Sophie and Christoph, strangers to one another, are hired as caretakers of a mysterious home but instructed never to enter the locked room at the end of the hallway. After introducing this irresistible setup, German director Roland Reber inexplicably tables it in favor of a blossoming attraction between the lead characters, both of whom are […]
Author Archives: Jack Helbig
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AIDS videos
This program of shorts dealing with the AIDS epidemic seems to prove Plato’s assertion that death is the beginning of all philosophy. In the cautionary video Soft Smoke: AIDS in the Rural West (1999, 28 min.), Jennie Franks reveals how deeply AIDS has penetrated the backwaters of America, whose people still refuse to believe they […]
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Black Tears
Watching this 1997 documentary about Cuban salsa pioneers Vieja Trova Santiaguera, one wishes that director Sonia Herman Dolz had tried harder to capture the men behind the public masks. Dolz presents many scenes of the elderly musicians as they rehearse and perform, and a few obligatory backstage interviews in which the five bandsmen muse over […]
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Walter Rosenblum: In Search of Pitt Street
Noted New York photographer Walter Rosenblum has enjoyed a long and fascinating career: the son of a poor fruit peddler on the Lower East Side, he studied under Paul Strand at the Photo League, witnessed the Normandy invasion and the liberation of Dachau as an army cameraman, and developed a documentary style that was warm […]
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Tomas the Falconer
Tomas, the son of a poor herdsman in medieval central Europe, can communicate with animals and win their trust, even aloof birds of prey. The boy falls in love with his feudal lord’s beautiful daughter, becomes ensnared in court intrigue, and eventually helps good (a wise but misunderstood chief falconer) triumph over evil (the falconer’s […]
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Sisters in Resistance
Four Frenchwomen interned by the Nazis at Ravensbruck concentration camp reunite for this 2000 documentary by Maia Wechsler, a fascinating oral history of France during the war years. All four women were in their teens or 20s when they joined the resistance and were deeply enmeshed in the underground when the Nazis caught up with […]