I think anyone familiar with Angelopoulos knows what to expect with his films: long, drawn out, meticulously planned shots that slowly scan environments, with the image composed of not only the foreground but hundreds of yards into the background. I guess some are not impressed with the director's style, but that really astounds me. I definitely see the man as a master of his medium, and The Weeping Meadow is as good as any of his other films  every one I've seen so far is a masterpiece or close to it. This film has a lot in common with the director's first big success, The Traveling Players. It follows a little girl, Eleni, from 1919 to the time of the Greek Civil War, at the end of WWII. And, as the title implies, it's a great tragedy. There is a lot of weeping. It may be long and slow, but it's always gripping. Angelopoulos' imagery is second to none in modern cinema. There are just so many jaw-dropping sequences. My favorite was the one where the camera explored its way through a maze of bed sheets drying on clotheslines, discovering various musicians hidden within. It's not a complaint, per se, but if you're going to watch the film beware of its chronological ellipses. The film can skip ahead years in just a second, when the pace usually makes each second feel like years (in a good way!). I hope New Yorker video, or some other company, digs up the Angelopoulos films that have been unavailable so far, and puts The Traveling Players on DVD, as well.


Orphan Eleni was looked after by Alexis' family. As she grown up, she involved in an embarrassing situation. Although she was in love with Alexis, his father tried to separate them. Even his father wanted to marry her. The young pair had nothing to do but escape. However what happened next were not what they expected.

One of exciting scenes was that a crowd of people danced in a worn-out place. Although life was hard for them, they still knew how to enjoy themselves. That is good. Optimism is the best medicine for difficult position.

I thought it would be a hard-to-know film. After watching it, I found I was wrong. Director Theo Angelopoulos taught me a good lesson about Greek history with elegant way. The lively music should not be overlooked. It is the first one of trilogy. I am looking forward to watching remaining two films though they have not been finished yet.

A great Greek drama. 8/10


Undoubtedly, Angelopoulos is one of the great artists in European cinema. He seeks to capture the whole history of his nation and of his people on a cinematic canvas with a lyrical and painterly approach. Undoubtedly, Angelopoulos's films are also a shock to anyone accustomed to the pace of modern American cinema. It feels like he's re-inventing cinema. There are graceful panning and tracking shots over beautifully realised tableaux. Shots that run for several minutes. There are no close-ups. It often feels like Angelopoulos has eschewed narrative, and is telling a story with just two tools: images and music.

The Weeping Meadow begins as a group of refugees tell the story of their expulsion from Odessa to Thessaloniki in 1919, by the shore of a river. It ends with a mother grieving over the body of her son by the same river, probably in 1949. In between there's little real narrative, just haunting shots of villages and cities, and groups of people running back and forth, and music. Often it feels like sepia historic photographs have been brought subtly to life.

The film is a breathtaking antidote to much of what passes for international cinema today. It also became, for me, harder and harder to take, as it became increasingly obvious that the characters are not really characters in a drama, but metaphors in a great historical process. By the end, for me, it felt dis-satisfyingly schematic, and yet there are images that will haunt you for years, and a feeling that Angelopoulos has found a way to distill the fraught years of European history from the First World War to the Cold War into an extraordinary cinematic vision.

The music of Eleni Karaindrou is very beautiful, and will resonate long after the film has finished. In many ways, the music really is the soul of this film. The cinematography of Andreas Sinanos is elegant and beautifully lit.


Without doubt one of the most beautiful and painful films I have ever seen. For some time into the film I didn't understand why the director decided to keep so much distance to the main characters. And then suddenly it dawned on me: These are people caught up in a much larger historical picture  out of their control  and the total historical painting is more important than all the separate details together. However, in the second half of the movie, Angelopoulos moves closer on the main characters, and the movie takes a much firmer emotional grip of your heart. This is a movie about extreme human pain in troubled times  brought on us by human pride and stupidity  and it takes some time and effort to get through this epic. But if you hang in there, it's an experience I think many of us will never forget. The final sequence is justwell, what can I say?


Anytime you sit down to a historical piece, especially a part of a trilogy, you must be prepared for an investment of time. In this case, it is 3 hours more or less, depending on the version.

The period that the first part of the Trilogy covers is 1919 -1949. Theodoros Angelopoulos presents 30 years of Greek history beginning with the return of the exiles from Odessa after WWI to the rise of the Colonels.

Eleni, who witnesses the history, is played by an unknown, Alexandra Aidini. He does not use her in the second film.

She is to marry Spyros (Vassilis Kolovos), but loves his son Alexis (Nikos Poursadinis), She runs off with him. They had two children that were taken and given to a rich woman. They managed to get them back after the village flooded. Alexis heads to America, while Eleni loses the children again after she is imprisoned. The war takes a toll on the family. There is much weeping among the women and those who didn't wear black, did so now.

But, the film is really not about the characters. It is about Greece, and the pain she has endured in this century.

It is a dark and dreary film with plenty of rain and cloudy skies. It is not meant to be joyful as the period is not joyful, as we watch dreams shattered, and people surviving, but just barely.

With music by Eleni Karaindrou and cinematography by Andreas Sinanos, you are not bored by the lack of dialog. In fact, you are left to enjoy and experience the time and the film.

Those who enjoy Bergman, Fellini, Kurosawa, and other great masters, will certainly enjoy Theodoros Angelopoulos. I hope he finished this trilogy, as he will be almost 80 when he does.


Fate and History are not presented as flesh and blood characters in this first part of Theodoros Angelopoulos' "Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow," but the presence of each is so tangible that they could be exactly that. The central characters, Alexis and Eleni first meet as children driven together by the destruction of the town of Odessa, Greece, during World War I. As they grow up, their lives take one fateful twist after another, beginning when a teen-aged Eleni gives birth to twin boys. Growing into a young woman, she marries a man old enough to be her grandfather but, at the wedding ceremony's conclusion, abandons him to run off with her elderly groom's son, Alexis, who has grown into a gifted musician.

Eleni's hope is clearly to reclaim her adopted twins and live a life of domestic harmony and loving devotion but the abandoned groom will have none of that as he hounds their every step until he literally drops dead. History also proves an enemy to their happiness. With the coming and passing of the Second World War, the young lovers go through a series of transformations as social outcasts, struggling artists, desperate parents, and political refugees. This spellbinding odyssey takes its greatest toll on Eleni, who loses her husband, twin sons, and sanity to the ravages of twentieth century warfare. She becomes a kind of "Everywoman" of the first half of the twentieth century, an era when countries worldwide repeatedly called men to war while women became casualties of the grief, poverty, and physical destruction left behind.

From its opening scene of Greek refugees from Odessa moving toward a river, to its conclusion, "The Weeping Meadow" floods the screen with some of the most eerily surrealistic images in cinematic history. Were it not for the progression of a precise time-line moving from one World War to another, and providing a solid structure for the overall drama, a viewer might easily get lost drifting along in such haunting images as dead sheep hanging from the branches of a tree, a funeral service conducted in row boats alongside rooftops, or a crowd of wailing women running toward a field of dead "husbands, sons, and brothers." The images take on even greater intensity framed by composer Eleni Karaindrou's brilliant soundtrack.

That this first part of Theo Angelopoulos' Trilogy is an indisputable masterpiece is a fact that speaks for itself. The only question is whether the great director will be able to achieve in parts two and three the same sweeping grandeur and majesty that fills every frame of "The Weeping Meadow." by Author-Poet Aberjhani, author of "Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance"


I have just finished watching this great movie....fortunately with the English Subtitles. I think its a masterpiece by Theo. Beautiful story, strong characters, captivating scenery, breath taking music and ultimately of cource great production.Its a long movie and the start might be a bit boring but as the story progresses it will hold your attention

I recommend this movie if you are looking for some sensitive piece of art. Though there is quite a lot of tragedy in it but it does give a glimpse of the life of Greek immigrants of that time and the horrors of war.

Two Thumbs Up...........


I feel conflicted about this film - it is one of the most beautiful films I've seen, and provides insightful looks into a lost culture. There was an early scene of men in caps and moustaches sitting around a table, with a woman serving, and an accordion playing, that brought tears to my eyes, just because of the way it captured a way of life that must be incomprehensible to many today. It presents the lives of the characters as being inextricably bound up with the life of the village, another lost concept in today's world. Symbolism is always fun but it seemed a little dated. The fatal flaws of the movie to me were the lack of any compelling dramatic drive, and a total lack of humor. I never felt like I knew any of the characters beyond very basic universal things like grieving over the loss of a loved one, etc. The people were stick figures in the director's tableaux involving natural disasters, war, etc. The film was just one beautiful tragic scene after another, with no involving narrative thread and no humanity. As a result, it seemed very abstract, irrelevant to the lives of real people. In the end, I was too bored to finish watching it.


In some ways, this film takes the best parts of the work of Federico Fellini, Terrence Malick, and Michelangelo Antonioni, and stews them until they melt into a work only Angelopoulos could make. However, what separates Angelopolous films from most other films by even some great filmmakers, is his screenplays. This film was written by him, longtime Fellini collaborator Tonino Guerra, Petros Markaris, and Giorgio Silvagni, and even though- like the other films of his I've seen, this one is spare in dialogue, the story coheres because of the way the scenes are written to allow the actors' expressions convey what words need not. And, like Yasujiro Ozu, Angelopoulos is a master of ellipses- never fully explaining certain things in a film, nor deliberately not showing the viewer things that would be standard in a more linear film. The film's cinematography, by Andreas Sinanos, is spectacular, from the long shots that follow characters from afar, to well-composed foregrounded scenes, to the uses of color throughout. The film starts with muted, almost sepia tones, and grayness, then exhibits flashes of color, here and there, while mostly staying in dark greens, blues, and browns. This heightens the grander moments, such as the bloody death of the musician in the white sheets. The use of water is also wonderful- from the film's reflected shots at the opening, through the constant rains and floods, to the last shots overlooking the water- a far better use of imagery than a similar shot which ends Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark. In fact, the scenes of the flooded town were a set built in a high, dry portion of Lake Kerkini, which by March, would rise and submerge the set.

The musical scoring by Angelopoulos's longtime collaborator, Eleni Karaindrou, is solid, mixing folk songs with classical compositions, all in an understated manner- excepting a great scene where the son auditions with his accordion. Yet, several times in the film, there seems to be an odd noise- like jet sounds in the aural background of some scenes. Is this symbolism or a flaw? Even if a flaw, it is a very minor one, for aside from the aforementioned scenes there are numerous other great scenes in this picaresque film that coheres in the Negatively Capable way John Keats claimed great art works; such as when Nikos dances at night as a saxophone plays, or when Eleni, in fever, babbles on and on of the same things.

Yet, at the center of this great film is not only the ellipsis of information, but the ellipsis of self- the exile from everywhere, a theme that defines much of Angelopoulos's work, even if it does not define his art, for that is always on target, and brilliantly wrought. The Weeping Meadow is no exception to that claim.


This must be one of the most annoying, arrogant, poser films I've ever seen. What a waste of budget and actors. Angelopoulos has reached new levels of pretentiousness. It is clear there is virtually no plot, even if this part of Greek history is material for great movies. He simply had some supposedly symbolic (actually shambolic) scenes in his mind and he built a whole movie around them. Death is the main theme and is repeated ad nauseam, along with litanies, processions and the like, which should only be a vehicle for the movie but unfortunately it is the movie itself. A totally incoherent result, which can only leave you saying "huh?" or "oh dear" every two minutes.

There is no character development at all, nada, zilch. I'm usually complaining about some movies having two-dimensional characters, but oh boy, he managed to create one-dimensional characters. This is irritating for us and degrading for some of the actors. He even managed to make one of my favourite Greek actors, Giorgos Armenis, seem wooden.

And going to the core of Angelopoulos film-making: No we're not idiots. We do not want chewed food. Please someone tell this guy symbolism has to be subtle. Theo do you really underestimate your audience so much or you're simply incompetent? Personally, I think he tried to make a Greek "Underground". No matter how he tries, he can't reach Kusturica.

Only saving grace: Photography, costumes and the music.


Had I known to what I was submitting myself, I would have fled from the theater. The film is dreadful, in the literal sense of the word. Despite striking images, intriguing locales, and a subject matter that might have been fascinating, the film is dead.

I was unfamiliar with this period of Greek history, and prepared to experience a great film. The filmmakers's hand is heavy. it is not enough to see a train going by; we must watch it from afar, we must watch it car by car, we must see the smoke, we must see it slow down, and we must see it stop. The director's approach is didactic. Likewise, the characters that he creates never develop, they never change. They are so stereotypic that we wonder, are they meant to be Everyman? Everygirl? Everyoldmusician? Is there some point to this allegory? It is the most pretentious film that I have seen in a long while.


I can pretend no knowledge of cinematography or Mr. Angelopoulos. But I know Greece and I love her people. In July my 14 year old son and I traveled to Cappadocia, Turkey in search of some remains of the neighborhood where his great grandfather Iordanis lived until the great exodus of Anatolian Greeks in 1923. Reading the summary of the film (refugees from Odessa) I thought that perhaps I might learn something more about the forced migrations of modern Greeks. If I did not have a home in Rhodes, had I not been to Greece 28 times in as many years, were I not familiar with dozens of islands and cities in Greece and if I had never enjoyed the friendship of these ebullient, life-intoxicated people, I might have believed that this lamentation had something to do with modern Greece. As a professor at a New Jersey State college, let me assure you that I am familiar with the history of the period covered in the film. Indeed, my wife's uncle was murdered by the communists during the communist grab for power. My mother-in-law lived through the Italian invasion and German occupation...barely. These characters on the screen speak Greek, they listen to Greek music but who are they? No, they are not even vaguely Greek. Of course they are not people at all but simply allegories. They are that which the artist invents when life does not entirely fit or is inadequate to his perception of how it was or should have been. All represent some aspect of post WWI Greece that greater outside forces consigned to a fate they didn't deserve. As we joked in the late 70's in America: "The Revolution didn't happen." For an ideologue/artist, this is no joke. It's in fact grounds to put us through two and a half hours of torment. And it's all because the various Powers (Eleni's soliloquy of "guards" in different colored uniforms) didn't allow the generation after the "aristocrats" of 1919 (Spyros) to follow the call of peace and freedom (the music of Nikos and his fellow musicians, i.e., the Movement, the Cause). This dark, surreal revisionism smears the true and heroic efforts of the Greek people to sustain their lust for life through the tragedies of the 20th century, to achieve more than any of their Balkan neighbors, to have become so politically evolved and globally integrated.


While the film has one redeeming feature, namely some striking shots e.g. the shot of the sheep hanging from the tree, the scene of the funeral procession on the raft, or the scene of the boats leaving the village (which seemed influenced by the scene when the warships approach in the fantastic "Fellini Satyricon"), these were more photographic than cinematographic, and would have been better appreciated hung on a wall in an art gallery than embedded in a painfully slow-paced film that comes in at a whopping 162 minutes and suffers from terrible dialogue, extremely poor character development, over-acting, uninspired symbolism and heavy stylisation. This is the first film I have seen by Angelopoulos, and his reputation having preceded him, I expected a lot better, but can honestly say that this is one of the worst films I've ever seen, and I won't go out of my way to watch any of the director's other work in the future. The four friends I went to see it with agree.


I'm not going to give an account of the plot of the movie, which according to some other reviewers on this forum--and I may add that I agree with them in words--is very simple. The simplicity of the brutality that was brought upon the Afghan people by the Taliban of course does not need many words to convey. Everyone who has heard of the words "oppression," "religious extremism," and "brutality" can give an account of the dreadful reign of the Taliban over Afghanistan. So, I'm totally amazed by the, dare I say, shallow perspective of some reviewers here that take this simplicity as a weakness of the movie. I don't think that the simplicity and/or familiarity of the plot tells *anything* about the strength or the weakness of the movie, nor does it decrease the gravity of the story.

Another alleged weakness of the movie I wish to dispel is its slow pace. I hardly see why that could be regarded as a weakness when in all its seconds the movie is conveying so much (visual) emotion and from such a close shot. You get to see the real--as far as my experience goes--behaviour of the mullahs, the real mechanisms by which they take hold of the vortex of power in such a war-ridden land.

On a slightly different note, I was quite surprised to read the feature review on the first page of the movie info, Eyal Philippsborn write "was it the setting or did the Taliban also banned the building of houses with roofs?" well, was it the setting or the catastrophes of about 30 years of civil war and social chaos, Eyal?

Another expressed criticism I read in the previous reviews was that such deep and engulfing sense of misery cannot possibly be the truth. This is an attempt to reduce the level of the movie to some sort of intellectual propaganda. I have to completely disagree. For two reasons: first of all, in the limited time-span of a movie, one cannot possible hope to see all aspects of life. The director has to choose what s/he wants to show and convey, and quite understandably this movie is about the plagues brought upon an entire nation by the Taliban. And secondly, even though the movie mainly focuses on the miserable life of its characters in such surrealistic-to-the-western-eye settings, it does show tiny glimpses of the beauty of life: the lullaby that the grandma sings to put the little girl to sleep, or the joyful, threatening Espandi (the boy with the smoking bucket of wild rue [Epand in Persian or Dari]) who turns into a supporter of the little girl when she's overwhelmed by the aggressive, intrusive boys in the Taliban's Quranic school.

I'm not an expert on the more techy parts of the movie-making business, but as an avid movie-goer, I could not pinpoint any particular weakness in terms of camera-work, plot, etc. I tend to think that the complaints the movie receives on these aspects is a more-or-less direct result of a state of being spoiled by the glamorous Hollywood-driven movie industry.

The only real drawback to the movie was its subtitles. Eyal also noted in the above-mentioned feature review that the opening quote of the movie was obviously--and I think unnecessarily--altered in the caption. The real quote is by Ali Shariati, the celebrated idealogue of the Islamic Revolution in Iran--who died before he could see it happen--which says: "[Oh, God,] Put me among those who give away their worldly desires for their religious one, not those who give away their religious desires for their worldly ones." This is turned into a concise quote by Mandela instead: "I cannot forget, but I can forgive." Not the same thing at all, and I'm not really sure I would say implying the same thing either. The quote by Shariati is in fact very suggestive, and ambiguous in the context of the movie.

Finally, yes, the movie is grim, and hard to take, but far from dull or artificial. Overall, Osama is a big step into the real examination of the misery of a people who have been deprived even of a glimpse of a normal life by the almost cosmological forces of the international politics.


A powerful and disturbing film of what life was like under the oppressive Taliban rule. Maybe because the cast are not actors and it starts with a boy talking to the camera as if it's a documentary being made it feels like what unfolds is actually happening and this makes it a very real and chilling experience. A film that should be seen.(8/10)


The Director is taking through us a 80 minutes journey through the eyes of a 13 year old girl in Afghanistan under the taliban...

The landscape full of limestone .....and the people unfortunate enough to have born into the wrong time....

barren land and lives.....

where every other woman is a widow and every other mother is a living tomb.......

Please listen to the soundtrack carefully.... especially the background score.... its really important..... it starts off with an iron swing..... ends with the sound of skipping rope hitting the ground.... Masterful.

I bet that after the movie, you will go and kiss your young daughter. You sure will.

My salute to the director who mesmerised me the whole 80 minutes....

saw this movie in 8th international film festival of kerala in 2003 where It got a grand applause.

This was the first movie made in post taliban regime in afghanistan. Truly commendable.

My 9 out of 10.


This was the kind of movie....that I thought was amusing and sweet for a low budget flick! It had some mistakes...but 'so what' all movies do...even blockbusters! I would watch the young sexy actress/rapper Boobie Monroe...over and over again, she's HOT!! Reynaldo Rey is always funny, especially when he gets angry...Remember House Party 3? Singing was 'shaky' but I really did enjoy the rap numbers...especially the one's by Mysterious and Tangerine.....The white, black rap was kind of funny, but could have been just a bit better.....But it was worth it just watching Tangy (Boobie Monroe). Oops, back to Boobie again...."She's Hot"!! I thought that was Richard Williams as the butler...I thought it was cool for him to get a 'bit' part!


... This was a awful movie. 1st, the male lead character is reading this god-awful spoken word nonsense. 2nd.. The female lead is a part of a family singing group. They show flashbacks of the singing group in the 70's & 80's. The problem was, they were using a Korg Triton, a keyboard that was manufactured & released in the late 90's.

In an episode when they were singing at a party, the mother of the group was singing... but the problem with that was, it was a male's voice used in the over-dub.

And if that was not the worst... Why was Venus & Serena's daddy in the movie..? I rented it, because it was a freebie... but I should have known better, because anything that Maverick puts out is gonna be some garbage..!!!


This was a bad movie... Richard Williams (Venus and Serena's Dad) was in this movie and he had ONE LINE "YES" that was it. He looked half dead. The voice overs were very very bad. Yeah the mom sang one song with a woman's voice and the on the next song she was a member of Blackstreet and then back to a woman's voice again... It was funny to see how Generic this was. Another thing, how did the male lead's dad have a mansion and then when they got outside it was a ghetto apartment parking lot. Also, his Spoken Word or shall i say BROKEN WORD was the worst. I guess the best thing about this movie was some of the women. Rent this if you want to laugh and look for mistakes.


This movie is so complex. Never before had an African writer/director ventured into such unknown territory. This movie is incredible! A black fashion model, who is posing for a fashion shoot amidst the beautiful scenery of Africa, is transported back in time through an African slave trade castle. Great cinematography and artistic creativity. This movie is not only entertainment, it is an experience!


I saw this film in Washington, DC in 1995 and have since purchased the tape. It is a blast of African pride and anti-slavery vigor from Ethiopian-born director Haile Gerima. Gerima is a professor at Howard University in DC and his films confront the issues of race, integration, and violence in Africa and America. "Sankofa" is available through Mypheduh films (Gerima's production company) in DC.

The story begins and ends on a small island in West Africa, where 'Mona', an African-American fashion model, is in the present day. The middle of the film consists of Mona, through magic realism, being transported back to a slave plantation in 18th-century America. For those of you who wonder about what it was like to be a slave back then, under those barbaric and intolerable conditions, this is your chance. "Sankofa" is not for the faint of heart. Yet its violent scenes are never overdone, and the film's final 'message' is a positive one.

It's a shame that this film at this time has an IMDB "rating" of only 5 or so, because 31 of the 44 votes cast have been "10"s, including mine. I guess this film has alienated a few people, but most powerful films do that. A very important film from a gifted and underrated director.


I went into this movie, half doubting I'd like it.

My doubts were unfounded, this is not a "Slavery" movie in the Hollywood sense. It is a moving allegory about people, who found themselves... enslaved.

And it is so much more than that. It is a movie about brainwashing, about religious dogma, about the use of religion to maintain an otherwise unsupportable system. About group dynamics, and about music, and about culture, and surprisingly, for a movie of such virulent subject matter... it is about beauty.

It is one of the most lushly, and beautifully filmed movies you'll ever see. It is filled with iconic, magical images. Because it is about magic... the magical, the wondrous, the spiritual.

And it will leave you alternately stunned, horrified, and amazed. It is a film of great... compassion. and great hope If you haven't seen it, or been avoiding it because of the subject matter, I completely understand. I did the same.

I'm not a big fan of films about falling down, I think looking at one's feet can become a habit, rehashing abuse can be... its own abuse. Especially when all that is portrayed... is the abuse.

It can be something of a self indulgence.

Look at our talk show society, victims happily paused, recounting endlessly their victimization, unable to move beyond it. I'm even less of a fan of films that marginalize the past, make it into this cookie cutter one size fits all experience.

Alex Hailey's roots comes to mind, or Gone with the Wind, or any number of Hollywood films about the west that typically just discount the true meltingpot, sumptuous and magical founding of this still very much troubled nation.

Discount truths, marvels, such as...

-Early inventors, inventions that launched the Industrial revolution, from Elevator to Traffic Light to Gas Mask to Telegaph came from this mass of wronged people. Early architecture, music. -The first cowboys were Black, odd how that's completely forgotten. -The founders of Chicago and LA, these Black scouts, these renaissance mountain men who spoke multiple languages, these pioneers, who went where so-called civilized men feared to tread, and made cities in the wild. -Fighters in the revolutionary war... Black. -Fighters in the civil war... on both sides... Black, yep... the south's answer to the North's military ploy, the Emancipation Proclamation... was to promise freedom for any Black and his family who put on the uniform... and fought for the grey. Many did. Many died wearing the grey.

Can you imagine it, that moment, a Black man wearing the Blue, and a Black man wearing the grey, looking across their rifles at each other, two sides of a war they never made, but that they would have to end. Truly a war of Brother vs. Brother.

That is the type of truth-is-stranger-than-fiction magic, that imbues every second of the early days of this nation. And it is a wonder, and an irony that very few films have ever captured that magic.

SANKOFA is one of those few.

There is a horror in the founding of this nation, this hemisphere, but there is a magic there. And there is ugliness in the founding of this nation, but there is great beauty there too.

They were magical people, these men and women and children, who American history still would demeaningly classify as slaves, rather than people who were enslaved, a seemingly minor distinction, but in that distinction rests acknowledging the wrong done, and the people, the people, not slaves, the people... it was done to.

This film is about beauty. And it's about people, farmers, seamstresses, griots, idlers, princes, paupers, masons, painters, singers, cooks, who one day found themselves... enslaved.

Sankofa is about the people we would call slaves, and their bloody fights... for humanity and freedom, under an inhuman system. For freedom, in a time of Holocaust. And it was a freedom no Emancipation proclamation gave, but a freedom they won, the only way anything is ever won, by making the days of slavery a bloody hell for slaver and enslaved.

By making the cost of blood... blood.

It is a film that remembers their... struggle. In a time when Black children are taught by a euro-centric curriculum only enough to despise their history, and themselves, and groomed to be only guard dog or guarded, this film is an essential thing.

It is about looking back to go forward. And honoring with every breath you take, those who died by the millions, that you can have the liberty... to live better, with more liberty, than they did. It is a film that passionately... in a time where media, and environment,and education have all betrayed these children... needs to be seen.

When so many have bought into the lie of their limitations, it is a film , deeply beautiful, about living beyond... labels.

And it is a film not everyone will get, the bigots won't get it, and the apologists won't get it, and the supporters of the status quo, and the soulless won't get it... but we few, we happy few, children of the Holocaust, we White children and Black and Native American, formed by the mixing blood of our unruly ancestors, we children of their promise and pain... for us the film is an ode and a debt... for what was done, and what remains to do.

Essential viewing.


Hailes Sankofa is the first and best movie about slavery ever made. Forget Amistad go see this movie if you can find it. The director of this movie could not get funding for this movie as the content was considered 'too controversial'. He made the movie outside of Hollywood and this resulted in a honest view on the history of slavery. This movie had bad distribution and no advertisement but it sold out at the box offices in America. The movie is named after the bird Sankofa. This bird is always looking back to where it came from. This massage is important throughout the movie; for a better understanding of the present and the future you need to know where you came from and how history has treated you.


A very compelling story of what slavery was really like. The sometimes graphic but honest images left a very strong impression on me. No happy go lucky Uncle Toms willing to cater to the Master in all things. This film is one of my alternative favorites but is very hard to find. It should be required viewing for American history courses.


The first time I heard of this movie was in College. I then purchased myself a copy. This movie is Amazing, Probably the truest, realest movie regarding Slavery. It told of the horrors and abuse African people who were brought to this country endured.. I believe this is a must see for everyone regardless of races..The strength alone of the people, to deal with what they faced and to still rise above that is absolutely Incredible. It is a shame that this movie got no recognition in the US . I guess it would cause people to deal with the reality of the horrific brutality human beings faced during this darkest era in American History.


There is no better movie on that period in history. It shows the African spirit not only as passive and accepting or merely as a vehicle to be brutalised by an antagonist who is given all the lines but here the Africans are allowed to be people. We see a real portrayal of people with feelings, emotions and lives.

It touches on some of the aspects of mental slavery that other movies avoid, such as the biracial son of the master and a slave being indoctrinated with the church to hate his black mother and her spirituality. The scenes with him gazing longingly at white Madonna and child imagery in a church being attended to by a white priest telling about his wicked heathen mother really ring home.

From start to finish this is definitely the black perspective on slavery. Amistad is nothing to this. Amistad was about a court case, did nothing to the actualities of slavery or the deeper issues as Sankofa did with panache and feeling.


Most older movies and many movies in general like "Song of the South" and "Gone With the Wind" depicted Slavery as an okay instuition. In those films Slaves are depicted as Happy in that institiution, but in this film you see how Slaves really felt. Also you can see their humanity and knowledge where in older films they were depicted as ignorant.

This film is really, really neat for an independent film, and it shows a real slave castle in Gahana. Sankofa is a term that... Well, get the movie and you will learn more about it.

It does a good job of taking you through the film from a slaves point of view. The film uses that interesting "lens" to illustrate just how wrong slavery was. It also gives insight into the family unit among slaves, which may explain the black family today in America. Understanding the history of black families during slavery may be used to help understand the black family today in it's struggles to have cohesiveness.


As an African-American male this film really hit home for me. It upsets me that there aren't more films like this from the perspective of the oppressed. I can't believe I didn't hear of this film until recently, the same as I never heard of great Africans and people of African descent like Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop, Dr. John Henrick Clarke, Dr. Amos Wilson, Dr. Chancellor Williams, Dr. Carter G. Woodson and many others like them until recently. This film shows how life today among blacks strongly resembles the life of slaves on the plantation. We think we are free but our minds are stuck in self hatred. I recommend this movie to people of all races and backgrounds, very eye-opening and educational. 10 times better than any Roots or Amistad or Color Purple that was made by people not of African descent


As a Univeristy student, studying the Narratives of the Black Atlantic, I was asked to view "Sankofa" during lecture time to further get an understanding of the topic. The film was fantastic in the portrayal of the characters, the lighting and sounds were authentic to the plights of the slaves and how some of the overcame their injustices at the hands of the slave holders.

A film that definitely changed my view and made me think. I would recommend it to anyone thinking of studying the Black Atlantic although it is hard to watch, as some of the scenes depict the raping and the whipping of the slaves, all of which did happen on the plantations in the West Indies.


Sankofa is a film that every American should see (no matter what one's ancestry), as it portrays slavery and the middle passage more frankly than any other film to date.

The music is brilliant, and the film is beautiful despite the ugliness of slavery. Never have I been moved as much as when I watch this film.

Symbolism is rampant throughout this should-be masterpiece... from the importance of color red to the element of flight, the representations made subliminally as well as those made in the forefront are incredible. Because of this, one can view the film several times, and still not see everything it has to offer.

I've shown this film in my ENG 101 courses dozens of times. It's that important.

Go see it. Now.


This was the worst film I had ever seen (until I saw "Welcome II Terrordome"). While I understand the potential necessity of the polemic that it so burdensomely carries, Sankofa is not fit for any sort of consumption. While it does portray slavery in a brutally realistic fashion, any drama or complexity that might have at one point existed, is destroyed by one of the poorest scripts ever produced, the poorest editing and music ever seen in a film, and some of the worst acting ever to not grace the screen. Yes, this is a terrible terrible film. Yes, I know it was low budget, but the reason why is that it lacked a script that could carry it. Skip Sankofa, it is two hours of your life you will never get back.


I have seen this movie four times and each time I view it I learn something new.I wish that this movie was shown in American history classes, to educate our children. I think that the more that people learn the true horrors of slavery they will no longer be able to ignore it. This is the sort of film that will lead people, both Black and White, to really discuss the wrongs that have been done in this country. I hope that others will not be turned away because some have said it was not executed right. What they do not understand is that this movie was made with not a lot of money. Unfortunately, these types of stories are not what Hollywood wants to produce. Although it is not the best quality it should be watched for its important message. Hopefully, if more of us show interest in these type of films Hollywood will make them and they will be of a better quality aesthetically .


In terms of the the African experience in the west, in relation to slavery and all the bigotry and racism suffered by us, particularly today as we continue to struggle for equality in all areas of our lives, Sankofa is a true and honest depiction. There has been many films made about our experiences and none of them has touched on this reality or even offered a suggestions as to how we free ourselves from this slave mentality which causes us not only to self exploit but to take part in the exploitation of our brothers and sisters. The character Sankofa is representative of 99.9%of black females across Europe and the Americas. This point relates to the character at the start of the film before she goes back to the past. Haille Gerima has a spirit and a soul that generates throughout the movie that the end is one that is positive and not filled with bitterness. It is very understandable why he could not get financial backing as the film is in the eyes of the Hollywood suits, too controversial. Very similar to Spike Lee when making Malcolm X: black people all over loved it and many white people did not, why it failed to win the Oscar. Although the cast of Sankofa is relatively unknown, with the exception of a couple of the American actors in it, don't be put off, everyone plays their role exceptionally well. The film is not only educational in its value but an important film for young and older black women. A film we should all have in our DVD home collection. I will be looking forward to viewing more of his works.


In a way it would have been better if this film was terribly made, because then nobody would pay attention to its horrible message.

To talk about the good, the cinematography was well done. Some of the shots of the landscape and sky were breathtaking. Though the lack of a decent budget shows, the talent of the film crew is able to overcome that.

However, despite the talent that went into the production, I cannot give the movie a higher score, because of its intolerable message.

This movie purports to show the mistreatment of African Americans at the hands of white men. In some aspects this is certainly helpful. It is good to remember the horrors we have inflicted on others, to guard us against doing so again.

But the movie falls into propaganda with its heavy-handed treatment of its characters. The noble Nunu, an African who zealously follows the paganism of her ancestors, is presented as a saint without flaw. Meanwhile, her mulatto son, Joe, a faithful catholic, is unloving, murderous, and a traitor to his people.

This is not a movie in which all people are shown as corrupted, fallen beings. This is a movie in which all African Pagans are savage heroes, and all whites are licentious hypocritical Christians. The white characters are never anything other than cardboard cutouts, two-dimensional scapegoats for all the ills of the Africans. I don't even want to get into the unspoken insinuation that it's Joe's white blood that has corrupted him.

Now, you might say I'm being unfair. After all, were there not corrupt priests, slave owners who raped their slaves, and traitorous mulattoes? Undoubtedly. But this movie never gives us a hint that there is anything but those things. This movie gives us no reason to think not all priests aren't racists, that not all slave owners are rapists.

Furthermore, the movie forces us to associate good Africans with paganism, and evil whites and traitorous African Americans with Christianity. Joe kills his mother because she throws away his necklace of Mary, and because the priest tells him his mother is the devil. Shola doesn't join the "good" side until she attends the pagan ritual in the caves.

Not to mention the portrayal of Africa as paradise, where nothing bad ever happened to anyone. No, before whites enslaved them, there was certainly no murder or rape among the Africans. Not to say it was as bad as slavery, but the movie's equation of Africa with heaven is ridiculous.

That the movie ends with the slaves slaughtering the slave owners shows the depravity of the movie. They have unfortunately agreed with the philosophy of Farakkhan and others who think that going back to Africa, and cutting off any connection with other races, is the correct path.

In the end it is a movie that argues that outwardly choosing a religion makes you either an evil person or a good one, and that the correct way to respond to injustice is with revenge.


The only thing this movie lacks from is more mainstream actors but would a mainstream studio publish this movie? Love it or hate it, this is a movie made for an audience of African descent with the intentions of bridging the gap between both sides of the Atlantic while simultaneously forcing African Americans to question their ways and identity. The perspective of the film maker can be questioned. One could complain that slave owners and Christianity was portrayed in too brutal of a light, as many of the other viewers have done. But must a film produced to explore the dehumanizing aspects of slavery along with the attempts by the slaves to reclaim their humanity also be one that reconciles the image of the enslavers? Of course not. This film was not published in a bubble. It is a part of a larger canon of slavery films, many of which have already highlighted the benevolence or at least mixed feelings of the master (see Roots, the Patriot by Mel Gibson, or even worse Jefferson in Paris).

In all, this film was a brave attempt at complex and fairly unveiled aspects of slavery. It has its flaws but the biggest flaw is that many of these topics still go unrepresented on the big screen. Imagine how amazing a film of Nat Turner's Rebellion or the Hatian Revolt would be?


This is one of the worst films in the history of movie making. All of the characters are morons. Why doesn't the woman do something to her master sooner.

And what is wrong with the master? The woman is holding a machete for crying out loud, and he's still trying to rape her. What did he think was going to happen?

This movie just sucked.

This movie sucked.

This movie sucked.

this movie sucked. this movie sucked.

this movie sucked. THIS MOVIE SUCKED.


"I've got it, Jim!" "What's that, George?" "What are the two subjects we can combine to evoke sympathy from a guilt-ridden audience while still being original in an annoying Paulie Shore kind of way?" "The Holocaust and a team of break-dancing ninjas from the future?" "NO! Slavery and time-travel!" "C'mon George, no one can possibly take that seriously. In fact, that brings up a good question, why would you have to use a plot device as crazy as time travel in order to make people empathize with slaves?" "Screw you, you're fired. (To an aide) Get me some yes-men!"

That essentially summarizes my feelings about San Kofa. Why would you use something as ridiculous as time travel to highlight the horrors of slavery? Why would you put jazz music into a rape scene? Why would you put subtitles in for someone speaking English in a strange accent IN that strange dialect of English?


*Contains Possible Spoilers*

I consider myself quite well connected with the late 1960s, even being quite a Joan Baez fan in kindergarten! In the mid-seventies a relative gave me a big stack of old Evergreen Review magazines, and I started an interest in more counter-culture things from the '60s because of that, since I was just a child when much of it took place. One of the films Evergreen released in 1970 that they gave a lot of coverage to was Quiet Days In Clichy, showing tantalizing pics of the cast in naked moments. And in 2004 I finally got to see what the hubbub was about...

Mainly a curiosity of the late '60s and of interest mainly for those interested in the "art" cinema of that time, this film is really another of those where philosophy and intellectual conversations are padded with people having sex, showing even the intellectuals have a base interest just like everyone else. But since it centers around someone like Henry Miller, it's high art apparently. Certainly off to an interesting start, the film immediately gets one to think though that there is a promise of more like the hardcore footage shown right after the strange credit sequence. That might have been better actually, because instead we then mainly get characters meandering around Paris and Luxembourg, laughing a lot and wondering why they are never satisfied.

Here are some of the perplexing things for me:

--Joey complains that Nys could have left him a few francs after he first met her and gave her his money, but Joey actually INSISTED she take all of it to begin with.

--The guys keep yakking about how Colette's brains are in her genitals and that she just wants to have sex (a feeling they seem to have about women in general), but by watching this whole film it seems Joey and Carl spend all their time trying to get laid as well.

--The women are portrayed as a bit mentally off, except for Colette's mother (upon which Carl then just says how hot she was, which seemed like belittling her after she was kind to them).

--Joey is a writer, but we rarely see him even doing that, he just complains how he has no money and has nothing to eat, but can spend a lot of time walking around town and looking for sex.

--Suddenly while in Luxembourg, and somehow with money, they wind up pouring bottles of wine all over prostitutes and letting the bread they have to just wind up in the tub and going down the drain with the wine. If we're supposed to appreciate Joey and Carl's "bohemian lifestyle," it doesn't help that they just waste food and drink after always saying they never have it.

--Hoping there would be a resolve to the story, instead after a naked woman can't have sex with them because she was crying over the memory of her late husband, the others just sit there naked and laugh while the camera zooms in on their genitals. Huhhhh??? That's it?

I don't regret seeing this film after wondering for so many years what it was all about, and discovering more curiosities from that era. It's just that I think some people will find any reason to say it's poetic mainly because Henry Miller is involved -- if this were not based on him and just a film of its own, I doubt as many folks would be worshiping it. Had a film been made of a character based on Henry Miller washing dishes for an hour and a half, I'm sure these people would somehow come up with many a thesis on the amazing meanings of it.

But it all just comes down to silly naked people laughing, in my eyes...


I don't know about this one. The point, if there was one, seemed to get by me. Multiple references to the film's source, Henry Miller's eponymous novel, don't help much. Much of Miller's appeal comes not just from his go-to-hell attitude towards life and art but from the way he expresses his sentiments on the page. Maybe he just doesn't translate well to the screen, not that Miller himself would care one way or the other.

The street words that Miller flung about so carelessly in his prose seem emphasized here, as if designed expressly to shock. Not just the F word either. Well the street words are old and established. Shakespeare worked a terrible pun on the C word into one of his comedies, I forget which. The F word goes back to the Angles and the Saxons or the Mooks and the Gripes or somebody. Wait a minute -- the C word was also worked into a pun in "Hamlet," come to think of it.

"I feel like going out and getting myself a fatal dose of clap." Well, no kidding. Are we supposed to be shocked? Maybe we were, back in 1970, if we had blue hair and lived in Dogpatch, USA.

If Henry Miller doesn't add much cachet, neither do Country Joe and the Fish, whose music whangs away on the sound track with lyrics that are as pointlessly vulgar as the horribly dubbed dialog.

Ben Webster is okay, though. And the photography, though irritatingly grainy, is several steps removed from the billowing pastels of soft-core porn. It's honestly black and white, and the naked bodies, of which there are plenty, aren't painted, trimmed, or shaved. If the babe has a pimple anywhere, you see the pimple. And the guys are bald on top and hairy everywhere else. A for sincerity there.

The story goes no place. There is no story. People run around half naked on the streets of Paris, flapping their arms and panting, supposedly having a great time. Half a dozen ordinary-looking people slosh around in a tub pouring wine over one another and laughing giddily because the director told them to act as if they were having the grandfather of all good times. (The French do this joi de vivre stuff better.) In the first scene of the film, the bespectacled hero, a pallid imitation of Miller, picks up a girl in a café and, after sex, gives her all his money, can't get any more credit at the restaurants, and is forced to raid his own garbage pail for leftover nuggets. Plenty of sex but not enough food. That's how a viewer feels after watching this.

I wish this movie had been better. It was dumped on for obscenity, but the sexual and linguistic candor was at least an innovation in a mainstream movie. It deserves dismissal, true, but only because it lacks any substance. As it is, it stands as an historical curiosity.


If you were there at the time the film makes sense. All of the taboos were there to be broken and this one tried to break them all at once just to prove it could get away with it. So there's naked women everywhere (in poses 'pushing out the envelope' of the day), bad language and lavatorial humour in abundance. My guess is that the producers were so fixated on pushing back the boundaries of the then conventional taste, that even the most the most rudimentary craftsmanship was contemptuously discarded.

So it's a pity that the acting is terrible, wit is noticeable by its absence and the nudes aren't really all that exciting. Some gross outs can be amusing. These ones were not.

With very little effort this could have been so much more fun and put one over on the wicked establishment at the same time.

Watch 'I Am Curious' instead. It's (they're) no great shakes but much better than this.


My girlfriend said she'd never seen a porno film, so she dragged me into the cinema to see "Stille Dage i Clichy" in Copenhagen, when the film was new. To say it's a bad film is to overvalue Warhol's "Flesh." It was worse. The only good bit was right at the beginning, with the play on "Gray Day." After that, it was downhill all the way.

The acting was abysmal. The plot... well, what plot? The "Germs won't attack a starving man" scene was memorably sickening. The bonking was overdone and hugely "in your face."

For a poetic film, See "Last Year in Marienbad." Spot the difference.

IMHO, Miller wasn't a particularly good writer. His books did, however, mark a turning-point in censorship. This film, though, has about the same artistic qualities as "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "The Toolbox Murders."

When the film ended, though, it was interesting to note that, while the women in the audience stood and put on their cardis and coats, the blokes sat quite still for a minute or so :-) .


I'm reviewing this from the perspective of myself as a fan of Miller .. Though this is a poorly-done piece of amateur cinema, there is at least enough curiosity in seeing the presentation of the characters and other elements of the book, though you will likely be horribly disappointed with everything. "Quiet Days" is certainly one of Miller's crudest books, in terms of him coming off like a real jerk, albeit a smart and charming one (which the actor playing Miller totally lacks). In that sense, the film captures the baseness in the fact that it's as if the novel has been interpreted by tittering frat boys who pick out the most basic "shock" elements and run with them with anti-authoritarian glee. The previous review of this film mentions plot points which make no sense. This is because the director showed his obvious carelessness and sloppiness by not attaching logic to actions which are clear in the book. A curiosity of the late 60's (including footage of Paris in 69/70; also notable for the use of text within image which I actually quite liked), but a real disappointment for Miller fans, and a pretty bad movie overall.


I am a fan of Henry Miller and have read many of his books. When I saw a DVD of "Quiet Days in Clichy" on my local video store's "Staff Pick's" shelf, I excitedly plucked it off and read the back.

It sounded great, an artistic rendition of one of Miller's works. I took it home practically rubbing my hands.

As the previous reviewer commented, the acting is abysmal. Painful to watch. What a disappointment.

The photography is good. There are some (filming) tricks employed, but do nothing to salvage this failure.


Joey, a writer, and Carl, a Frenchman, are two bohemians living in Paris spending all their time looking for more poon. All the women are slut and/ or mentally unstable and stupid only good for what's between their legs in their world view and the film itself seems to suggest that the idea is true. Based loosely on the Henry Miller book which was in turn based loosely on his actual life. Made and seems to be only for the pretentious and unbearable Art-house crowd. (hey even THEY have base interests..I think) For the rest of you people (Ie. Normal) just go rent some real porn instead, you'd get more out it. And likely more of a plot to boot. I usually like the movies that Blue Underground choose to release, but this one is a vast disappointment. It is however the most anti-feminist movie you'll likely ever see. I guess that deserve something.

My Grade: C-

DVD Extras: "Dirty Movies, Dirty books" featurette; an 11 minute piece on the music, Poster and stills gallery; Bios of Henrey Miller and Jens Thorsen

DVD-ROM: Court Documents

2 Easter Eggs: highlight the word EXTRA in the extras menu, and the word CLICHY in the talent bios menu for 2 more clips of Barney Rosset interviewed

Eye Candy: Ulla Koppel. Suzanne Krage, Lisbet Lundquist, and Louise White all so much flesh


This movie is a genuine piece of eroticism. Some comments pointed out that the acting was awful. Well in a way one could say that the actors are not acting, they are living the situation ! (I wouldn't be surprise to learn that they had a lot a sex together when the cameras where not shooting...). What I try to say is that this movie is not "manufactured" according to the canonical rules, it is "genuine". This is why it conveys a unique impression of freedom - seldom found elsewhere - that I would call A LIBERTARIAN EXPERIENCE OF SEX. And therefore it gives to the receptive spectator a mostly exhilarating experience.

It is the combination of the world of Henry Miller and the sexual liberation of the 70's (more advanced in the Scandinavian countries - this is a Danish film) that made it possible.

If I where to keep just one erotic movie, it may well be this one. Of course if you watched too many lousy porn, your look may be too much formatted to appreciate this movie...


This is a poetic movie describing recollection of aging Henry Miller of his stay in Paris before the WWII. It follow the adventures decribed in the book of the same title. The movie has both good humor and great bodies. I would love to have a copy of this movie in any format.


this is just one of those pro-tend-be "art-house" junk Euro made in 70s,i do not know why blue-underground release this junk. A very boring movie, 80% of time are silly fake love-making scenes with out any meaning.

poor plot, poor acting. silly slut and bastard(the main male roles)There are really no likable people in the movie. If you like this kind of movie, you should rent a real porn, just like last poster said

give 1 vote just because no zero. I suggest no one should watch this piece of trash. the only good thing in this movie is the music. Just forget about this movie and try your best to avoid it.


Good movie, very 70s, you can not expect much from a film like this,, Sirpa Lane is an actress of erotic films, a nice body but nothing exceptional savant to a pornographic actress from the body disappears, but the '70s were characterized a small breasts and a simple eroticism. Not demand a lot from these films are light years away from the movies today, the world has changed incredibly. The plot is simple and the actors not extraordinary. And the brunette actress has a single body, has one breast slightly bigger. Be satisfied. Papaya also is not great but at least these films have a certain charm ... Download them again but then again who knows what you pretend not to them.


Like the few other viewers of "Subway Stories: Tales from the Underground" who bothered to comment on this wonderful HBO "indie" film, I came upon it by chance (well, channel-surfing to tell the truth) and immediately became enthralled. A series of shorts held together by the NYC subway setting (obviously), by a wonderful framing device that brings the work to a highly satisfying and affirmative conclusion, and by a shared sense of found life, the effect of the whole is even greater than the individual parts although some of those were unforgettable.

Each of the stories were, like life, completely unpredictable and most were left open-ended: Was the stock-tipster (Jerry Stiller) a con-man or an unacknowledged financial genius? Was the beggar (Dennis Leary) a bitter Vietnam Vet or the cynical system-beater he was accused of being by the Lady in the Red Shoes (Christine Lahti)? Would the pregnant woman (Anne Heche) jump into the oncoming subway and would the calloused New Yorker with the headphones (Gregory Hines)notice, care, try to stop her? I could never guess any of the resolutions or stop wondering about their significance.

The structure of "Subway Stories" is somewhat analogous to the loosely connected short stories in Joyce's collection, "Dubliners." Each segment is a little slice of life that builds not to a rousing climax, but to an understated epiphany in which either we, a character, or both share a moment of truthful revelation. Although not all the stories are equally developed or intriguing, the whole production is characterized by first rate ensemble acting and direction. There's some great music too.


I love short story films, especially when, of one particular theme, they are connected to satisfy a feature length running time.

Like taking any subway/underground/metro train, with Subway Stories, if you don't like one particular story, wait a few minutes and a better one will come along.

Of course everyone will have their particular favourites, but for me

Fern's Heart of Darkness, Sax Cantor Riff, Manhattan Miracle, Love on the A Train, and Underground were simply original and wonderful.

I'm English and lived in London for four years so these types of stories are not exclusive to New York.

Where there are people, there are possibilities.


an emotional roller-coaster which leaves you staring at the credits in la la land long after you should have gotten up and fetched that other beer.....i find it strange that the most compelling story i have witnessed on film is not readily available on DVD..in NTSC format at least and also that adrenaline pumping ...Tyral Hicks scene.. which brings these riveting stories to their anti climax..or climax if you may..is hidden away in fine print in the cast listing by billing......is there anyone who can help me source the DVD in NTSC format. another anomaly regarding this film is that it seems to be only shown at 2 or 3 AM .. but hey i guess that how it attained it cult classic status...


Where to begin...

This movie should be the dream of any sociology-minded person. It analyzes the best and worst aspects of humankind. Unless you're emotionally dead inside, you'll find yourself laughing, crying, and oft times pitying...but most of all you'll see yourself, as in the ten shorts you're bound to find a character you can relate with.

My least favorite segments had to be "Love on the A Train," "The Listeners," and "The 5:24." Typically Steve Zahn and Jerry Stiller can do it for me, but this short is all business, literally. You half expect when you see the both of them together that it's going to be a comedy, but you leave the segment disappointed that you didn't get what you expected. This is "5:24" in a nutshell.

"Love on the A Train" is by far the most risqué of the shorts, but it's done in a fashion that still makes it viewable to even the most puritanical of people. It's also the first time Rosie Perez has ever looked genuinely sexy to me. For people who AREN'T fans of her, you don't have to worry about dialog.

I've always been somewhat drawn to Lili Taylor for some odd reason, which is why I had a lot of hope for "The Listeners." Unfortunately, it didn't have the bite of the other scenes. There could have been some real development there, but since these are based on true stories, any alterations to make them seem more cinematic would have taken away from the "reality" these shorts try (and on a lot of levels succeed) to convey.

I didn't list "The Red Shoes" simply because I was of a mixed mind about it.

I absolutely love Denis Leary (man has the best hair in showbiz, I think - plus having a love scene with a topless Liz Hurley in Double Whammy elevates him to "God" status in my eyes), and Christine Lahti commands attention. I didn't like the sketch because it was poorly done...I didn't like the sketch because it deals with a subject matter you can quite easily relate with on a grotesque level. Let's just say one thing of Lahti's dialog might be true by the time the segment ends.

"The Red Shoes" ties in nicely with "Fern's Heart of Darkness." Both segments force you to look at a part of yourself you don't wear on your sleeve.

I wasn't a particular fan of Honey-Getter but I can't knock Ajay Naidu. The guy was Samir in Office Space, which automatically exonerates him of any bad roles or performances. If I talked bad about him I could never watch the movie again, and that would be a travesty.

Now, onto those I absolutely loved:

"Sax Cantor Riff" was gorgeous. It draws you in with a mediocre beginning with a mediocre start (even though it includes Sam Rockwell, a fledgling actor back then who's moved onto greater things - Charlie's Angels not withstanding). Then you're exposed to one of the most beautiful scenes and sounds in the movie (which was so initially shocking to me the first time I saw this that it brought tears to my eyes), followed immediately by something that attempts to convey something only the educated will understand. Absolutely phenomenal.

Mercedes Ruehl's character in "Underground" should be proof enough that older women can still be incredibly sexy. She was 49 when this was released in 1997, but you can't really tell. "Underground" is probably one of the shortest pieces, but it's very expressive - even though you're left to wonder at the end if anything illegal actually took place.

Lastly, since I don't want to come off as pathological about this movie, "Manhattan Miracle" was extraordinary. I've always been an extraordinary fan of Gregory Hines, and this segment shows you that there is a lot more to acting than just remembering your lines.

See this. You won't forget it.


This was an excellent movie. I personally think it should have been put in the movie theater Well I shouldn't take it that far but it was a good movie. My Favorite actor in Subway Stories actually was Danny Hoch. I'm not even sure why, I think it was because he was cool and laid back. Where as his friend was very hype kind of rowdy and a little drunk. But even then I still liked both characters, and I think their roles fit them well. I also think it was the best story out of all ten stories, which is called "HONEY GETTER". The overall movie was put together very well, and it actually made me visit New York mind you this was my first time visiting. I checked out all the scenes where the stories were shot, and it kind of Felt as if I was in the movie it self, feeling weird like I was in my own little world. Another thing I did was went to the spot where the movie first comes on from the blimp look. It took me a while to find it bit I finally did, and the spot that they show or I should say the view is just right above Union Square. Because if you look real carefully at your tv, you'll notice the foot locker and the dirt on the side which I believe now is a movie theatre called United Artists. Well that pretty much concludes my little story and I enjoyed sharing, I hope maybe you'll notice something in the movie I didn't. And just one last thing I hope that this movie comes out on DVD I can't seem to find it anywhere.


This was an excellent movie. I personally think it should have been put in the movie theater Well I shouldn't take it that far but it was a good movie. My Favorite actor in Subway Stories actually was Danny Hoch. I'm not even sure why, I think it was because he was cool and laid back. Where as his friend was very hype kind of rowdy and a little drunk. But even then I still liked both characters, and I think their roles fit them well. I also think it was the best story out of all ten stories, which is called "HONEY GETTER". The overall movie was put together very well, and it actually made me visit New York mind you this was my first time visiting. I checked out all the scenes where the stories were shot, and it kind of Felt as if I was in the movie it self, feeling weird like I was in my own little world. Another thing I did was went to the spot where the movie first comes on from the blimp look. It took me a while to find it but I finally did, and the spot that they show or I should say the view is just right above Union Square. Because if you look real carefully at your tv, you'll notice the foot locker and the dirt on the side which I believe now is a movie theatre called United Artists. Well that pretty much concludes my little story and I enjoyed sharing, I hope maybe you'll notice something in the movie I didn't. And just one last thing I hope that this movie comes out on DVD I can't seem to find it anywhere.


HBO's critically acclaimed special, "Subway Stories," lived up to most of the potential its high-profile stars injected into it. Based on real-life stories sent in my NYC underground rail riders, I found myself dazzled by the situations people claimed to have experienced. The program was divided into smaller segments, each one a little story. Although you were barraged by scenarios, you could not delve too deeply into each one. That proved to be a disappointment, since some of the stories were much more intriguing than others. The other difficulty in the series was the line between heavy drama and melodrama, and the fantastical elements peppering each segment. Also some of the skits were fuzzy in meaning, leading me to believe that they were aiming too high and forgetting who really rode the subway. It was nice to see Hollywood elite in smaller, more elusive roles than usual. And the subject matter was new and exciting. You'll find yourself studying that subway car a little more carefully to find your own "Subway Story."


I had the good fortune of catching Subway Stories, by accident, trying to get away from the Astronauts Wife. What a wonderful grouping of shorts. I have to say, I couldn't leave the room. Some were better than others, but they all kept my interest. Don't let this Subway pass you by.


This was definitely an excellent movie and kept my whole attention the whole time. But their were also some other interesting things that caught my eye. Geographical errors: Like for example on the segment Honey-Getter when the two guys Edward and Preshant get off the train, right before the lady Humera starts chasing them. If you notice the conductor says R train to Brooklyn when in fact it's the S train which is the shuttle that transports you back and forth between Grand Central Station and Times Square. Example#2 Right after the part I just described in Example #1 when the train takes off, it keeps proceeding forward. But anybody who's from New York knows that at the end of each of those stations are dead ends and the train can only go the other way. I just really found two things very interesting and those things did not make it a bad movie at all. I actually feel like that's one of the things that makes the movie interesting and I would highly recommend anybody to watch it.


Don't let this pass you by. Evocative, funny, poignant, and tragic by turns, it leaves you with a warm feeling and a sense of puzzlement: if they can make things as good as this, how come we have to put up with so much dross? Great ensemble playing, great music, stand-out miniature performances from Christine Lahti, Mercedes Ruehl, Rosie Perez, and Gregory Hines, but the icing on the cake is a chilling song from Taryl Hicks in "Sax Cantor Riff". The musical close under the credits was also a knock-out.

Quote of the movie: "Only in New York..."


Death 4 Told is what it is- a low budget "Creep Show"-esk horror film filled with cameos and loaded with zombies, gore, haunted houses and cheesy valley girl screams; a b-horror film lover's dream! The film is put together very creatively through the twisted eye of writer/director Bo Buckley and the "star" of the movie, Margot Kidder, gives a wonderful performance backed strongly by a slew of very talented new comers and old hats that should not be overlooked.

This very "un-mainstream" level film is a horror gem that is absolutely worth a peek and I look forward to the future blood-covered delights created by the fearmakers team.


I am sorry to say this but if these comments will save someone a few bucks then good. You would be better off buying soup.

I actually know some of the folks in one of the vignettes and while they did a great job with what they were given I must say the first segment was truly - not good. Uninspired, unoriginal, guys is rubber masks and so on. Come on. I suppose there are some folks who will love the "camp" aspect of this but Roger Corman did better stuff, and probably with less money. I like Corman but his time has passed by now, please, for heavens sake, move the genre forward or leave it to others.

I was truly happy to see Ms. Kidder acting again and doing a decent job. I was wondering if any self respecting agent should allow her to be part of any production with such low goals/values as this one but, she does pretty good, again, given what she was allowed to work with.

Look, I'm no expert and have dabbled in making shorts and so on. I like the scary stuff but this was not it. To slap the sub title on this as being from the "Master of Horror"? Really? Where is the horror? Buckets of blood are not scary, mental scares stick with you - "White Noise" stays in your skull, "High Tension" stays in your head, "Cigarette Burns" has staying power. This will hopefully fade away.

Again, it pains me to say all this but save your dimes kiddies and buy some pop-rocks, or better yet, an old MiniDV camera and make your own films.

Congrats to Bo and everyone involved for getting this far but really, is this on par with other films that have been commercially released? If it was made for the love of the genre, kudos. If it was made hoping to make a million dollars, sorry. If it was made as a stepping stone and learning experience, that's great. What's next?

On the positive side, you can see a definite ramping up of quality from the beginning to the end. I don't doubt that in time this team could do something great. Better stories, NO rubber face masks and better sound and I'll be right in line to see it. Keep at it. We're watching.

S.


Death 4 Told, an Indie of limited funding (just sounds better than low budget) was well written, directed and acted. The four subtlety linked stories, reminded me of Creep Show, with each tale covering a piece of the horror genre.

I felt the stories were properly sequenced, with the weakest link (which still offered a satisfying level of creep) at the beginning and the strongest as the closer. The resulting buildup easily held my attention through the plot changes. The cast, most of which are newcomers to the screen (as would be expected of an Indie) played their roles convincingly well, that, or casting did a great job.

Judging D4T for what it is, an Indie, not a major motion picture, I found few flaws, and those that were there were forgivable.


I don't know why this film has such low ratings. If you see this on the front page click through and read the reviews. Then you'll see what a good film this is.

As the title foretells this is four short stories. They are a mix of horror and psychological thriller. Nicely sequenced and told. There are not special effects. The budget is low. The direction and acting could be better but is still not bad. But the end result is good. Personally I think most people don't get this movie (and hence rate it lower than they should) is because the endings are not pat like most Hollywood shows. They leave a lot to the imagination and things are not wrapped up with respect to where the characters involved stand.


Stories/Plots : Each story written and directed by Bo Buckley and presented with a different level of spookiness. I have to admit the first installment THE DOLL'S HOUSE started off a bit slow but the other stories moved smoothly and made up for it. My favorite of the four would have to be WORLD'S MOST HAUNTED - any "reality" haunted show should end up like this one. So in one movie you get a haunted house, some werewolves, a haunted sanitarium and a tarot card reader. It spans a good variety of the horror genre.

F/X : I was impressed with the effects. They didn't come across too cheesy and and felt pretty high quality. Always a bonus in Indie films. Two thumbs up to the F/X crew. Only problem I ran into was soundtrack music overrunning the dialog at times.

Cast/Characters : Good scripting allowed for good follow through on the actors part. Everyone did their parts to tee - the ditsy girl does get killed and the annoying guy will get killed, that is what we like to see.

Jekyll's Final Thoughts :I was very happy to hear about this movie through a friend and glad I had the chance to watch and review it. I will recommend it to my fellow horror fans and look forward to seeing what else Mr. Buckley has in store for us. This one, appropriately, gets a 4 star rating from me (out of 5)


I wasn't sure what to expect when I saw this film. I knew that it was 4 parts, all thrillers and each somewhat related to the others. I was surprised at how entertaining the movie was. Each part had something in it to make you laugh, groan, roll your eyes and even jump out of your seat. I especially enjoyed The Psychic and it's attention to details (pay close attention to Madam Badeau's shop).

The music added to the suspense and terrified the person I was sitting with. The film did need some work with lighting and sound but overall was a fun flick and definitely a thumbs up for people who enjoy this genre.


When it comes to horror films, the only tried and true formula that has stood the test of time (besides red food coloring and corn syrup) is the anthology; that is, a combination of stories that form the body of a movie.

There had been several British variations of this over the years ("Tales from the Crypt", "Asylum", "Vault of Horror"), and Hollywood has tried its hand at it as well, with varying degrees of success. It's had its greatest success on TV ('The Twilight Zone', 'Outer Limits', HBO's 'Tales From The Crypt'), and therefore every filmic variation will indeed suffer by the comparison of style and substance to what had been set before.

It should come as no surprise, however, that there has indeed been more bad than good horror anthology films. Just look at your video store 'Horror' section. SO many, in fact, that it takes a special something to make even one stand out from the norm.

Sometimes it's a matter of attitude ("Tales From the 'Hood"), other times a matter of the talent before and behind the camera (the aforementioned British classics). And then other times still it depends on the energy, desire to entertain and a willingness to admit that there's nothing new under the sun and just crank it all up as loud and as fun as a horror movie can be.

To say that "Death 4 Told" does nothing new is not news. But for a movie that took less that $90,000 to film and produce and featured a majority of fledgling actors and so forth, it would be difficult to not appreciate the effort put forth. I'm sure this also isn't news to a majority of the people who are reading this.

Suffice it to say that as far as anthology movies go, "Death 4 Told" does deliver the goods from beginning to end.

Since this is an anthology, allow me to describe each segment as ambiguously as possible:

1) A DOLL'S HOUSE - A young writer (Brian Cade) and his wife (Britt Marder) move to a small town and rent a beautiful house for him to work in. Secrets abound, however, when footsteps and a child's laughter are heard within. This is only compounded when Pete (ME: George Litman!), a crazy local, asks a cryptic question: 'Have ya met Toby yet?'

2) FOLKLORE - A group of college friends set out for the woods when the driver Travis (Nar Williams) runs over a strange wolf-like animal. Soon, the group finds themselves beset by strange sounds deep in the woods, rustling bushes and glowing white eyes that lie in wait in the dark night.

3) WORLD'S MOST HAUNTED - A young intern (Stasia Andrews) on a reality TV show helps set up an abandoned asylum for a broadcast along with the director (Harley Kaplan), technician (Mark Van Fossen) and soundman (Michael Evanichko). But after she finds some unknown secrets on the building's history, its evil history comes to hideous light.

4) THE PSYCHIC - Hypocritical psychic Madame Baudeau (Margot Kidder) begins to find her predictions are finally coming true. Unfortunately, the future she forsees is all tragic. Will the next person she reads for live or die?

Again, nothing here is terribly original story-wise. That's not the point here. The point is that the directors (Bo Buckley, Michael Close) set the mood early on; messy and chaotic but with huge dollops of humor (much of it self-referential to those who are familiar with the genre); the actors, big and small, put everything they have into their parts.

It's all in the tone - fun, of course, but a suspension of belief is still necessary for any movie to work. That's true here; not to mention an appreciation for the general scenes you see in any b-movie: the scary legends, the dark shadows, the unexplained noises, the sinister locals, the sudden splashes of blood, the gratuitous displays of skin.

God bless independent horror films.

Ten stars out of ten. Watch for "Death 4 Told"!


After viewing this film many, many times since I first saw it I came to the conclusion that this film basically put on screen my feelings as to why I disliked and still continue to dislike the 90's/Post-Millenium American Pseudo-Culture. At first I did not understand it (the metaphors and such) but having viewed it countless times over the past few years I have developed an understanding of this truly remarkable film.

Critics over the years have panned this film as a 'glorification of meaningless violence', when in fact the film itself is basically the 90's equivalent to Kubrick's 'Dr. Strangelove', where it turns the paranoia of a nation into satire and then deconstruct it in the best way possible. Everybody who is reading this review right now has probably seen the film anyway so I won't reiterate the plot, but what I will do is try and help explain the concept of the film since it's quite obvious that there are a few people out there who don't understand this film.

The 90's - A decade after the Reagan years and a time for the next generation to settle down and basque in the trails of excess that the previous decade left behind. What are we left with in Western Civilization? Media sensationalism and the counter-culture of people who watch car crashes.

Oliver Stone very much plays on the idea of 'serial-killer-turns-media-story-turns-pop-icon' which has been quite evident in the cases of people such as Charles Manson and Richard Ramirez. What Oliver Stone manages to do is portray the negative in the 90's, particularly American pseudo-culture in the 90's. You have Rodney King, O.J Simpson, Tonya Harding, Waco, The Menendez Brothers... and all these things are linked by a single medium, 90's television. The sensationalism of the media saturates most of Western Civilization today, and we live in a world where it's more important to see celebrities on the front of magazines or right-wing televangelists telling us that we need to give them money than it is to focus on the real issues that exist in this world. 'Natural Born Killers' relates to this. What 'Natural Born Killers' plays on is the question - 'why did we, the people, turn on to CNN and watch a white bronco cruising through the streets of Los Angeles one day in 1994?'. In turn, 'Natural Born Killers' plays on the culture-question - 'why do people stop to see car crashes?'. It also asks the question - 'Is that guy on television crazy because he's killed 90+ people or am I crazy for watching a white bronco cruise through the streets of Los Angeles?'. So there are 3 questions that 'Natural Born Killers' raises without a lot of people really understanding them. What the film does - instead of answering these questions - is let the viewer decide for himself or herself whether the serial killer on television is crazy for killing people or we are crazy for actually watching a serial killer talk on television.

So why do the critics despise this film? The critics despise this film because what they see on the film is themselves in Wayne Gale. Robert Downey Jnr accurately portrays the absolute false hysteria and false machismo of tabloid figures such as Geraldo Riviera and Oprah Windfrey et al, in his characterisation of Wayne Gale. He plays the archetypal media figurehead that lives in newsrooms, talking into mobile phones, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, watching television and living deceitful private lives. Another reason why the critics hate this film is because of the subversive message that it portrays in the script. The writers grew up in the 50's and 60's when the paranoia of Cold War was still in their faces everywhere they went. After the Cold War was over these same people started asking themselves, "well, who is the enemy now?". Some of them started realising that the enemy wasn't 10,000 miles away hiding in a mountain, the problem was not attached to a very large metal object that goes 'boom!', but rather the fact that the real enemy is in the corporations and media, the real power of a nation doesn't rely in the leader but the television. 'Natural Born Killers' subversively explains this, that THEY are the problem, and many members of the mainstream media didn't like because they were what the film was about.

Why do the general public despise this film? Because the same people who hate this film are the same people who the film-makers were laughing at when they made it. When the character of Mickey is on the television giving his interview, and the film cuts to a simple black and white image from a stock house of a typical American family sitting around the television, the same people who hate this film are the typical American family sitting around watching the interview, glued to the television like mindless zombies.

Overall - this film is brilliant and it tells it exactly how it is.


...people really need to take another look at "Natural Born Killers."

The plot: Mickey and Mallory Knox (Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis in roles that are a little too convincing) are a husband/wife pair of serial killers whose vicious crime spree across the country has made them into media superstars.

This movie is a barrage of frightening and surreal images, and is damn near hypnotic to watch.

I can see where the controversy surrounding this film comes from but what I don't understand is where the hate is coming from.

1994's "Natural Born Killers" has to be one of the best movies of the 90s - its sole purpose on this planet is to showcase America's fascination with violence.

But lets try to understand the hate. This movie is here for one reason and I think that we can all agree on that reason. Oliver Stone is a competent and accomplished filmmaker and most of the hate seems to be directed towards him. Stone, who is working from a script that has since been virtually disowned by Quentin Tarantino, pretty much took over and shaped the screenplay to his own vision.

I can understand why fans of Tarantino have a right to be p*ssed off, but I find it extremely difficult to believe that they truly hate the finished product, and the same goes for Tarantino. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge Tarantino fan myself, and I'm sure he didn't appreciate Stone re-writing his script, but he should be proud of what was done with it.

The message, if you can call it that, is that we are obsessed with violence, and Stone exposes our love for it and spits it back in our faces. To quote Marlon Brando - "The horror, the horror." I say to hell with the hypocritical people who find this movie offensive for they are the ones that this movie is truly aimed towards.

Yes, horrific images are displayed in this movie and terrible things happen to people all throughout, but it's giving us we want, and we hate it. The hate surrounding this film is extremely misguided. My high school paper recently did an article about sex and violence on television and one of the supposed outlets of that violence would be our fascination with the war in Iraq and the Jessica Lynch story.

It said that we are much, much more concerned with the sex (I personally don't think today's teenage girls are THAT impressionable, but who knows?), rather than the violence (which apparently seems to be causing a misguided sh!tstorm of controversy, too, and like the sex, I don't think that people are that impressionable), namely the kind that is seen in music videos and such. Though the article refused to go into specifics (but we know who the people being discussed are and I'm sure they do, too), it brings me back to "Natural Born Killers," which I think people need to take another look at.

In this day and age, violence on television is becoming more and more commonplace, and this movie's relevance seems to make its viewing that much more important. Before we go and continue to bash the hell out of it again, people need to come back and take a look around themselves and watch "Natural Born Killers."


"Natural Born Killers" in itself is a picture of the ironic tragedy of the satire. This movie took the media and American culture head on, challenged it and spoofed it- as a result, American pop culture kicked it up a notch to become as outrageous as the parody! On top of that, few understood Stone's film was a satire and instead accused him of promoting violence. This is a tragedy because "Natural Born Killers" really is a sharp and funny satire that helped to usher in the 90s with Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction".

Yes, it's over the top, yes, it's violent, yes, it's flashy, and most of all, yes, it works! The effect may make you a bit dizzy, it may disturb, and may even offend, but this is a truly great piece of cinema. Like its great predecessors, which it freely homages, "In Cold Blood", "Badlands", and "Bonnie & Clyde", this film is about two killers on the road who are in love. Unlikely movie stars Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis play Mickey and Malory. Through a few frantic and imaginative scenes we see them meet, fall in love, murder Malory's abusive father, and hit the road. These scenes are instantly unforgettable, bearing a wit that may be overt, but is funny enough to accept. Meanwhile our heroes become a media sensation thanks to the TV show "American Maniacs", hosted by Wayne Gale (Robert Downey Jr. with a British accent).

It isn't all glitz and blood splatter. Auteur Stone works with (what remains of) Tarantino's script to make all these characters into real people, and not symbols or cliches. Character motivation is related mostly through flashed images and flashbacks (as in "In Cold Blood"). The editing and superb Richardson camera work relate complex emotional states, as well as the frenzied mood of the violence. Oliver Stone does have the tendency to be peachy and over the top, but his strength in portraying sympathetic humanity over comes his weaknesses.

Under-appreciated actor Tom Sizemore ("True Romance", "Heat") plays detective Jack Scagnetti, the celebrity homicide cop who pursues and eventually captures Mickey and Malory (in what has to be one of the best, most intense arrest scenes in screen history). In the context of this film, he is a villain, but he is a human being just the same. He leads us into the second half of this picture, which has Mickey and Malory behind bars awaiting a big TV interview with Wayne Gale on Superbowl Sunday. Tensions build to one of the best climaxes a crime or prison movie ever had.

Rodney Dangerfield, Russell Means, and Tommy Lee Jones put in highly memorable appearances in supporting roles. On the director's cut DVD we see cut footage of performances from Ashley Judd (her best work) and Dennis Leary. "Natural Born Killers" is many great small parts adding up to an even better whole. All of it is accented and sealed by a very good soundtrack arranged by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails (who contribute the beautiful "A Warm Place"). This is a movie you won't soon forget and will likely enjoy.

I recommend this to fans of Stone, of the movies I mentioned above, of Tarantino (he didn't approve, but as a fan of his, I did), and to anyone who is simply curious about it. It'll blow you away, in the good sense.

"Do you believe in fate?"


Natural Born Killers

Released just long enough ago to be forgotten by today's standard of speed amnesia, this film by Oliver Stone is worth seeing again. The violence in it was sickening just a few years ago, but such things have quickly gotten normalized in our culture's ongoing desensitization. Ironically, this very process of media desensitization is precisely the topic of this film's satire. NBK has since even been the subject of copycat crime sprees, or so the culprits claimed. This is troubling, because while the film works hard to analyze the dubious process by which violent killers are turned into romantic heroes in the mass media, NBK seems unable to escape from the same orbit, ending with the killers as living happily ever after, justified by the brutality of their backgrounds, and morally superior to the prison officials and popular journalists who pursue them. But as a postmodernist satire of media saturation-violence, from wrestling to sit-coms to real crime dramatizations to obsessive live news interviews, Stone's film is a thought provoking exercise that is stylistically mesmerizing.

As a postscript, several people accused Stone of inciting copycat crimes and called for him to be sued for damages-- which happened. The lawsuit was dismissed. At the least he was negligent, they argued. Interesting to me that the glorification of violence found everywhere in the thriller genre is taken to be safely neutral, while a powerful satire of glorification is condemned as, well, too violent. The last time I checked, this was always defined as "hypocrisy". The major contradiction in media culture now is that on the one hand, Natural Born Killers is reviled for inciting violence, while on the other hand, it is reviled for being _too obviously_ critical of media violence in a simplistic and unsubtle manner. But can we have it both ways? No.

A 2nd postscript on another form of hypocrisy: Quentin Tarantino, the reigning postmodernist "King of Cool" who plays with pastiche of pop culture genres, wrote the script for Stone's Natural Born Killers, but then criticized the way the film was directed. Ironically, Tarantino then copied several formal film techniques and innovations straight out of NBK for his later "Kill Bill" films. -- with the key exception that Tarantino continues the tradition of glamorizing violence. The Tarantino crowd sees itself as properly aesthetic and cool, far above the ham-fisted Stone! Creepy isn't it?