Adelheid

A film by František Vláčil

In the aftermath of World War II in the Sudetenland in Northern Moravia, a young Czech airman recently returned from service in the Royal Air Force, is given the management of a former German estate. There he meets the beautiful Adelheid, the former owner's daughter who once lived in the estate but is now reduced to servitude. The Czech airman falls in love with Adelheid, but lingering resentment and bitter political strife stand in the way of their happiness.

Though Czech-born and possessing the rank of lieutenant, Viktor Chotovický has spent much of the war in Aberdeen, Scotland, working in an RAF desk job. After a series of misunderstandings concerning his arrival that underline the dominant atmosphere of uncertainty and paranoia, Viktor makes himself known to Inspector Hejna, and is charged with the task of looking after the Heidenmann's large country house and drawing up an inventory of its contents. It's a job that suits him perfectly, as he doesn't have to talk to many people.

Adelheid Heidenmann is initially assumed to be an innocent victim of widespread anti-German prejudice, but it transpires that she's the daughter of a notorious local Nazi war criminal currently on trial, whose inevitable execution is imminent. Each day she leaves the camp to clean the now unoccupied mansion house that was once her home.

In a near wordless exchange, Viktor finds himself enamoured by Adelheid, even though she is really his servant and has little choice under the circumstances. He allows her to stay in the house and tries to build her trust and affection, but with no common language he has to piece together Adelheid's life from visual clues, old photographs and letters. Soon Viktor discovers that it is impossible to exist in such a vacuum, especially at a time of national turbulence. Whatever his private feelings for Adelheid, it's politically and socially impossible to express them in public, even in a supposedly liberated country. Eventually he will discover that she's much more morally ambiguous than he first imagined, and has to confront his own conscience when he finds that she is sheltering her German-soldier brother.

A tragic, compelling and beautifully filmed love story that transcends the absence of verbal communication. It was, in 1969, the first film to controversially address the Czech treatment of Germans during the expulsions of the mid-1940s.

Flight of the Red Balloon

Le voyage du ballon rouge
a film by Hou Hsiao-hsien

A young boy, Simon, must deal with the increasing fragility of his mother, the loving yet preoccupied puppeteer Suzanne. Overwhelmed by the demands of her chaotic existence, Suzanne hires Song Fang, a Taiwanese film student, to help care for Simon. With Song, a unique extended family is formed, utterly interdependent yet lost in their separate thoughts and dreams. All this is mirrored by a delicate, shiny red balloon that hovers above the streets of Paris.

Suzanne, a single mother, is doing her best to raise her seven-year-old son Simon, whilst preparing her latest marionette production, based on the Yuan Dynasty story of Zhang Yu and his beloved, Qiong Lian. Song, a Taiwanese film student who has come to study in Paris and is making her own digital version of Le ballon rouge, is hired by Suzanne as a daytime nanny to take care of Simon. Song goes everywhere with her camera, filming everything she sees. Meanwhile, Simon is being followed by a red balloon that has grown attached to the boy.

The balloon, which seems to have its own personality, hovers over Simon and his family as Suzanne struggles with her daily life. Her entire working day is spent in rehearsal at the marionette theatre. She argues with her absent husband who has relocated to Montréal to write a novel and shows no sign of returning. She has to confront their tenant, Marc, who owes one year's rent and Suzanne must now set about obtaining an eviction order. She needs the flat for her daughter, Louise, who has been studying in Brussels but will soon be returning to Paris. The piano has now to be moved upstairs from Marc's flat in order to make things easier for Simon's piano teacher. As Suzanne's world becomes increasingly hectic and chaotic, Song Fang becomes ever more important in her life. In the end, it is Song's calming presence and Asian perspective that helps Suzanne regain control of her life.

In 1956, Albert Lamorisse made Le ballon rouge, a short in which a young boy, played by his son, Pascal, makes friends with a red balloon. Fifty years later, Taiwanese auteur Hou Hsiao-hsien's first French-language film is a beautifully shot meditation on the transience of life and the continuing impact of the past on the present. The film was commissioned by Musée d'Orsay and is inspired by Lamorisse's children's classic.

Revanche

A film by Götz Spielmann

A nature scene, late summer. A small lake in the woods, no people, silence. Not far away, a newly built house inhabited by a couple, Robert and Susanne. They live an ordinary life like so many other people. Meanwhile in Vienna, nightlife, a red light district, the world of prostitution. Here money rules and most people have jobs that barely allow them to scrape by. Like Alex and Tamara. She is a prostitute from Ukraine; he, the boss's errand boy. They are lovers, but they have to keep it a secret, since employees aren't allowed to get romantically involved.

They want to escape this life, but they need money. Alex devises a plan to rob a bank in a little village out in the countryside. Tamara wants to come along, and he reluctantly agrees. Everything is going exactly as planned until a policeman happens to walk up, Robert. He fires a few shots at the getaway car as it speeds off and accidentally hits the young woman. Overcome with despair, Alex leaves the body behind in a forest clearing. He lies low at his grandfather's desolate farm at the edge of the woods. Silent and withdrawn, Alex begins the task of chopping firewood for the approaching winter. He is consumed with pain, grief, and the hate he harbours for the man responsible for Tamara's death.

A lake in the woods is where Robert finds comfort alone, as he tries to sort out what happened. Alex begins to observe Robert, the policeman, spying on him, and following him as he goes about his daily routine. Then he meets Susanne, the policeman's wife. The lives of all these people will change as a result of Tamara's death, more radically than they suspect. Soon autumn will come, just like every year.

Writer/director Götz Spielmann on the making of the film:
"Revanche is a story – not theory enhanced by images. Maybe what my films are trying to do is to get to the bottom of life by focusing not on a social context but on existential questions. That's my passion, what sparks my curiosity, impels me: tracking down the substance of life, its essence deep down inside. There is, behind all the conflicts and painful things I show in my films, a fundamental spark of optimism – the conviction that life isn't a mistake, that it all somehow makes sense."

A tense and surprising portrait of vengeance and redemption, and a journey into the darkest forests of human nature, in which violence and beauty exist side by side.