Today I watched "At Five in the Afternoon" - "Panj é asr" (original title) - Drama
"At five in the afternoon comes death," claims a haunting snatch of poetry in this equally haunting picture from Iranian director Samira Makhmalbaf. One of the first feature films to emerge from post-Taliban Afghanistan (making it a worthy companion piece to Siddiq Barmak's excellent Osama), this follows Noqreh (Agheleh Rezaie) as she struggles to redefine her role as a woman despite the protestations of her cranky, conservative father (Abdolgani Yousefrazi). Yet with death and misery everywhere, freedom seems an unlikely luxury.
As Noqreh's father drags her and her sister-in-law (Marzieh Amiri) across this bombed-out dustbowl in search of her missing brother, it's clear that international intervention has done little to solve the problems of the country. Unexploded mines kill children, religious extremism is rife, and the people are disenfranchised by years of civil war and a lack of basic education. Too busy burying their dead relatives, people have no interest in politics and death seems ready to come at any hour of the day, not just at five. "Blasphemy is everywhere," claims Noqreh's despairing father. "Many have been killed, the country is in ruins."
I saw Groundhog Day for the first time because a member on Dhamma Wheel spoke highly of it. It was certainly more interesting than most mainstream movies.
I give it four out of five groundhogs.
"Mahler auf dem Couch", Percy and Felix Adlon, just a few days ago.
Kirt
“Where do atomic bombs come from?”
Zen Master Seung Sahn said, “That’s simple. Atomic bombs come from the mind that likes this and doesn’t like that.”
"Even if you practice only for an hour a day with faith and inspiration, good qualities will steadily increase. Regular practice makes it easy to transform your mind. From seeing only relative truth, you will eventually reach a profound certainty in the meaning of absolute truth."
Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.
"Only you can make your mind beautiful."
HH Chetsang Rinpoche
Avery Buddhist film, but not really in an explicit way like the Matrix was.
Look at the unfathomable spinelessness of man: all the means he's been given to stay alert he uses, in the end, to ornament his sleep. – Rene Daumal the modern mind has become so limited and single-visioned that it has lost touch with normal perception - John Michell
"Million Dollar Hotel" it was advertised as a Wim Wenders film but he only produced it. Quite good though in a sort of artsy-fartsy kindda way. Funny to see Mel Gibson playing in this type of movie though.
"My religion is not deceiving myself." Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE
"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss." The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
The film examines the plight of a group of widows forced into poverty at a temple in the holy city of Varanasi. It focuses on a relationship between one of the widows, who wants to escape the social restrictions imposed on widows, and a man who is from the highest caste and a follower of Mahatma Gandhi.
Dogtooth - A Greek movie currently nominated for an Oscar award. A REALLY dark humorous satire of family life. Definitely not a kids movie!
A hyper-stylized mixture of physical violence and verbal comedy, Dogtooth is a darkly funny look at three teenagers confined to their parents' isolated country estate and kept under strict rule and regimen — an inscrutable scenario that suggests a warped experiment in social conditioning and control. Terrorized into submission by their father, the children spend their days devising their own games and learning an invented vocabulary (a salt shaker is a "telephone," an armchair is "the sea") — until a trusted outsider, brought in to satisfy the son's libidinal urges, plants the seeds of rebellion by trading VHS tapes for sexual favors.
"My religion is not deceiving myself." Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE
"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss." The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde
1Myriad dharmas are only mind.
Mind is unobtainable.
What is there to seek? 2If the Buddha-Nature is seen,
there will be no seeing of a nature in any thing. 3Neither cultivation nor seated meditation —
this is the pure Chan of Tathagata. 4With sudden enlightenment to Tathagata Chan,
the six paramitas and myriad means
are complete within that essence.
1 Huangbo, T2012Ap381c1 2 Nirvana Sutra, T374p521b3; tr. Yamamoto 3 Mazu, X1321p3b23; tr. J. Jia 4 Yongjia, T2014p395c14; tr. from "The Sword of Wisdom"
gregkavarnos wrote:Dogtooth - A Greek movie currently nominated for an Oscar award. A REALLY dark humorous satire of family life. Definitely not a kids movie!
A hyper-stylized mixture of physical violence and verbal comedy, Dogtooth is a darkly funny look at three teenagers confined to their parents' isolated country estate and kept under strict rule and regimen — an inscrutable scenario that suggests a warped experiment in social conditioning and control. Terrorized into submission by their father, the children spend their days devising their own games and learning an invented vocabulary (a salt shaker is a "telephone," an armchair is "the sea") — until a trusted outsider, brought in to satisfy the son's libidinal urges, plants the seeds of rebellion by trading VHS tapes for sexual favors.
John WIck with Keanu Reeves, Willem Dafoe, and Ian McShane. Solid and fun action movie.
and
The Colour of Pomegranates by Sergei Parajanov with contemporary score by Nicolas Jaar; a visuo-poetical take on the Armenian bard Sayat Nova's life. Good stuff outside the animal cruelty.