Ligia Branice Movies
- 1977
Before it became possible (in the late 19th and early 20th centuries) to imprison young heirs and heiresses in mental institutions in order to gain control of their inheritances, greedy families had for centuries "given" their daughters to convents without the girls' consent. Usually, such nunneries were only nominally religious, and their involuntary inhabitants lived a life of relative ease and luxury compared to their genuinely religious (or poorer) sisters. In the film Interno di un Convento, a zealous, handsome priest, who is the confessor for a convent full of such women, encourages the equally zealous abbess of one such institution to enforce the same strict rules on these unfortunate women that are applied to others. In doing so, they uncover a snake pit of sexual couplings, both lesbian and heterosexual, as well as many tools for masturbation. At the same time, a particularly disturbed inmate manages to poison herself and many of the other novitiates in yet another scandal which is covered up by church authorities. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marina Pierro
- 1971
Walerian Borowczyk's Blanche is a tragic romantic tale set in 13th century France. While visiting the castle of an old landlord (Michel Simon), both the king (Georges Wilson) and his philandering page Bartolomeo (Jacques Perrin) try to seduce the landlord's young, naive wife Blanche (Ligia Branice, the director's wife). The landlord's son Nicolas (Lawrence Trimble), who's secretly in love with Blanche, seeks to defend her honor and stays on the watch by her bedroom door. When the king tries to sneak to Blanche's bedroom at night, covered by his page's cloak, Nicolas wounds him in the hand, being certain that he punishes the page. To save the king's reputation, Bartolomeo cuts his own hand and admits he was trying to get to Blanche's bedroom. The outraged old master wants to punish the page himself, but the king won't let him. The old landlord blindly seeks vengeance, and tragedy follows. Some critics consider Blanche the director's masterpiece and a metaphor of imprisonment, as Blanche is compared to a white dove kept in a cage. Others point out that the film's main virtues lie mostly in its beautiful photography and loving attention to period detail. ~ Yuri German, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michel Simon, Ligia Branice, (more)
This unusual comic tragedy is filmed both in color and black-and-white and concerns the residents of the mythical island of Goto. Goto III (Pierre Brasseur) is the pompous dictator who allows children to witness public execution and has criminals fight it out in a theater to resolve their differences. Everyone is assigned a menial position, leading to full employment but aimless pursuits and no chance of social advancement. A man scheduled to fight on stage runs to the dictator's wife and begs for mercy. The man is given a job in the stable but ends up killing the local flycatcher. He tells the dictator that his wife is having an affair with a lieutenant. The informer is given a gun and ordered to kill the lieutenant, but he shoots the dictator instead and assumes power. After the new dictator professes his love for the unfaithful woman, she jumps onto the stage rather than subject herself to his amorous advances in this bizarre story of social isolation and compliance. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Pierre Brasseur, Ligia Branice, (more)
- 1958
Polish filmmaker Walerian Borowczyk garnered international acclaim with this experimental short, co-directed with renowned illustrator Jan Lenica. Taking its influence from Dadaism and surrealism, Dom, or House, is comprised of hand-drawn images, shots of inanimate objects, and live-action footage, all of which reference disparate motifs: an orange, a glass of milk, a conductor leading an inanimate symphony, and various abstract shapes. Through their use of repetition and color, Borowczyk and Lenica stress certain ideas and themes more prominently than others, bringing the seemingly unrelated visuals into a coherent whole. Dom was awarded the Grand Prix at the 1958 Brussels Experimental Film Festival. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
