93% (3)  Au Hasard Balthazar  95 min,  Not Rated,  [Drama]  [Robert Bresson]  [25 May 1966]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 79%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 100%,   Metacritic: 100%,   External Reviews
Awards:  5 wins & 2 nominations.
Actors:  Anne Wiazemsky, François Lafarge, Jean-Claude Guilbert, Walter Green
Writer:  Robert Bresson
External Links:  Wikipedia  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  French, Latin    Country:  France, Sweden
Plot:  This is the story of a donkey and the somewhat difficult life it leads. During a summer holiday, the baby donkey is a child's pet but when they return home, it begins it's life of misery. It works as a farm animal, pulling a delivery cart and working as any manner as various owners require of it. Meanwhile, the young girl who first acquired Balthazar as a pet grows up, only to be badly treated herself by an indifferent and selfish boyfriend.
Rotten Tomatoes:   Robert Bresson's acclaimed Au Hasard, Balthazar presents an unfettered view of human cruelty, suffering and injustice, filtered through the eyes of a donkey over the course of his long life. The burro at the film's center begins life peacefully and happily, as the unnamed play-object of some innocent children in bucolic France, but his circumstances change dramatically when he becomes the property of a young woman named Marie - who christens him Balthazar. As she grows up and encounters tragedy and heartbreak, so does Balthazar; he passes from owner to owner, who treat him in a variety of ways, from compassionately to cruelly. The donkey, of course, lacks the capacity to comprehend the motivations of each individual but accepts whatever treatment (and role) is handed him, nobly and admirably. Bresson ultimately uses the story as a heart-rending allegorical commentary on human spiritual transcendence. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
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86% (2)  La Chinoise  95 min,  Not Rated,  [Comedy, Drama]  [Jean-Luc Godard]  [04 Mar 1968]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 72%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 100%,   External Reviews
Awards:  1 win & 1 nomination.
Actors:  Anne Wiazemsky, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Juliet Berto, Michel Semeniako
Writer:  Jean-Luc Godard
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  French    Country:  France
Plot:  A small group of French students are studying Mao, trying to find out their position in the world and how to change the world to a Maoistic community using terrorism.
Rotten Tomatoes:   Director Jean-Luc Godard, whose advocacy of Maoism bordered on intoxication, infuriated many traditionalist critics with his swiftly paced satire La Chinoise. Godard's then-wife Anne Wiazemsky plays a philosophy student who commiserates with the four members of her campus Maoist group. They are so taken by the external trappings of their cause--the posters, the Little Red Books, the by-rote chantings--that they seem not to grasp the true meaning of their political persuasion. Nor do they give any thought to the long-range ramifications of their terrorist activities. Godard is obviously on the students' side throughout, though he balances their fanaticism with the comparative gentility of old-style revolutionaries. Nonfans of Godard were given migraines by the director's perverse refusal to film even the simplest sequence in a linear, logical fashion. La Chinoise quickly gained the reputation of a "head film", best appreciated when the viewer is stoned. In these PC days, the audience for this sort of film is generally "straight"...which may be why it has seldom been shown in recent years. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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81% (2)  Teorema  98 min,  Not Rated,  [Drama, Mystery]  [Pier Paolo Pasolini]  [27 Nov 1968]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 73%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 90%,   External Reviews
Awards:  1 win & 4 nominations.
Actors:  Anne Wiazemsky, Massimo Girotti, Silvana Mangano, Terence Stamp
Writer:  Pier Paolo Pasolini (screenplay)
External Links:  Wikipedia  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  Italian, English    Country:  Italy
Plot:  A strange visitor in a wealthy family. He seduces the maid, the son, the mother, the daughter and finally the father before leaving a few days after. After he's gone, none of them can continue living as they did. Who was that visitor ? Could he be God ?
Rotten Tomatoes:   Terence Stamp is known only as "The Visitor" in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema. The mysterious stranger insinuates himself into the home of a wealthy Italian family, where he exerts a curious, sensual spirituality over everyone in the household. He then proceeds to seduce everyone in the family (male and female) including the maid, which gives each person some sort of unique epiphany. Because he reveals so little about his innermost thoughts, "The Visitor" becomes all things to all people. What it boils down to is this: Is the enigmatic visitor Christ, or is he the Devil? Matching Terence Stamp's multi-textured performance every step of the way is Laura Betti as the family's maid; Betti, in fact, won the "Best Actress Award" at the 1968 Venice Film Festival. Director Pasolini adapted the screenplay of Teorema from his own novel. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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62% (1)  Struggle in Italy  62 min,  [Drama]  [Groupe Dziga Vertov, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin]  [29 Apr 1971]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 62%,   External Reviews
Actors:  Anne Wiazemsky, Cristiana Tullio-Altan, Jerome Hinstin, Paolo Pozzesi
Writer:  Groupe Dziga Vertov
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  Italian    Country:  Italy, France
Plot:  The film reveals how and why a supposedly revolutionary Italian girl has in fact fallen prey to bourgeois ideology.
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62% (1)  Le Vent d'Est  95 min,  Not Rated,  [Drama]  [Groupe Dziga Vertov, Jean-Luc Godard, Jean-Pierre Gorin, Gérard Martin]  [19 Aug 1970]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 62%,   External Reviews
Actors:  Allen Midgette, Anne Wiazemsky, Cristiana Tullio-Altan, Gian Maria Volontè
Writer:  Sergio Bazzini, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Jean-Luc Godard
External Links:  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  French    Country:  Italy, France, West Germany
Plot:  A filmic essay on class struggle which draws on images from westerns but has no plot and is both an experiment in making a revolutionary film and an interrogation of how successfully such a film can be revolutionary.
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