Artour Aristakisian - Ladoni AKA Palms (1993)

Description:
"Russian film made by Artur Aristakisyan and recently released on region-free PAL DVD by Second Run, is divided into two parts, each preceded by silent film footage scored to the music of Giuseppe Verdi. It comprises a total of ten semi-episodic chapters, divisions that seem almost Biblical in nature and that possess an allegorical slant bordering on piousness."

A man without the bottom half of his legs who pushes himself with a rolling cart down the sidewalk. A woman who lies flat on the concrete in order to make love to Christ. A young male who stares emptily from basement steps beneath a sidewalk. A heavyset man who’s blind and who has been told by his sightless parents that everyone else is blind as well, that no one can see what he cannot.

These are the men and women the narrator (Aristakisyan) tells us about. He directs these stories to his unborn baby, as cautionary reminders of life and advice to maneuver through the monolithic “system” responsible for the societal decay he describes. The narrator makes reference to many disturbing ideas, including the likelihood that the current one-month-old fetus will soon be aborted, scraped from its mother’s womb, and that the mother and father aren’t married, even possibly that they’re siblings. He also makes a point of telling his doomed child to never listen to anyone, including the narrating father. Later, he begs the unborn child to maintain poverty and virginity at all costs, to avoid being controlled or fornicated by the “system.” It’s a pitch-black message of pessimism and paranoia. Only the poor and unloved can possibly keep their autonomy. To remain unspoiled and unbroken by society, people must rule themselves without money, material needs, or sexuality.

These ideas are very much consistent with the monologue espoused by the narrator, a manifesto of dissent and free will. Starkly anti-authority, anti-society even, the narrator’s words are spoken in a calm, deadly serious manner filled with conviction. His words repeatedly attack the powerful “system” and seem distrustful of anything resembling success or conformity. To really live, to truly understand the nature of being human, the narrator suggests, one must forgo everything society deems important and exist among the poor and ostracised. This is powerful, provocative filmmaking that transcends its medium. Far from allaying any fears or wants of its audience, Palms challenges and plays by its own rules."

by clydefro jones

entire review here:
http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=66033









http://rapidshare.com/files/127132132/Ladoni.1993.part01.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/127132444/Ladoni.1993.part02.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/127132875/Ladoni.1993.part03.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/127133043/Ladoni.1993.part04.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/127133353/Ladoni.1993.part05.rar
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http://rapidshare.com/files/127134634/Ladoni.1993.part08.rar
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http://rapidshare.com/files/127135701/Ladoni.1993.part10.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/127135803/Ladoni.1993.part11.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/127135823/Ladoni.1993.part12.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/127136058/Ladoni.1993.part13.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/127136169/Ladoni.1993.part14.rar
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http://rapidshare.com/files/127135394/Ladoni.1993.part17.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/127135508/Ladoni.1993.sfv

Runtime: 140 + 20 (interview with director)
Language: Russian (English softsubs included in file)
no pass

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JUXEW29F
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Runtime: 140 + 20 (interview with director)
Language: Russian
no pass

Artour Aristakisian - Mesto na zemle AKA A place on Earth (2001)

Quote:
This is a very powerful film. Admittedly parts of it are hard to watch, but it is an outstanding piece. In a nutshell, it is about a hippie commune that has been set up by someone who believes that the best way to help the homeless and often deranged cripples in Moscow is by offering them sexual love. I did not realise (because of the black and white, and the fact I watched this film before looking up to see when it was made) that this film was shot recently in Moscow, using real homeless people in their real situations. I assumed, because of the black and white, and the whole hippie commune idea, that this was the 70s. Shockingly, this includes his real-life footage of the current situation of the marginalised in Moscow, and that upset me to the core. Obviously some of the characters are actors (or, rather, are acting), but many are simply being shot in their everyday surroundings. Let's hope that some good comes out of films such as these, in the same way that Cathy Come Home helped change the situation for many in the UK all those years ago.... Is Aristakisyan Russia's new and very own Ken Loach? We shall have to wait and see.







http://rapidshare.com/files/242253106/Mesto.na.zemle.Artur.Aristakisyan.2001-SMz.avi.001
http://rapidshare.com/files/242252994/Mesto.na.zemle.Artur.Aristakisyan.2001-SMz.avi.002
http://rapidshare.com/files/242253075/Mesto.na.zemle.Artur.Aristakisyan.2001-SMz.avi.003
http://rapidshare.com/files/242252593/Mesto.na.zemle.Artur.Aristakisyan.2001-SMz.avi.004
http://rapidshare.com/files/242252581/Mesto.na.zemle.Artur.Aristakisyan.2001-SMz.avi.005
http://rapidshare.com/files/242252985/Mesto.na.zemle.Artur.Aristakisyan.2001-SMz.avi.006
http://rapidshare.com/files/242253030/Mesto.na.zemle.Artur.Aristakisyan.2001-SMz.avi.007

Language: Russian (English hardcoded subs)
no pass

http://rapidshare.com/files/130617775/Mesto.na.Zemle.2001.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/130618140/Mesto.na.Zemle.2001.part2.rar
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http://rapidshare.com/files/130619131/Mesto.na.Zemle.2001.part7.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/130618484/Mesto.na.Zemle.2001.sfv

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4SPDJTVQ
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FTPNS2BR
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http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QO9CQN92
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AE5J7J5O

links are interchangeable
no pass