Rei (Miki Sugimoto) is a member of Division Zero, a top secret division of #Tokyo's police department. Hired to investigate a high-profile #kidnapping, she infiltrates the gang and kills them off with her signature blood-red handcuffs.

 

0課の女 赤い手錠 is the first of no less than 9 instalments. Based on Tōru Shinohara's #manga 0課の女 [Zero-ka no Onna] who may be better known for his さそり [Sasori / Scorpion], which in its turn was adapted into the popular Female Prisoner Scorpion series of WiP films.

Mr R. (Kurt Raab), his full name is irrelevant, is a hardworking, almost invisible man. He laughs along when his coworkers make stale jokes to shorten the long days. He neatly completes his draftman's assignments and politely nods when the boss berates him. He smokes too much, 80 a day, and at the yearly checkup is told to cut the habit down. His son fails at school and Mrs R. wishes for nicer furniture and a skiing holiday, when Mr R. is promoted.

“No, no, geh' nicht vorbei, als wär' nichts gescheh'n, Es ist zu spät, um zu lügen, Komm und verzeih, ich werd' mit dir geh'n, Wohin dein Weg auch führt, Und die Welt, sie wird schön.”

– Christian Anders, Geh nicht vorbei (1969)

So why does Herr R run amok?

Bandiera and Rabbino, two young bumpkins, find that Rosina, their beloved ewe, has been butchered by their father. Years later, the two share their lives with a beautiful blonde who they found believing to be dead.

Bruno Stroszek (Bruno S.), his friends Eva (Eva Mattes) and Scheitz (Clemens Scheitz, responsible for the fairy-tale music you hear in this film) decide to leave dreary #Berlin behind and move to #Wisconsin where the latter's nephew lives. A new life, with dreams of music and animal magnetism, awaits them there.

“Was ist loos? Der Hund is loose.”

– Clayton

As so oft with #Herzog, the story behind Stroszek is as engrossing as the resulting film. Documentary maker Errol Morris and Herzog were fascinated by Wisconsin's own Ed Gein and wondered if Gein had dug up his own mother, as was rumoured at the time. As they would, they decided to open the poor woman's grave. Morris never showed up, and neither did Herzog but only because his car broke down en route to Plainfield, Wisconsin. Trying to get the vehicle fixed, Herzog entered the workshop of a Clayton Szalpinski.

 

A character in his own right, and a non-actor to boot, Clayton ended up in Stroszek as Scheitz's nephew; a MacGuffin odder than a dancing chicken.

“We're in America now.”

– Bruno S.

“I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale; Handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail; Only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick; I’m so mean I make medicine sick.”

– Muhammad Ali

One day, in a quiet village, a traveling movie theatre appears. The proprietor has no words for the miracle he brings in on the reels. When it's finally time, and the whole town is crammed into the crumbling impromptu playhouse, and the lights are dimmed, a word of warning. This is the story of Dr. #Frankenstein, it starts.

“Just close your eyes and call him… It's me, Ana… It's me Ana…”

– Teresa

The old folk in the audience remember their first brush with cinema, and life, and death. For sisters Ana (Ana Torrent) and Isabel (Isabel Tellería) it may be their first, and it may as well be real. The creature, Isabel assures her younger sister, is not dead. He's a spirit and you can call for him.

 

When you're little, everything is a miracle. Milagros is the name the maid answers too. And so does the landscape, the mushrooms, the heart, and the magic of cinema.

Le temps d'une chasse is the definition of unease. It starts at dawn, when two old friends pick up their buddy Richard (Marcel Sabourin) from the home he shares with his wife and son. The son, the wife insists, comes along. The men have planned a #hunting trip, in a cabin far away from #Montréal, far away from everything, with a beer-filled cooler at hand. The last they need is an underage kid towing along. But the boy comes along, she insists. With a trunk full of Dutch courage and a mouthful of boasting, the men find themselves at a hotel instead of the expected cabins.

“Tomorrow morning we'll get up early.”

Hotel days are short and its nights long and booze-filled, commanding their own temptation and regret.

28 is no age to die, regardless if your name is Susan Superstar or Edie Sedgwick. But it happened, right during the wrap-up of Ciao Manhattan. Edie was gone, just like that, snuffed like so many of the other #Warhol Superstars. What did remain was footage, so much abandoned footage shot in the 60s when those stars were shining at their brightest. That footage, set in glitzy black-and-white Manhattan, is where Edie and Paul America race around town on amphetamine. Or see a doctor to get shots of some sorts.

“Speed is the ultimate, all-time high. That first rush. Wow! Just that burning, searing, soaring sense of perfection.”

– Susan

And there's colour footage too. Susan, topless, semi-(un)consciously dragged around the floor of her empty pool-turned-Superstar-temple. She babbles, drinks, dances around in her panties. And she ODs. Like Edie would even before this movie had seen the light of day.

 

They snuff so fast, these bright Superstars.