Ithaka

Tomorrow's Freedom


            
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For All Mankind

The Pervert's Guide to Cinema

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Rams

Nightingale in a Music Box

We Are As Gods

Brian Eno: 1971-1977 - The Man Who Fell to Earth

Ride, Rise, Roar


            When Mara Cecova, the arrogant and ill-tempered star of an avant-garde production of the Verdi opera of Macbeth, is injured after getting hit by a car outside the theater after arguing and insulting the director and theater people, Cecova's young understudy, Betty, is informed of the incident and is given the coveted role of Lady Macbeth. In spite of her initial sense of foreboding, Betty is an instant success with her performance.However, an anonymous opera buff finds his way into the opera house on the opening night, watching Betty's performance from an empty box. When a meddlesome stagehand finds him watching and orders him to leave, the unseen fan murders the stagehand by impaling him to a coat-hook. After the show, Betty's boyfriend, Stefan, shows up in her dressing room to congratulate her and invites her back to his apartment for some intimate time. Afterwards, while Stefan gets up out of bed to make some tea for Betty and himself, the unseen killer breaks into the apartment where he attacks and overpowers Betty, ties her to a pillar, and forces her to watch him kill Stefan when he returns to the bedroom by stabbing him to death. The killer tapes a row of needles beneath each of her eyes so she won't shut them while he makes her watch. Afterwards, the hooded, masked killer unties Betty and then flees.Disturbed by a half-hidden childhood recollection of the same hooded killer murdering her own mother several years earlier, Betty chooses not to go to the police and instead confides in Marco, the director of Macbeth, about the incident and that the killer may know her. The next day, Inspector Alan Santini arrives at the opera house where he questions the staff about Stefan's murder as well as probes an apparent connected attack on the troubled production's pet ravens when three of them were found dead after the show. Betty arrives at the opera house for rehearsals, but choosing to avoid Inspector Santini, hides out in her dressing room where she calls her agent, the motherly Mira, for advice on what to do about this.Later that day, Betty meets with the wardrobe seamstress Giulia when her costume is found slashed to pieces. While Giulia fixes the dress, she finds a gold bracelet sewn onto it. While Betty and Giulia try to find what the faded words on the bracelet say, the killer arrives and again ties up Betty, taping needles under her eyes while he attacks Giulia to retrieve the bracelet. But Giulia puts up a fight, knocking the killer down to the floor with an iron. But Giulia makes the mistake of removing the killer's mask, which results in the unseen killer stabbing her to death. When Giulia, with her dying breath, inadvertently swallows the bracelet, the killer has to cut into her throat with scissors to retrieve it. He puts his mask back on and again unties Betty before fleeing.When Betty flees to her apartment, she is met in the lobby by Inspector Santini and tells him about the latest murder and that the killer may be after her. Santini promises to send Betty a detective to keep guard over her. A little later, while Betty struggles with her vision after applying eye drops, a man identifying himself as Inspector Soavie arrives to look after her. Some time later, Mira arrives and tells Betty that she talked with a man in the lobby claiming to be Inspector Soavie. Unsure of which one is the imposter, Betty and Mira hide while the figure claiming to be Soavie receives a phone call and leaves the apartment. While Betty tries to call the police, Mira hears a knock on the front door.Mira demands the visitor identify himself, and is not convinced when he shows police ID and a gun. As she looks the peep hole, she gets shot through the peep hole by the killer trying to gain access into the apartment. Betty is forced to hide as the killer breaks in, and she comes across the real Inspector Soavie who stumbles into the apartment after being fatally stabbed. After a game of cat-and-mouse in the apartment with the half-blind Betty trading gunshots at the hooded killer with Soavie's gun, she escapes through a ventilation shaft when a little neighbor girl helps her escape into her apartment down the hallway. The little girl's abusive single mother arrives home where she yells at the little girl for having company over and tells Betty to leave.Betty returns to the opera house and meets with Marco. He tells her that he has a plan to entrap the killer, while Betty begins to think about a further connection to the killer and her long-dead mother whom was also abusive towards her. The following night, Betty once again takes the stage as Lady Macbeth, but her performance is interrupted when Marco unleashes a flock of vengeful ravens into the audience. Recognizing the face of their attacker from the previous night, the birds swoop down on him sitting in the audience, gouging out one of his eyes. The murderer, whom is revealed to be Inspector Santini, attempts to shoot at Betty on stage, but she evades the bullets, while Santini evades capture, and subsequently pounces on Betty as she is recovering in her dressing room. Dragging her to a far-flung corner of the building, he reveals to her the motive behind his persecution of her: Santini was once her mother's young teenage lover, cruelly murdering young women at Betty's mother's behest, by tying them up and staging the killings in front of her. But when Betty's psycho mother became increasingly greedy for sado-sexual thrills of the murders, Santini murdered her too, while Betty witnessed the event from behind a partly open door. Now, many years later, Santini's desire to kill has been rekindled by Betty's appearance, which he sees as her mother's reincarnation. Blindfolding Betty and tying her to a chair, Santini stages his own death by setting fire to the room and apparently himself. Betty manages to break free and escapes from the blaze to be comforted by Marco.Betty and Marco leave Rome, traveling to the Swiss Alps to a house that Marco owns so she can recuperate. However, when he hears a radio broadcast that the man though to have been burned alive was Santini was in fact a clothed mannequin, Marco yells for Betty to run away. Santini shows up at the house to finish what he started and urders the housekeeper. Betty flees into the nearby woods with Santini in pursuit. Marco takes on the murderous policeman only to get stabbed to death. Betty then distracts Santini by coming onto him long enough to bash him on the head with a rock, and he is then set upon and dragged away by the police. With her nightmare experience finally over, Betty wanders though an empty meadow to find solace in nature. There, Betty finds an ugly lizard trapped in the grass and releases it, telling it to "go free".
    

Opera

Alternative 3

Clean

Roxy Music: Inside 1972-1974


            The film's title, "The Pillow Book", refers to an ancient Japanese diary, the book of observations by Sei Shnagon, actual name believed to be Kiyohara Nagiko, from whence the protagonist's name in the film.The film is narrated by Nagiko (Vivian Wu), a Japanese born model living in Hong Kong. Nagiko seeks a lover who can match her desire for carnal pleasure with her admiration for poetry and calligraphy. The roots of this obsession lie in her youth in Kyoto, when her father (Ken Ogata) would write characters of good fortune on her face. Nagiko's father celebrates her birthday retelling the Japanese creation myth and writing on her flesh in beautiful calligraphy, while her aunt (Hideko Yoshida) reads a list of "beautiful things" from Sei Shnagon's the book of observations. Nagiko's aunt tells her that when she is twenty-eight years old, the official book of observations will be officially 1000 years old, and that she, Nagiko, will be the same age as Sei Shnagon when she had written the book (in addition to sharing her first name). Nagiko also learns around this time that her father is in thrall to his publisher, "Yaji-san" (Yoshi Oida), who demands sexual favours from her father in exchange for publishing his work.Early chaptersThe publisher arranges Nagiko's wedding to his young apprentice. Her husband (Ken Mitsuishi), an expert archer, resents Nagiko's love for books and her desire to read, in spite of his apprenticeship. He also refuses to indulge in her desires for pleasure, refusing to write on her body. When he discovers and reads Nagiko's pillow book, he is extremely resentful, setting it on fire and thus setting fire to their marital home, an event which Nagiko describes to be the 'first major fire of her life.' Insulted and enraged, Nagiko leaves him for good.Hiding from her husband, Nagiko moves to Hong Kong. In spite of her aversion to the practice, she learns how to type to find work. Outside her apartment, a group of activists regularly protest the publishing industry for the depletion of forests due to the need to make paper.After working as a secretary in the office of a Japanese fashion designer for a while, Nagiko's employer takes a liking to her and makes her one of his models. As a successful fashion model, Nagiko hires a maid (Hideko Yoshida again), as she now finally has the opportunity to explore her sexual desires of being written on. However, after several affairs, she feels dissatisfied with them all: either they have great penmanship and are lousy lovers, or vice-versa.One day, at the Cafe Typo, Nagiko's favourite haunt, she meets Jerome (Ewan McGregor), a British translator. Intrigued by his knowledge, they go to a private space where she has Jerome write on her body in various languages. In spite of her interest, Nagiko dislikes Jerome's handwriting and orders him out. Jerome totally shocks Nagiko, however, when he asks her to teach him, offering her to write on his body. Opening his shirt, he offers Nagiko to "Use my body like the pages of a book. Of your book!". Nagiko has never considered this aspect in her desires before: her lovers always write on her body. When she backs out and runs, Jerome laughs at her.Frightened but very intrigued by Jerome's suggestion, Nagiko has several one-night stands in which she experiments writing on their bodies. One of the activists, admirer Hoki (Yutaka Honda), a Japanese photographer who adores her, begs Nagiko to take him as a lover. She explains she can't, as his skin's no good for writing: whenever she writes on him, the ink smears and runs. Hoki, not wanting Nagiko to keep carrying on like she is, suggests she try writing a book, offering to take it to a renowned publisher he freelances for. Nagiko likes this idea and writes her first book.Nagiko's book is returned, being told the book is "not worth the paper it's written on!". Insulted, Nagiko follows the address on the envelope to confront the publisher. Nagiko is shocked to discover that the publisher who rejected her work is in fact Yaji-san, her father's old publisher. What's more, the publisher has a young lover: Jerome.Devising a plan, Nagiko decides that she will get to the publisher through Jerome. Meeting up with Jerome again, Nagiko discovers he has learned a few more languages, and his penmanship has greatly improved. Nagiko and Jerome spend several weeks exploring this, writing on each other and making love. Nagiko soon realises that, in Jerome, she has found the perfect lover she has been searching for: the partner with whom she can share her physical and her poetic passion, using each other's bodies as tablets for their art.Writing of books 1 - 6Nagiko tells Jerome the truth and the whole story with the publisher. Jerome comes up with an idea: Nagiko will write her book on Jerome's body and Jerome will take it to the publisher. Nagiko loves the idea, and writes Book 1: The Book of The Agenda, in intricate characters of black, red, and gold, on Jerome, keeping her identity anonymous. The plan is a success: Jerome sees the publisher and exhibits the book on his nude body, and the impressed publisher has his scriveners copy down the text.After telling Nagiko of the plan's success, Jerome tells Nagiko that he'll return to her as soon as the publisher, who was extremely aroused by the experience, lets him go. However, during his time with the publisher, Jerome appears to lose track of time and doesn't return to Nagiko. Nagiko, jealous, impatient, and angry, searches for Jerome, eventually finding him making love with the publisher. Nagiko takes this as rejection and betrayal of the worst kind, and immediately plots revenge.On two Swedish tourists (Wichert Dromkert and Martin Tukker), Nagiko writes Book 2: The Book of The Innocent and Book 3: The Book of the Idiot. Shortly afterwards, an old man (Wu Wei) is running naked through the streets from the publisher's shop, bearing Book 4: The Book of Impotence/Old Age. Book 5: The Book of the Exhibitionist is delivered by a boorish, fat, hyperactive American (Tom Kane).Nagiko's revenge is a success. Jerome is furiously jealous, and comes to Nagiko's home to confront her. Nagiko refuses to meet him, however, and won't let Jerome in. Jerome's outrage soon turns to desperation as he begs her to talk to him, but she won't.Jerome sinks into deep depression and meets with Hoki at the Cafe Typo, desperate to find a way to get Nagiko to forgive him. Hoki suggests that he "scare" Nagiko by faking suicide, similar to the fake death scene in Romeo and Juliet and gives Jerome some pills.Arriving at Nagiko's home while she is away, Jerome takes some of the pills, then writes a page, as if writing a book. Each time he takes some pills, he writes another page, keeping track of how many pills he takes on each page. As the pills take effect, Jerome can write no more and lies on the bed, naked, holding a copy of Sei Shnagon's the book of observations.The plan is a success: when Nagiko returns home and finds Jerome, she rushes to him, eager to renew their relationship and continue their plans. However, the plan has worked too well: Jerome has overdosed on the pills and is dead. Nagiko is devastated, and realises how much she loved him. On his dead body, Nagiko writes Book 6: The Book of the Lovers.At Jerome's funeral, his mother (Barbara Lott), a snobbish, upper-class woman, tells Nagiko that Jerome always loved things that were "fashionable". When she suggests that was probably why Jerome loved Nagiko, Nagiko strikes her.After the funeral, the publisher secretly exhumes Jerome's body from the tomb and has Jerome's skin, still bearing the writing, flayed and made into a grotesque pillow book of his own. Nagiko, now back in Japan, learns of the publisher's actions and becomes distraught and outraged. She sends a letter to the publisher, still keeping her identity a secret, demanding that particular book from the publisher's hands in exchange for the remaining books. The publisher, now obsessed with his mysterious writer and her work, agrees.Writing of books 7 - 13Nagiko, now pregnant with Jerome's child, writes Book 7: The Book of The Seducer on a male messenger. The writing on him is almost destroyed and undecipherable when the publisher accidentally leaves the messenger out in the rain. Book 8: The Book of Youth is delivered as a series of photographs. A young Buddhist monk (Kinya Tsuruyama) then arrives bearing Book 9: The Book of Secrets written on all his "secret" spots: in between his fingers and toes, the insides of his thighs, etc.; the book is presented in the form of riddles. When the next messenger (Rick Waney) arrives, he is completely bare: no writing at all. The publisher and staff search for any hint of writing on the messenger's naked body. As the publisher dismisses him as a hoax, the man sticks out his tongue, bearing Book 10: The Book of Silence.The activists' protests come to an end when their truck hits a young wrestler (Eiichi Tanaka) bearing Book 11: The Book of The Betrayed, right outside the publisher's office. The next messenger (Masaru Matsuda) simply drives by the office, giving little time to copy down Book 12: The Book of False Starts.Finally, Book 13: The Book of the Dead arrives on the body of a Sumo wrestler (Wataru Murofushi). In the book writing on the body of the messenger, which the publisher carefully reads, Nagiko finally reveals her identity, confronting the publisher with his crimes: blackmailing and disgracing her father, "corrupting" her husband, as well as Jerome, and what he's done to Jerome's corpse. The publisher, greatly shamed and humbled by being confronted with his guilt, hands the pillow book made of Jerome's skin to the messenger, then has the messenger slit his throat.Upon recovering the book made out of Jerome's skin, Nagiko buries it under a Bonsai tree and life goes on. She has given birth to Jerome's child (Hikari Abe), and is shown in the epilogue writing on her child's face, like her father used to do when she was young, and quoting from her own pillow book. It is now Nagiko's 28th birthday.
    

Brian Eno

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