Arrow’s release of Sleep / Schlaf, the debut feature of German director Michael Venus, on Blu-ray is not to be slept on. Puns aside, the film lives up to its name with a dreamy aesthetic and storyline that creeps under your skin. We start with Marlene playing a game of […]
Germany
Red Sun (1970): Between the Commune and the comic-book (Blu-Ray Review)
There are many things you need to check before making a movie; cast availability, contracts, and filming permits. “The consent of a Leftist commune” is not usually one of them, but then there aren’t many filming environments quite like post-war Germany. Rudolf Thome’s Red Sun, newly released on Blu-Ray by […]
Laurin (1988): A Luscious Piece of European Gothic Cinema (Review)
This new Blu-ray release of Laurin from Second Run highlights the debut of German director Robert Sigl, who made the feature when he was only 26 years old. Two accompanying short films provide some context for the preceding and following work to Laurin. Both star Sigl, with ‘Der Weihnachtsbaum/The Christmas […]
Linie 1 (1988): All Aboard for a German New Wave Musical (Review)
Your attention, please. The Blu-ray now arriving on this platform is the Studio Canal Cult Classics release of Linie 1, Reinhard Hauff’s 1988 big-screen adaptation of Germany’s second-most successful musical after Brecht’s Threepenny Opera. Linie 1 tells the story of Sunnie (Inka Victoria Goetschel), a young woman who, having learnt […]
Rimini (2022): looking for the shaft of light in Ulrich Seidl’s sensibilities (Review)
There are countless horror movies that exploit the particular uncanniness of a holiday resort in winter, but none of them have featured a monster quite like Richie Bravo. The anti-hero of Ulrich Seidl’s latest film, Rimini, he’s a hulking, middle-aged lounge singer of limitless appetites and venality. After singing another […]
Dawn Breaks Behind the Eyes (2021) Surrealist, Classical Euro Horror reinvents itself (Cinema Review)
Classic Film Kid: The Hands of Orlac (1924)(Review)
I Was at Home, But… (2019) A Reserved, Existentialist Euro-Drama (Review)
Existentialism is often considered a crisis. When an individual thinks about their life and it’s meaning, impossible questions are posed. It is a common recurrence for those, like me, who have no idea what they are doing with themselves, their lives or their emotions. I Was at Home, But… the award-winning film […]