90s CINEMA

[Sano]

Great effort Oscar!!!

I also like to find obscure titles and inform people that more movies should be available on home video.

Some of the films you've mentioned I consider masterpieces, but I haven't seen many from the ones listed.

I could provide you with some additional films from the 90s I consider to be important but which aren't readily available everywhere:


1990
Docteur Petiot (Christian de Chalonge / France)
God afton, Herr Wallenberg - En Passionshistoria från verkligheten Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg (Kjell Grede / Sweden, Hungary, Norway)

1991
Niaz The Need (Alireza Davoudnejad / Iran)
Trys dienos Three Days (Sharunas Bartas / Soviet Union)
Verfehlung (Heiner Carow / Germany)

1992
El viaje The Voyage (Fernando E. Solanas / Argentina, Mexico, UK, Spain, France)
Goh-hime Basara - The Princess Goh (Hiroshi Teshigahara / Japan)
Topâzu Tokyo Decadence (Ryu Murakami / Japan)

1993
Charachar Shelter of the Wings (Buddhadev Dasgupta / India)
God sobaki The Year of a Dog (Semyon Aranovich / Russia, France)
Lan feng zheng The Blue Kite (Tian Zhuangzhuang / China, Hong Kong)

1994
Koridorius The Corridor (Sharunas Bartas / Lithuania, Germany)
Otaku (Jackie Batiste, Jean-Jacques Beineix / France, Japan)

1995
Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life (Stephen and Timothy Quay / UK, Germany, Japan)
Lust och fägring stor Love Lessons (Bo Widerberg / Sweden, Denmark)
Unter der Milchstraße Under the Milky Way (Mathias X. Oberg / Germany)

1996
Few of Us (Sharunas Bartas / Lithuania, Portugal, France, Germany)
Swallowtail (Shunji Iwai / Japan)

1997
Kyua Cure (Kiyoshi Kurosawa / Japan)
Mai fu Surveillance (Jianxin Huang, Yazhou Yang / China)
Nettoyage à sec Dry Cleaning (Anne Fontaine / France, Spain)
Photographing Fairies (Nick Willing / UK)
Verrückt bleiben - verliebt bleiben (Elfi Mikesch / Germany)

1998
Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy (Martin Arnold / Austria)
Il fantasma dell'opera The Phantom of the Opera (Dario Argento / Italy, Hungary)
Kanzo sensei Dr. Akagi (Shohei Imamura / Japan, France)

1999
Balkan baroque (Pierre Coulibeuf / France)
Models (Ulrich Seidl / Austria)
Pripyat (Nikolaus Geyrhalter / Austria)


PS:
"Life is all you get" used to be one of my favorites some years ago, but it's actually nothing special. There are dozens of better german films from the 90s.

[oscar jubis]

Thank you for your contribution. I will respond to part of your list now. I'll deal with the remaining titles in a future post.

Originally posted by Sano
I could provide you with some additional films from the 90s I consider to be important but which aren't readily available everywhere:
1990
Docteur Petiot (Christian de Chalonge / France)
This interesting-sounding film is available here on vhs. I have not seen it yet.

Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg (Kjell Grede / Sweden, Hungary, Norway)
A good film. Available here on dvd.

1991
Niaz The Need (Alireza Davoudnejad / Iran)
Available here on vhs. I plan to watch it soon. My local video shop has a copy.

Trys dienos Three Days (Sharunas Bartas / Soviet Union)
One of several titles by Bartas included on your list. None of his films has had wide distribution. None available on home video.

Verfehlung (Heiner Carow / Germany)
Unavailable here. Carow's Coming Out played at our Gay and Lesbian FF and is available on dvd.

1992
El viaje The Voyage (Fernando E. Solanas / Argentina, Mexico, UK, Spain, France)
I've been a fan of Solanas for decades. I watched this at the Miami IFF, a good political allegory but not available on video. Solanas' masterpiece is called Sur. Also very good Tangos: El Exilio de Gardel and The Cloud (which I watched during a trip to Buenos Aires). Solanas has turned to the documentary form over the past few years.

Goh-hime Basara - The Princess Goh (Hiroshi Teshigahara / Japan)
Teshigahara's last film is available on a dvd (region free, with English subs) released in Hong Kong by Panorama.

Tokyo Decadence (Ryu Murakami / Japan)
I watched this story of a submissive prostitute who specializes in s&m. Murakami wants to both titillate and provoke thought and the contradictory aims cancel each other out. Film is quite stylish though. Available on dvd.

1993
Charachar Shelter of the Wings (Buddhadev Dasgupta / India)
Premise sounds lovely. I would be very interested in watching it. Not your typical Bollywwod film. Not on video anywhere apparently.

God sobaki The Year of a Dog (Semyon Aranovich / Russia, France)
Winner of the Silver Bear at Berlin. Not on video.

The Blue Kite (Tian Zhuangzhuang / China, Hong Kong)
A masterpiece. I've seen it thrice. Available on dvd.

1994
Otaku (Jackie Batiste, Jean-Jacques Beineix / France, Japan)
Very interesting doc. Not available here but obviously it should be.

1995
Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life (Stephen and Timothy Quay / UK, Germany, Japan)
I like the films by the Quays and this is no exception. Available on dvd. If you like the Quays, check out the films of Canadian director Guy Maddin.

Lust och fägring stor Love Lessons (Bo Widerberg / Sweden, Denmark)
Very good film released here under the title All Things Fair. Available on dvd.

Unter der Milchstraße Under the Milky Way (Mathias X. Oberg / Germany)
I attended the Toronto Film Fest in 1995 when it had its world premiere but didn't see it.

[Sano]

The three films by Bartas are available on VHS in the Netherlands. Don't know how to purchase them though...

Tokyo Decadence is available on DVD only in a censored version (20 to 40 minutes missing, depending on the sources) an uncut VCD seems to be available in HongKong (maybe via Yesasia).
For me this is one of the best Japanese films. Don't think their is any titillation though - film seemed very depressing to me.

[oscar jubis]

Originally posted by Sano
1996
Swallowtail (Shunji Iwai / Japan)
I liked Iwai's Love Letter ('95) very much and I would like to watch this follow-up. I think this is available in Asia but can't confirm.

1997
Kyua Cure (Kiyoshi Kurosawa / Japan)
Good film. Available on dvd.

Mai fu Surveillance (Jianxin Huang, Yazhou Yang / China)
Not available but also not curious.

Dry Cleaning (Anne Fontaine / France, Spain)
Good film. Available on dvd.

Photographing Fairies (Nick Willing / UK)
Worth watching. Available on vhs.

Verrückt bleiben - verliebt bleiben (Elfi Mikesch / Germany)
Not shown outside Germany as far as I know. Not available.

1998
Alone. Life Wastes Andy Hardy (Martin Arnold / Austria)
I would love to watch this ingenious short. Popular in film schools from what I'm told.

The Phantom of the Opera (Dario Argento / Italy, Hungary)
IMdb voters rate this as the worst of the 28 films Argento has written or directed. Even the screen captures look awful. I'm not a fan of the Italian shockmeister but I liked Suspiria (great cast) and Deep Red.

Dr. Akagi (Shohei Imamura / Japan, France)
A Great film. Available on dvd.

1999
Balkan baroque (Pierre Coulibeuf / France)
This doc is a 2000 release.

Models (Ulrich Seidl / Austria)
I didn't like his fiction move (Dog Days) but this expose of unbridled narcissism sounds appealing even if the target is a bit too obvious.

Pripyat (Nikolaus Geyrhalter / Austria)
This doc about the titular Ukrainian village located 5 kms. from Chernobyl was shown by The Sundance Channel here but I was busy with festival press screenings. I wish I had taped it because it's otherwise not available.