Fine Line Cinema - V22 Summer Club

Fine Line Cinema club are proposing to screen five of the most controversial films of the 20th century. Probably somewhere you don't want to take someone for a first date. Details for each of the films are below. The only one out of the five I've seen is Happiness and yeah that film doesn't mess around when it comes to breaking taboo's...

A legendary propaganda documentary about the 1934 Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg. Despite its infamous stars, Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goring, the film is still a blueprint for documentary makers of how to shoot and edit a successful propaganda flick. It took 6 months to edit and the 2-hour run represents only 3% of the material Riefenstahl shot. It’s a must for any

aspiring documentary makers.

Consistently voted one of the ‘most dangerous movies ever’, it destroyed Michael Powell’s career. It’s a film about the power of film. A young man murders women, using a camera to film the expressions of horror in their dying moments. Controversially, Powell casts a German actor, Karlheinz Bohm, as the killer.

A ground-breaking film starring Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds. Beautifully photographed and

shot entirely on location. Ostensibly the film is about a group of city- dwellers canoeing down a treacherous river. However, it’s much more than that. It sparked off the environmental debate about the inability of the inarticulate angry ‘locals’ to protect the countryside from the city ‘invaders’. Watch out for the famous Duelling Banjos, and the infamous male-rape scene.

This was Pasolini’s last movie; he was murdered shortly before the film was released. Set in the imaginary fascist state of Salo on the Lake Garda, the film was designed as an allegory of the abuse of unlimited power, but explores themes of sexual violence, sadism, mental and physical torture. Loosely based on the book ‘The 120 Days of Sodom’ by Marquis de Sade, the film caused immense controversy and at various times has been banned in a number of countries. It was only approved for general release in the UK in 2000.

Comedy drama by provocative director Solondz. With its richly layered subtext, the film caused outrage by what was seen as sympathetic portrayal of paedophilia. It also explores the themes of rape, suicide and overwhelming loneliness. One of the most notable characters is that of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s repulsive misfit Allen, who’s involved in bizarre phone sex with a neighbour and is the object of desire by an overweight female serial killer.

For more information go HERE.