1989 • Italy • Directed by Ermanno Olmi
Winner of the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival, The Legend of the Holy Drinker is another classic from the great Italian director Ermanno Olmi (Il Posto, The Tree of Wooden Clogs).
Adapted from the novella by Joseph Roth, the film tells the story of Andreas Kartak, a homeless man living under the bridges of Paris. Lent 200 francs by an anonymous stranger, he is determined to pay back his debt but circumstances, and his alcoholism, forever intervene.
Rutger Hauer is joined by a supporting cast including; Anthony Quayle (Lawrence of Arabia), Sandrine Dumas (The Double Life of Veronique) and Dominique Pinon (Delicatessen).
Up Next in Classics
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Black Venus
2010 • France • Directed by Abdellatif Kechiche
Saartjie Baartman was taken from her South African home as a 21-year-old and shipped to Georgian London, where she would be caged and exhibited as a freak show. Presented semi-nude, her physique - especially her large buttocks - was the source of m...
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The Silence
1998 • Iran • Directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf
A film imbued with the ideas of Sufism, The Silence tells of Khorshid, a young blind boy from Tajikistan who earns rent money for his family by tuning rare instruments but becomes enraptured by the sonorous music he hears on his way to work each day.
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Bloody Spear at Mount Fuji
2018 • Japan • Directed by Tomu Uchida
Praised by Japanese film critics and much admired by his contemporaries, Tomu Uchida nonetheless remains a little-known in the west. His 1955 masterpiece Bloody Spear at Mount Fuji is an excellent entry point for the newcomer. Set during the Edo period, Blo...