MOVIE
The High Life
Jojo is a seventeen-year-old factory worker living poorly in Aubervilliers with his grandmother. Dissatisfied with his lackluster everyday life, Jojo dreams of the high life. He starts mixing with shady individuals such as thieves and traffickers. At a time, he even contemplates murdering a rich butcher. Fortunately, his protector Monsieur Charles, a warm-hearted gangster, will stop him from carrying out this crazy plan, thus wasting his young life.
MOVIE
Portrait from Life
A British army officer becomes fascinated by the portrait of a young woman. He travels to Germany to find her, only to discover that she is suffering from amnesia.
MOVIE
Return to Life
In France in 1946, the difficult return to civilian life of five deportees and prisoners of war after having lived through the hell of the Second World War.
MOVIE
Pages of Life
The story of a young woman who, after her years at university in the city, returns to her hometown an engineer and begins work on a huge new power plant. She continues to supervise work on the plant throughout the war.
MOVIE
Life Is Ours
Milan leaves his home and joins the "youth brigade", a group of young people who worked on a railway track. Tragedy strikes when Milan is injured operating one of the mechanical drills that make the building of tunnels possible. But his dedication is greater than his pain, and so he rushes back to the building site instead of staying in the hospital so that he can help the brigade meet the deadline for the completion of the tunnel.
MOVIE
A Double Life
A Shakespearian actor starring as Othello opposite his wife finds the character's jealous rage taking over his mind off-stage.
MOVIE
Life with Father
A straitlaced turn-of-the-century father presides over a family of boys and the mother who really rules the roost.
MOVIE
Life and Death
Probably the most sheerly entertaining of all the films made in 1930s Shanghai by 'underground' leftists, this riff on The Prisoner of Zenda is funny and engaging from first to last. The irresistible Yuan Muzhi (director of Street Angel the following year) plays both Li Tao, a revolutionary on the run, and Liu Yuanjie, an American-Chinese teacher visiting China with his fiancée. Liu is mistaken for Li and thrown into jail; Li teams up with the fiancée (Chen Bo'er, Yuan's real life wife) to get him out of prison and into the spirit of revolution. Ying Yunwei (who started out playing female roles in Chinese opera) uses chiaroscuro lighting, highly mobile camerawork and zippy pacing to give it maximum impact, but it's Yuan who really keeps you watching.
MOVIE
Such Is Life
A story about domestic life in a typical working-class environment. Life and trials and how little situations have big consequences.
