The Public Woman
An inexperienced young actress is invited to play a role in a film based on Dostoyevsky's 'The Possessed'. The film director, a Czech immigrant in Paris, takes over her life, and in a short time she is unable to draw the line between acting and reality. She winds up playing a real-life role posing as the dead wife of another Czech immigrant, who is manipulated by the filmmaker into commiting a political assassination.
Casts & Crew
Valérie Kaprisky
Francis Huster
Lambert Wilson
Patrick Bauchau
Gisèle Pascal
Roger Dumas
Diane Delor
Jean-Paul Farré
Olivier Achard
Yveline Ailhaud
Michel Albertini
Marianne Basler
Nathalie Bécue
Lucas Belvaux
René Bériard
Also Directed by Andrzej Żuławski
A small group of cosmic explorers leave Earth to find freedom and start a new civilization.
Zulawski tackles Modest Mussorgsky’s famous opera about the bloody battle for ascendancy to the throne of Russia in the 17th-century! With a score conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich, Zulawski adds extra layers of devilish meta-textual embellishment by composing the film’s imagery as though we are watching a theater piece of a film crew making a movie about the opera of “Boris Godounov”! As well, the picture is full of delightful anachronisms that mock the then-contemporary Russian government, alongside jabs at other 20th-century dictatorships. So incensed was Rostropovich by Zulawski’s juiced final product — one that took liberties with the narrative’s sexual thrust, amongst other things — that he (unsucessfully) took Zulawski to court for “the violation of the Russian soul”! “Impressive in its use of whirling camera movements as well as mega close-ups of the contracted faces of its singers, ‘Boris Godounov’ is one of the most original opera movies ever made”
Set during the Nazi occupation of Poland, in which Michal witnesses the murder of his mother, wife and child. He is hurled into a life that literally is not his own; a surreal world littered with trapdoors, doppelgängers and wormholes. It also tells the true untold story of a Nazi vaccine laboratory where Jews and members of the resistance were “employed” as feeders for parasites infected with typhus.
Young Polish nobleman Jakub is saved from imprisonment by a stranger. In return, the stranger wants to obtain a list of Jakub’s fellow conspirators. As he follows his mysterious savior across the country, Jakub is affected by the overall chaos and moral corruption; he goes insane and becomes a mass murderer.
Servais Mont, a freelance photographer who works taking compromising photos, gets fascinated by Nadine Chevalier, a tormented low-budget movie actress married to an eccentric film photo collector.
One day Mucjusz and his friend Malaj visit the mansion of Fabiusz, an old time friend of Mucjusz. Their sudden arrival makes Fabiusz anxious because years ago Mucjusz was in love with his beautiful wife Waleria. The visitor, however, assures Fabiusz that during his wanderings he has met many other women and has forgotten his old flame. The master of the house offers for him to stay in the garden pavilion. At the party in their honor, while Mucjusz distributes gifts to everyone present, Malaj plays the charming "Song of Love." It's rumored that those who are in love can do unusual things while listening to this melody at night. To prove it Mucjusz pierces his chest with a stiletto and takes it out without a sign of pain. At night Waleria wakes up to the sounds of the charming song coming from the outside and goes to the pavilion. In their conversation Mucjusz confesses that he still loves her but he has leprosy.
Clélia is a very attractive photographer starting a new job for a sensationalist newspaper. She soon becomes involved with three very different men: Cléve, a middle aged books editor, Nemo, a mysterious photographer and Rupert McRoi, the owner of the broadcasting and tabloid company where she works.
Two young men seek the solitude of the country; their peace is disturbed when a set of random occurrences suggest to their susceptible minds a pattern with sinister meanings.
The story of an anthropology professor Michal's who as the movie progresses develops two overwhelming obsessions. The first one is a mummified, 3,000 year-old, perfectly preserved body of a Shaman he and his colleagues have recently dragged out of a swamp, and the second – an enigmatic student he meets by chance at Krakow Railway Station.
After a successful bank robbery, Micky hopes to take back his girlfriend Mary who has been taken from him. On the way to Paris he meets Leon, a neurotic dreamer whom he considers an idiot. Leon can hardly understand what Micky is up to but he follows him everywhere and soon falls in love with Mary.