearing up several times during the movie.

One of the most haunting scenes for me was a close-up of Allende's wedding ring as he held an automatic rifle during his final stand against Pinochet's goons. The camera pulls back, showing the last few cabinet members preparing to sell their lives for democracy. Liberty, economic democracy, and dignity are portrayed as family values--antithetical to vicious repression of the corporate sponsored military junta.

The movie includes Allende's final speech. Powerful last words before he was assassinated by the military. An actual recording of the speech is played (you can hear jamming attempts)--this is not a French actor reading Allende's lines. He chose to die fighting the forces of oppression rather than to leave the country with his personal freedom intact.

This makes a good companion movie to the Costa Gavras film, MISSING. Each has a slightly different perspective on the coup, the oppression, and the United States' involvement in destroying Chilean democracy. Both tell intense stories. Neither should be missed.

The DVD included no special features other than English subtitles and the ability to jump to any given "chapter" in the movie. Five stars for impact. Three for story telling. Averages out to four stars.

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WoW! What a film!
After viewing this video I was amazed! I never knew history could be portrayed So well in a movie. I thought the actors were incredible! The scenery of Chile was beautiful! I would recommend this film to anyone. The plot was good but at times hard to follow because of the sub-titles. I would recommend this film to anyone who is interested in history or just a good movie! ... Read more