The Witness (1979)
Genre : Comedy
Runtime : 1H 48M
Director : Péter Bacsó
Writer : Péter Bacsó
Synopsis
Hungary, 1950s. József Pelikán, who works as a dam keeper on the Danube, meets by chance Zoltán Dániel, an old friend whom he saved from death years before and who is now a powerful politician.
Six people, some more depressed than others, living through the worst day of their lives.
Imprisoned Harry Lomart is a vicious, brute of a man and yet he is prepared to do his long jail term as he is confident that on his release his beautiful wife Pat will be waiting for him, but a visit from Pat brings him his worst nightmare.
A Roman Catholic priest defies a Mexican bandit whose gang kills villagers in alphabetical order.
It is the dawn of Senegal's independence from France, but as the citizens celebrate in the streets we soon become aware that only the faces have changed. White money still controls the government. One official, Aboucader Beye, known by the title "El Hadji," takes advantage of some of that money to marry his third wife, to the sorrow and chagrin of his first two wives and the resentment of his nationalist daughter. But he discovers on his wedding night that he has been struck with a "xala," a curse of impotence. El Hadji goes to comic lengths to find the cause and remove the xala, resulting in a scathing satirical ending.
Chino Valdez is a loner horse breeder living in the old west. Partly a loner by choice, and partly because, being a 'half-breed', he finds himself unwelcome almost everywhere he goes. One day, a young runaway named Jimmy shows up at his door looking for work and a roof over his head. Reluctantly, Chino agrees to take him in and teach him the art of raising, breaking and breeding horses, until the pair finally begin to accept each other.
Seven friends, struggling with late 20s, early 30's life, find themselves in terrifying danger when a long-dead loved one is magically resurrected and starts devouring souls. To make matters worse, three of them have been granted the power of the Ninja, and now must lead the fight against a power they cannot hope to vanquish. If they fail, the un-dead will overrun their little town, and quite possibly the world.
An accomplished headhunter risks everything to obtain a valuable painting owned by a former mercenary.
A presentation of a case for a needed transition out of the current socioeconomic monetary paradigm which governs the entire world society. This subject matter will transcend the issues of cultural relativism and traditional ideology and move to relate the core, empirical 'life ground' attributes of human and social survival, extrapolating those immutable natural laws into a new sustainable social paradigm called a 'Resource-Based Economy'.
Nino and Bruno are two comedians who reach the heights of success with their duo act, turning them into huge TV celebrities. However, the hate between them grows as fast, and as much, as their fame
Handsome and successful Jim appears to have it all: he's married to the beautiful and supportive Lisa, has a healthy baby, and works a cool gig as the director of hardcore porno fare. Jim's seemingly perfect life starts to fall apart when he has an extramarital fling with an actress and the local Los Angeles vice cops close in to make a bust.
A Texas housewife plots hire a hit man to kill the girl who beat out her daughter for a place on the cheerleading squad.
After 11-year-old Zachary Cowan strikes his classmate across the face with a stick after an argument, the victim's parents invite Zachary's parents to their Brooklyn apartment to deal with the incident in a civilized manner.
Housemaid Georgette loves to gossip and this causes major trouble to people around her.
After the death of his brother on the road, unemployed and unstable drifter Arthur Waldo stays for a while in the rural Australian town of Paris as the guest of the mayor, who hopes he will become a permanent member of the Paris population. Arthur soon realizes the quaint hamlet has a sinister secret: they orchestrate car accidents and rob the victims. Survivors are brought to the local hospital, lobotomized, and used for a local doctor's experiments.
A wealthy, fatherless British clan kidnaps bums and hippies and forces them to participate in an elaborate role-playing game in which they are the perfect family; those who refuse or attempt escape are ritualistically murdered.
In Victorian England, a fortune now depends on which of two brothers outlives the other—or can be made to have seemed to do so.
When the Soviet Army marched into Romania in 1944, a part of the Romanian population went “into the mountains” – a diverse assortment of nationalists and fascists, liberals, apolitical farmers and members of the middle-class, who were affected by the Communists’ expropriations. Over a thousand armed resistance groups took refuge in the inaccessible forests of the Carpathian Mountains where they waited in vain for the support of the Western Allies. One of them was led by Ion Gavrilă-Ogoranu, who managed to remain undetected until 1976 when he was arrested. This film depicts the daily existence of this group. It tells the story of a struggle that became an end in itself, as the enemy was constantly in pursuit and arrest meant torture and often liquidation. Hungry and emotionally withdrawn, the group of young men got entangled in a partisan war that could not be won, lost in the landscape of the South Carpathians, accompanied by a vigilant secret police, the Securitate.
A modest Neapolitan man meets a young woman with excessive hairiness. He exhibits her at fairs and marries her. It is after marriage that he receives a tempting offer from a French manager.
A trapeze artist must decide between her lust for Sergio, the Happy Clown, or her affection for Javier, the Sad Clown, both of whom are deeply disturbed.