New Location

movienights &
the Pulling a Dead
Horse evenings
are moving to
a new location:
Studio Pompstraat 44c
Rotterdam.

Pulling a Dead Horse evenings
find his name in the dutch expression:
'Trekken aan een dood paard'
which means putting effort into something that is doomed to become a failure.

Tristana (Luis Buñuel, 1970)

1970-Spain/France/Italy
A film by Luis Buñuel based on a novel by Benito Pérez Galdós, with Catherine Deneuve and Fernando Rey.

Luis Buñuel's Tristana is a surreal criticism of Catholicism and the modern world, told through the story of the title character, who is portrayed by Catherine Deneuve. Tristana is a young Spanish woman left to the care of Don Lope (Fernando Rey), the protective but impoverished aristocrat. Don sells his possessions to avoid manual labor and champions the causes of the dispossessed and downtrodden of society. He takes advantage of the vulnerable Tristana, who leaves him when she falls in love with Horacio (Franco Nero). Unable to commit to him, she returns to Don Lope when she falls ill. He asks for her hand in marriage, and she accepts after losing her leg to cancer. She chooses to remain in a passionless union rather than be subject to the harsh realities of a society that refuses to change to the needs of women. Taken from the novel by celebrated author Benito Perez Galdos, the film -- wherein director Buñuel takes his usual jabs at religion and politics -- is a tribute to the author on the 50th anniversary of his death. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide.

Amarcord (Federico Fellini, 1973)

movienights Tuesday 16th January









Federico Fellini's warmly nostalgic memory piece examines daily life in the Italian village of Rimini during the reign of Mussolini in the 3o's, and won the 1974 Academy Award as Best Foreign Film. The film's greatest asset is its ability to be sweet without being cloying, due in great part to Danilo Donati's surrealistic art direction and to the frequently bawdy injections of sex and politics by screenwriters Fellini and Tonino Guerra. Fellini clearly has deep affection for the people of this seaside village, warts and all, and communicates it through episodic visual anecdotes which are seen as if through the mists of a favorite dream, playfully scored by Nino Rota and lovingly photographed by Giuseppe Rotunno. Amarcord is a rich gem of a film which only improves on subsequent viewings.

Amarcord is the phonetic translation of the Italian words "Mi Ricordo" (I remember) as pronounced in the dialect of Emilia-Romagna, the birthplace of director Federico Fellini and the setting of this wonderful film. Little surprise, then, that it is a poignant and bawdy semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale, with an ethereal, dreamlike quality that combines sharply drawn memories with vividly engaging fantasy.
Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide