Monday, January 18, 2016

Floating Lives (Cánh dong bat tan) - 2010 - Nguyen Phan Quang Binh


Impressive Vietnamese film about a 'timeless' Vietnam - a family out in the remote countryside living as rural Vietnamese have lived for generations, facing the same universal problems.

Not to ruin the plot, but to give you some idea of it, a father and his two children survive on the Mekong River and take in a woman who has been brutally beaten by villagers for promiscuity. As the film develops you learn the backgrounds of all the characters.

Sunday, January 10, 2016

Victim - 1961 - Starring Dirk Bogarde - Directed by Basil Dearden


Click on link here to see the film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBTgzcpN6mQ

Dirk Bogarde is, in my humble estimation, one of the coolest actors ever.

If I am not mistaken, this film was banned in the USA because it dealt with a gay man suffering the injustice of being blackmailed because of his sexual orientation.

Indeed, it seems as if the film was made to criticize England's anti-gay laws. There is a very sympathetic police detective in the film who often argues against the laws, pointing out that they often lead to blackmail.

This may have been the first English-language film to even address the issue of homosexuality and the persecution of gay folks.

The US just did not want to acknowledge, at this time, that gay folks existed and banned the film.

This was an important film in the UK that helped open eyes and change anti-gay laws.