Ian Pringle Movies

Isabelle Eberhardt dramatizes the tragic true story of the iconoclastic Swiss-born writer, who gained notoriety for both her lifestyle and her work in North Africa at the turn of the twentieth century. Eberhardt (Mathilda May) began dressing as a man and converted to Islam in her teens. As the film opens, she returns from the African desert to tend to her ailing father in Geneva. After his death, the wife of the Marquis de Mores summons her to Paris. The Marquis has gone missing in North Africa, because of Eberhardt's familiarity with the region, his wife pays her to go and track her husband down. Eberhardt settles in Algiers, where, hindered by the French authorities, she quickly gives up the search for de Mores, assuming that he's dead. She stays in North Africa, journeys frequently into the desert, and writes about her experiences for publisher Victor Barrucand (Claude Villers). The hard drinking Eberhardt meets Slimene (Tcheky Karyo of The Patriot), a Foreign Legion soldier, and falls in love with him. Through him, she makes contact with the secretive Sufi brotherhood of Qadriya. As she witnesses the abuses of the French colonists, her writings grow more political in nature and she starts to get more attention. One French military officer, Comte (Richard Moire) imprisons and abuses her. When an Arab swordsman viciously attacks her, Eberhardt holds Comte responsible. He eventually arranges for her deportation. But the resilient Eberhardt returns to North Africa, against Slimene's wishes. There, another French officer, Major Lyautey (Peter O'Toole) befriends her. He seems a decent man, but when he asks her to report to him on Arab groups hostile to the French, she wrestles with her conscience. Australian director Ian Pringle would later go on to produce Romper Stomper, starring Russell Crowe. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

The producers of this black and white art film showed it around at every film festival they could get it entered into, from Melbourne to Cannes. An enigmatic and very poetic drama with an inconclusive storyline, it may not be everyone's cup of tea. The story concerns a somewhat disoriented young man, Jack (Noah Taylor), who turns up on the streets of West Berlin speaking only Russian. Not only that, but everything he says is a quotation from classic Russian novels by Gogol and Dostoyevsky. He is treated like the curious character he appears to be. It is not until he runs into a girl who reminds him of a favorite character in one of the novels that he begins speaking a language anyone can understand, and it begins to seem as though he might be a slightly deranged Australian. He wanders the streets of Berlin with the girl and her female friend, talking about anything and everything in English, falls in love with one of them, and fantasizes about the the girl and himself in pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

In this standard movie about a young doctor wandering across the U.S. in search of his lost ideals, Richard Moir is David Trueman, someone who has dreams of going to South America to practice medicine among the disenfranchised. Trueman does go, but after he arrives he encounters enough corruption and oppression to drive him out of there -- and into drugs. He decides to travel around the U.S., at a loss with himself and society, and eventually he meets Mary (Jo Kennedy), a young heroin addict who shares his angst about life. As the two commiserate, their bleak outlook lightens up a little, promising some fairer weather in the future. Jo Kennedy received a "Best Actress" Silver Bear award at the 1985 Berlin Film Festival for her portrayal of Mary. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi