Cine-File continues to cover streaming and other online offerings during this time of covidity. We will list/highlight physical screenings at the top of the list for theaters and venues that have reopened, and list streaming/online screenings below. Cine-File takes no position on whether theaters should be reopening, nor on whether individuals should be attending in-person. Check the venues’ websites for information on safety protocols and other procedures put in place.
CINE-FILE PRESENTS: THE EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK ONLINE DISCUSSION
Cine-File, the Chicago Film Society, and the Chicago Public Library are presenting a free online discussion about the 1950 sponsored film THE EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK, about the Chicago Daily News, on Tuesday, January 26 at 6pm. The film was recently preserved by the Chicago Film Society and is currently available for online viewing (link in the review immediately below). The discussion will feature Kyle Westphal from the Chicago Film Society (also a contributor to Cine-File) and Mike Mashon from the Library of Congress, moderated by local film critic and Cine-File contributor Marilyn Ferdinand. Details and registration here.
Orlando Lippert’s THE EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK (US/Sponsored Short)
Streams free on the Chicago Film Society’s Vimeo page here
Ever since I saw THE HOUSE IN THE MIDDLE (1954), a crazy piece of fiction sponsored by a division of the National Paint, Varnish, and Lacquer Association that extols the virtues of a fresh coat of paint in helping homes withstand a nuclear blast, I’ve been a fan of sponsored films. These films, which can mainly be classified as self-serving public service pieces, reveal and reinforce a lot about society’s mores. In the case of THE EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK, the value of an independent press is the ostensible purpose of the somewhat dubious material Chicago Daily News Publisher John S. Knight and his management team of white men saw fit to print. The premise of the film is that Knight is writing one of his “The Editor’s Notebook” columns, recounting all of the good work the newspaper has done exposing social problems, tending to ladies’ concerns about fashion, and entertaining Junior with the comics, while complimenting the City of Chicago on its attention to its senior citizens with human interest stories. Of course, there are shots of the muscular web presses printing the daily paper, but it’s also interesting to see how copy goes from typewriter, to pneumatic tube, to linotype composition and plate making. We also learn about some of the famous writers who reported and wrote columns for this afternoon daily, including Carl Sandburg, Ben Hecht, and a favorite of mine who has vanished from memory, Finley Peter Dunne, who wrote in Irish dialect. We get re-enactments of investigative reporters working the skid row on West Madison St. to create an award-winning series aimed at cleaning up the district. (Despite the series, conditions wouldn’t change appreciably until a developer came in and destroyed the district to create Presidential Towers in 1986.) THE EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK reflects a time of conformity, orderliness, and defined gender roles, but it does offer an important reminder that the varied functions of news organizations are of vital importance to social cohesion. This film was preserved by the Chicago Film Society with funding from the National Film Preservation Foundation and provides an interesting look at mid-century Chicago and one of its most iconic industries. (1950, 29 min) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
CINE-FILE CONTRIBUTORS' BEST OF 2020 LISTS
Many of our contributors have compiled “Best Of” or other lists based on their film viewing in 2020. A wide array of parameters and choices—perfect for finding some overlooked gems to watch. They’re all on our blog.
LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS – New Reviews
Alex de la Iglesia’s THE DAY OF THE BEAST (Spain/Italy)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
During high school a friend of mine stumbled on this Alex de la Iglesia Spanish heavy metal horror-comedy masterpiece. Why a single Blockbuster Video, in a town 45 minutes north of Chicago, had a lone copy of the film is a question still shrouded in complete mystery. But sometimes the universe is the perfect curator and gives you exactly what you need at the time you need it the most—and you end up with a movie that changes your life forever. THE DAY OF THE BEAST is religious horror exploitation at its finest. A priest, a metalhead, and a TV psychic team up to summon the devil so that they can kill the soon-to-be-born anti-Christ on Christmas Eve. Think Peter Jackson directing THE OMEN, but make it heavy metal. That alone should really sell you on the film, but if you’re still not convinced, I’ll get into a few more details. It unfolds like this: A Spanish priest has been studying the Bible closely, looking for clues and patterns in it that might foretell the location and time of the anti-Christ’s birth. Finally cracking the code, he realizes that the only way he can be sure to be there at the birth on Christmas is to commit as many sins as possible in order to get close to the Devil. It’s a preposterous plot, one that coming from very Catholic Spain takes irreverence a step over the line—and how wonderfully so! Director de la Iglesia uses the film’s protagonist to skewer the hypocrisy and image of the Church, and to play with the expectations of religion in the spiritual world and secular world. And, as nearly all of his films have at least a thin patina of politics, he also manages to get a running dig at post-Franco fascists. What makes THE DAY OF THE BEAST so great, besides the humor and the strange plot, are the characters, which are developed with a real sense of authenticity. While obviously heightened for maximum comedic impact, they seem like real people. The metalhead in particular avoids the easy clichés that usually devolve into parody and camp. There’s always a warm feeling when a movie nails a subculture right. This guy? He looks like a lot of dudes I’ve partied with over the years. THE DAY OF THE BEAST is a truly creative and unique genre film that is often overlooked, but those who do know about it generally tend to love it. Why it doesn’t have a bigger following, especially considering how rabid horror fans and metal fans (and especially that Venn diagram overlap) tend to be, is also a mystery. De la Iglesia always manages to make incredibly interesting and entertaining genre films that have a strong streak of social commentary just under the ridiculousness. He should have the same broader appeal as Sam Raimi or Peter Jackson (perhaps it’s subtitles that held him back?). Maybe this new 4K restoration from Severin (to be released on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray in March), will help expand the exposure for one of the truly great, and underrated, genre films of the 1990’s. For Satan’s sake, do yourself a favor and watch it now. All hail THE DAY THE OF THE BEAST! (1995, 103 min) [Raphael Jose Martinez]
Ahmed Alauddin Jamal’s MAJDHAR (UK)
Streams free at Block Cinema (Northwestern University) on Thursday at 7pm (available for 72 hours) here
Eight months before the start of MAJDHAR, Fauzia (Rita Wolf) arrived in London from Karachi to enter into an arranged marriage with Afzal (Tony Wreddon), an established Pakistani immigrant to Britain. When the film begins, Afzal and his white lover, Sandra (Julianne Mason), are making plans to run away together. How Fauzia handles this abandonment comprises the content of this debut production of the Retake Film and Video Collective, which formed in the first part of the 1980s to film British Asian stories for British television. The word “majdhar” means “midstream,” a fitting way to describe the in-between world Fauzia inhabits. Unwilling to return to Karachi, where the shame of her broken marriage would consign her to social isolation, Fauzia has to learn how to live as a single, minority woman in a country that has already claimed her husband to assimilation. Despite the culturally specific aspects of the story, such as Fauzia’s trouble landing a job serving her own community because she does not speak a popular dialect or dating a white man who is mainly attracted to her exoticism, this familiar story likely would have resonated with the white audiences director Jamal and other members of the collective were trying to reach. The film handles some of its more fraught subjects, like abortion, economically and without hyperbole. It also makes a statement about the old versus the new generation of British Pakistanis, contrasting the bitter helplessness of an older woman who was left by her husband with Fauzia’s growth toward independence, as well as her uncle’s understanding attitude toward Fauzia when a Pakistani family counselor suggests having her deported to get her to go home. Especially interesting is a visit Fauzia makes to an art gallery whose works unapologetically interrogate white supremacy. (1984, 78 min) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
---
Followed by a pre-recorded discussion with filmmaker Ahmed Jamal of the Retake Film and Video Collective.
Philippe Garrel’s THE SALT OF TEARS (France)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
THE SALT OF TEARS is distinctive among Philippe Garrel’s narrative films in that it doesn’t center on intellectuals or creative types; as such, it feels less immediately autobiographical than much of the great French director’s other work. Yet this distance between the author and his subjects doesn’t result in a sense of coldness or impersonality. Rather, Garrel (writing, again, with the venerable Arlette Langmann and Jean-Claude Carrière) seems downright rejuvenated, more curious about people than he has in years. The life lessons of his post-REGULAR LOVERS work open onto universal wisdom here, reflecting the callousness and impetuousness of young people everywhere. The protagonist is a 20-ish carpenter named Luc, who arrives in Paris at the start of the film to take an admissions exam at an elite woodworking school; before the test, he crosses paths with Djemila, a young working-class woman about his age. The two fall in love, but Luc returns home before things can get serious. Back in his home town, Luc chances upon his first love, Geneviève, for the first time in several years. They enter into a hot and heavy romance, and Luc begins to neglect Djemila when she calls or texts from Paris. This chain of events repeats several months later when Luc, accepted into the woodworking school, goes back to Paris, takes up with a nurse named Betsy, and gives Geneviève the cold shoulder. Only too late does he learn how wrong he was to reject women who cared for him deeply. As usual, Garrel is less interested in generating suspense than he is in capturing delicate states of being (erotic fascination, romantic yearning, regret) and finding endless nuance in the physicality of his performers and the textures of black-and-white 35mm widescreen. There is, however, a compelling spikiness beneath the movie’s gentle surfaces, and it becomes especially prominent once you realize that Garrel and his co-writers have placed a villain in a position normally occupied by the hero of a story. Luc doesn’t see himself as a villain (but, then, who does?) because he doesn’t open up to the people around him and thus doesn’t get close enough to people to really hurt them. He may successfully lie to himself, but as the film’s abrupt, devastating conclusion reminds us, one can succeed on this front for only so long. (2020, 100 min) [Ben Sachs]
LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS – Held Over/Still Screening/Return Engagements (Selected)
Thomas Vinterberg’s Another Round (Denmark)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here and the Music Box Theatre here
Reuniting with leading man Mads Mikkelsen, Danish writer and director Thomas Vinterberg’s (THE HUNT) newest film, ANOTHER ROUND, reaches for a full bottle of vodka and lands in a drunken state of elation, depression, and mid-life difficulty. Denmark’s submission to the 2021 Oscars for Best International Feature Film, ANOTHER ROUND finds Mikkelsen in an acting showcase, surrounded by other steady and solid counterparts in Magnus Millang, Thomas Bo Larsen, and Lars Ranthe, playing four high school teachers that enter into an odd experiment: keeping themselves at a blood alcohol content of .05 at all times. Vinterberg directs the film like a drunken night on the town, from the joy of dancing on tables with great friends to waking up disoriented, broken, and desperate to either never see alcohol again or grab the nearest bottle and take a swig. ANOTHER ROUND’s tonal shifts work, mostly with ease, due to Mikkelsen’s performance, one in which every look, smirk, and curling of his lips is measured and intentional. It’s not a film filled with speeches or fights that last longer than a couple of minutes. ANOTHER ROUND becomes a snapshot into life at its most middling, in which characters reexamine their place in the world, and the oft overwhelming dreams they feel they haven’t accomplished. Though the structure of the film, especially its third act, falters in finishing this wild idea (and experiment), ANOTHER ROUND should satisfy one’s thirst for high-quality acting, careful and considerate storytelling, and a chance to remember, forget, or attempt to capture the supposed “good ole days.” (2020, 117 min) [Michael Frank]
Lawrence Michael Levine’s BLACK BEAR (US)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
Lawrence Michael Levine’s BLACK BEAR seems simple enough on its surface. A young filmmaker (Aubrey Plaza), seeking inspiration for her next project, goes to a remote lake house owned by a young couple (Christopher Abbott and Sarah Gadon.) Director Lawrence Michael Levine crafts an unsettling dynamic from the jump—sparing few details and instilling little trust in his less than saintly protagonists—that quickly becomes fuel for an inescapable, interpersonal fire. The couple’s relationship is already on the rocks, even as they’re expecting a child, and the addition of another woman feeds into that tension. But halfway through, the film takes a pivot: roles are switched and scenes are mirrored and distorted, the movie-within-a-movie takes hold, and you fall prey to the uncanny valley—grasping for a sense of what is real, what is not, and what it all means. Plaza is electric, balancing between playful manipulation and deep pain all while making sure you never keep your eyes off of her as she guides you through the all-consuming madness. Abbott and Gadon are also on their A-game, their characters committed to the pursuit of artistic and emotional control by any means necessary. BLACK BEAR may become more rewarding upon rewatch, as the parallels of power and a grueling (if not abusive) artistic process become even more apparent once you get your bearings. But it refuses to give you a simple answer to its own mystery—instead, BLACK BEAR engulfs you in its surreal nightmare, wholly and without compromise. (2020, 104 min) [Cody Corrall]
Julien Temple's CROCK OF GOLD: A FEW ROUNDS WITH SHANE MACGOWAN (UK/Documentary)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
As the subtitle of Julien Temple's portrait of Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan suggests, this basically consists of a series of informal hangout sessions with the unique Irish genius and witty raconteur who stands as one of the great singer/songwriters of the post-punk era. In a series of conversations—with former Sinn Féin leader and admirer Gerry Adams, wife and journalist Victoria Clarke, friend Johnny Depp (who also serves as producer and, unfortunately, appears to speak with a slight Irish brogue during his brief screen time) and others—MacGowan tells the story of his raucous life and times. Like a lot of modern documentaries, this feels more like an audiobook than a movie: MacGowan's words and songs are superficially illustrated by an overly busy, and overly literal, image track consisting of archival footage, animation, an ironic interpolation of educational film excerpts, etc. But in spite of Temple's futile attempts at imposing a "cinematic" veneer, this is essential viewing any way. The chance to hear the larger-than-life MacGowan talk about his groundbreaking fusion of punk rock and traditional Irish folk music makes it unmissable for longtime Pogues fans and a good introduction to his work for the uninitiated. Also, this is one new quarantine movie that will undoubtedly work better when viewed from your couch, where you can freely imbibe along with the interview subjects. (2020, 124 min) [Michael Glover Smith]
Pietro Marcello’s MARTIN EDEN (Italy)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
At a time when we sometimes feel films aren’t as full of the grand passions, political or otherwise, as they could be, Pietro Marcello has made a gripping and sweeping epic drama with MARTIN EDEN. Even if it’s finally rather downbeat, it should be seen; it’s an experience deserving the rich term “cinematic.” Marcello and co-writer Maurizio Braucci freely adapted the film from a lesser-known 1909 novel by Jack London. They’ve switched up the time and place, from San Francisco to Italy in a vaguely-defined era leading up to World War II. It features a charismatic, soulful performance by Luca Marinelli as Martin, a bold, uncultured, but gifted man who goes from being a pugnacious sailor to a celebrated, dissipated celebrity writer. He invents himself out of pure, burning ambition. Working-class Martin falls in with a family of liberal aristocrats, where the daughter of the house, Elena (Jessica Cressy), notices his natural instincts for art and poetry and encourages him to get an education. Hungry to self-educate, Martin devours every book he can get his hands on, while falling in love with Elena and vowing to prove himself as a writer. (I love the way he hangs his pages up on a clothesline in his studio). When he meets an older, politically-committed poet (Carlo Cecchi), he begins to compose blistering works for the wretched of the earth. All the while, he insists he’s no socialist even as he becomes associated with the movement, coming down always on the side of the individual. At the same time, he’s certainly anti-capitalist, and, really, rather anti-everyone. The film comprises a range of tones that somehow feel of a piece, even as they purposefully disorient the time period. The soundtrack features a pulsing, atmospheric electro score by Marco Messina and Sacha Ricci alongside jaunty French pop and classical music. The imagery interweaves treated archival footage into the story, as well as new footage made to feel old, evoking both the raw humanity and the hurtling energy of the last century. It adds up to an expressive and textured skein of memory, history, and associations based on Martin’s reading and writing. Because Martin is always on the move, the fine cinematographers Alessandro Abate and Francesco Di Giacomo get an opportunity to show us everything from farms and seascapes, to beautiful vistas of the Italian countryside, to the gritty back lanes of Naples. There’s something brave about the film; It has a sense of political urgency. It seeks to critique the way the artist gets lost in the mass culture industry. Martin gets to be the bad boy, the provocateur—and quite a funny one, wielding a persona he invented out of whole cloth. He’s good at playing the role of “dangerous public intellectual.” When he holds a talk and banters in a mutually amusing way with his interlocutors, we recognize the scene as quite modern. (You wonder if Marcello and Braucci might even have had in mind a Bob Dylan press conference from the mid-‘60s.) The trajectory of the film is somewhat defeatist, and the anti-heroic Martin will rub some viewers the wrong way. Indeed, some will find him a nihilistic jerk. For me, Marineli keeps him just this side of sympathetic. We see that his arrogance is at first a cover for his class-based insecurity, and later the mask becomes the man as he loses his humility and his way. He never quite loses his finally-attenuated sense of irony, though. Among other things, the film is a parable of disappointment at odds with political engagement. Truffaut famously had no use for films that don’t pulse; MARTIN EDEN pulses. It’s a real movie, full of romance and joy and agony. (2019, 129 min) [Scott Pfeiffer]
David Osit’s MAYOR (US/UK/Documentary)
Available for rent at Facets Cinémathèque here
Many people might disagree with me, but I think that MAYOR, a well-made documentary about Ramallah Mayor Musa Hadid, is a perfect movie for Christmas. True, the film contains scenes of the mayor fielding complaints about sewage runoff from Israeli settlements that are contaminating grazing fields, fires set to protest the 2018 move of the U.S. embassy headquarters in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and Israeli soldiers blasting teargas right in front of city hall and beating someone in a nearby restaurant with the situationally ironic name of Café de la Paix. Nevertheless, spending time with Musa, as he is known familiarly by the many residents of Ramallah who greet him warmly as he walks and drives through the streets, is to be bathed in the light of goodness. Musa is the kind of public servant the humble and powerless need to have in their corner. We see him in a school apparently painted with Pepto-Bismol inspecting its physical condition and promising to replace its broken doors. In another school, he objects to a window design that makes the school look like a prison. He travels to the United States and England to press for more support for Palestine’s nationhood. A Christian who plans spectacular Christmas celebrations for the entire city, he nonetheless rejects U.S. Vice President Pence’s promise to make Palestine safe for Christians by responding that it should be safe for everyone. He’s a loving husband and father who enjoys spending time at home but can’t stop thinking about the problems Ramallah faces. He simply wants the resources, and more importantly, the right to provide Ramallah’s citizens with the things they need to thrive—a right Israel will not grant. Finally, in a conversation he has with a German delegation trying to broker some kind of détente between Palestinians and Israelis, Musa makes his simplest and most profound statement—a Christmas message, if you will—about every person’s right to be treated as a full human with dignity before any understanding can begin. Watching this important and empathetic film would be a great gift for anyone who hopes that the new year will be the start of a more peaceful, just era for our country and our world. (2020, 89 min) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Mario Monicelli’s THE PASSIONATE THIEF (Italy)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
If, like me, you had a subdued New Year’s Eve, I highly recommend a do-over by watching the energetic celebration captured in the gorgeously-restored black-and-white comedy THE PASSIONATE THIEF. Italian director Mario Monicelli is a master of mixing hijinks, low crime, and melodrama. For example, his superlative BIG DEAL ON MADONNA STREET (1958) critiques the lot of the Italian working class within the farcical framework he constructs around a conventional crime caper. THE ORGANIZER (1963), which takes up the topic of labor unionization with considerably more gravity, still finds room for the absurd in the romantic misadventures of the penniless union organizer at its center. THE PASSIONATE THIEF goes very easy on its social message; in fact, it casts a doubting eye on the root-cause school of criminality as it assays the story of three people who largely unwillingly spend New Year’s Eve together bumbling from party to party through the streets of Rome. A vivacious Anna Magnani gets a chance to stretch her comedic muscles as a middle-age actress without a date for the evening who is invited to join a group that wants to avoid having an unlucky number of guests. An always-broke vaudevillian and friend of Magnani’s (Totò) is coerced into working with a pickpocket (Ben Gazzara) on this most lucrative of nights. Eventually, the three fall in together as the pickpocket continually tries to set up scores while being thwarted accidentally by Magnani and intentionally by Totò. Magnani isn’t afraid to look ridiculous and vain, swinging a hideous white fox stole around her out-of-date dress, fishing for compliments, and trying to play the sophisticate when they are invited into a mansion as recompense for having the stole singed by fireworks the well-heeled partygoers threw off a balcony. Totò’s performance is a comic masterpiece, mixing a bit of Buster Keaton deadpan with mild chicanery and sincere concern for his fairly clueless friend. Gazzara is charming, threatening, and exasperated in just the right measure. Fred Clark provides some unexpectedly rich gags as a drunk American whose desire to wade into the Trevi Fountain like Anita Ekberg has Magnani scream, “I hate the movies.” The teeming mise-en-scène, whether in a ballroom filled to the gills with revelers or on an empty street filled with old household objects the Romans have jettisoned from their homes to welcome the new year, is expertly handled by Monicelli and cinematographer Leonida Barboni. THE PASSIONATE THIEF is not only a terrific visualization of the Eternal City, but also a generous examination of the passionate people who make it tick. (1960, 106 min) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Graham Kolbeins’ QUEER JAPAN (US/Documentary)
Available to rent through Facets Cinémathèque here
Made over the course of four years, QUEER JAPAN is a joyous, neon trip through various subcultures in Japan’s LGBTQ community. Taking less of a historical, essayist approach at filmmaking, director Graham Kolbeins instead puts us in the hands of individuals who then take us through their personal life, and the micro-community they inhabit. From drag queens, to trans activists, to women’s only events, to post-gender performance artists, to beefcake bear erotic manga artists, QUEER JAPAN stitches together a gorgeous patchwork of hyper-specific scenes, shows their unique beauty, and presents them as a unit more beautiful together than apart. Each guide has their own world, and we’re invited in. It’s a lovely impressionistic view of Japanese queer culture that I would love to see in documentaries of other countries’ queer communities. I’m of the age where as a little questioning queer boy in nowhere suburbia I would grab at anything queer I could put my hands on, from Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For, to Pansy Division records, to HIGH ART, to Windy City Times and clutch it hard against my chest—it was all the same to me as a ‘90s teen. Queer. Nowadays there seems to be so much digital infighting in queer circles, with identity politics not so much as salvation but as a cudgel—so a film like QUEER JAPAN is a mainline injection of elated delight. Seeing how the film’s chosen queer subjects come together and discuss their community’s differences in theory, praxis, and (very importantly) partying makes me remember when you basically saw everyone in the American queer ecosystem with a Silence = Death patch. Queers being queer together because queers need to support queers. Full stop. Maybe this makes me sound cranky-old-man-yells-at-clouds, but my reply to that is simply, watch QUEER JAPAN. Differences can, and do, exist even in queer circles—but that doesn’t mean they should be the sole means of self-definition and identity. QUEER JAPAN is a jubilant reminder as to how multi-faceted, and global, queer culture is. Enjoy it and celebrate it. (2019, 99 min) [Raphael Jose Martinez]
Jerry Rothwell’s THE REASON I JUMP (UK/Documentary)
Available for rent through the Music Box Theatre here
Jerry Rothwell’s THE REASON I JUMP is an act of translation multiple times over. In the most literal sense, it’s a translation of a translation of the eponymous autobiography, allegedly written by Naoki Higashida, a Japanese teenager with nonverbal autism. In a more significant way, the film is a translation of the subjective experiences of neuro-atypical people, with Rothwell and his documentary team attempting to render into language (linguistic, cinematic) the thoughts and feelings of those unable to express themselves through speech. Anchored by English-narrated excerpts from the book, THE REASON I JUMP takes us into the mind and body of Higashida, as well as five other nonspeaking or verbally-limited autistic people around the world. The film deploys uniquely cinematic tools to immerse us in their perspectives: localized sounds and abstracted, haptic closeups of light and texture are used to conjure heightened perceptual states, while irregular montage suggests an experience of time and memory that, as the father of one of the autistic subjects puts it, resembles “an out-of-control slideshow.” Though the risk of romanticizing or misinterpreting their disability is always a lingering threat(valid doubts about the truth of Higashida’s authorship are swiftly dismissed), THE REASON I JUMP mostly avoids these pitfalls by taking into account the large, ever-growing body of scientific knowledge that has emerged around autism. The film shrewdly dispels many of the beliefs and stigmas surrounding the condition. One of the clearest examples of this comes from best friends Emma and Ben, who use letter boards to eloquently communicate their thoughts about pedagogy, relationships, and their civil rights. At times, Rothwell turns their spelled-out sentences into subtitles, the closest the film is able to get to letting us hear directly from its subjects. If THE REASON I JUMP is perhaps a bit pat and polished, a little too willing to speak in platitudes, it’s nevertheless an invaluable resource, sure to facilitate empathetic understanding in both neuro-typical and -atypical individuals. It’s no mistake a lighthouse features prominently; though fully comprehending another’s consciousness isn’t possible, enough illumination can do a lot to guide the way. (2020, 82 min) [Jonathan Leithold-Patt]
Alejandro Jodorowsky's SANTA SANGRE (Mexico)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
You wouldn't know it from the circus freaks, the religious cults, and the malicious (not to mention limbless) mothers, but SANTA SANGRE is Alejandro Jodorowsky all grown up. Separated from his early staples of hallucinatory cinema, EL TOPO and THE HOLY MOUNTAIN, by 16 odd years and a highly mythologized failed first crack at Frank Herbert's Dune, the film finds Jodorowsky with an unexpected amount of narrative confidence, and surrealist sensibilities half as wild, yet twice as perceptive as all his concoctions to date. He spins the story of Fenix, troubled son of the circus, both in flashback and flash-forward, and the first half even tugs a few heartstrings with its tale of love, loss, and complete mental breakdown in the world of ethereal trapeze artists and adulterous knife-throwers. The murderous second half shakes things up, and Fenix's story takes a most unorthodox Oedipal twist that could wake Freud from cold, dead slumber. It's here we recapture some of the Jodorowsky visual flair we once knew, but more importantly, as the film veers firmly into the horror genre, he gets to flex his muscles as a surrealist pioneer. Sure, it's nowhere Lucio Fulci hadn't dabbled before, but Jodorowsky's return proves a surprisingly wise and unsurprisingly creepy effort, not quite the sensory experience that his earlier works remain, but every bit as much a great film. (1989, 123 min) [Tristan Johnson]
Hao Wu, Weixi Chen, and Anonymous’ 76 DAYS (US/Documentary)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
It has been a little more than a year since the first case of COVID-19 was recorded, in Wuhan, China. We didn’t know then what it meant, but slowly we came to understand that an apocalypse was building, moving inexorably toward us like the nuclear fallout coming to claim the last people on earth in Stanley Kramer’s ON THE BEACH (1959). Even now, pandemic fatigue, magical thinking, and personal entitlement have many ignoring the danger to themselves—and especially to others—as they eat, drink, and make merry. It is these people who should be made to watch 76 DAYS, an incredible record of this modern plague from the first day of Wuhan’s lockdown in January to the lifting of restrictions 76 days later. Filming mainly inside four Wuhan hospitals, Hao Wu, Weixi Chen, and an anonymous third director show what actual pandemic fatigue looks like. Healthcare providers work past exhaustion tending to an ICU full of COVID-infected patients while swathed in layers of protective gear so all-encompassing that they must write their names on their jumpsuits just to tell each other apart. Throngs of sick people press in panic against a door trying to gain admission into one hospital on a bitterly cold night as a beleaguered nurse tries to convince them that everyone will get in eventually. Shots taken on the streets of the city reveal an eerie emptiness, broken only by ambulances and vans carrying the dead. 76 DAYS is made in the mold of Frederick Wiseman’s NEAR DEATH (1989), though it’s clear that the Chinese government may have influenced the directors to paint a brighter picture of their plague than actually existed. One couple comes into the hospital together; when the husband’s condition starts to deteriorate, their story is abandoned in favor of patients who survived. Nevertheless, the directors are careful to document the devastation, opening the film with the uncontrollable grief of a daughter whose father has died and closing with the citywide blasting of sirens at the end of the lockdown as residents mourn the dead. The bravery and dedication of the healthcare workers come through most strongly for me in one beautifully captured image of an elderly man who is being discharged placing his hand over the heart decal he received from his medical team, treasuring his reclaimed life and those who saved it. Highly recommended. (2020, 93 min) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Lance Oppenheim’s SOME KIND OF HEAVEN (US/Documentary)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here, the Gene Siskel Film Center here, and Facets Cinémathèque here
I’m not sure when I first heard about The Villages, but my curiosity about this vast Disneyland for retirees in South Florida clearly was shared by director Lance Oppenheim, himself a South Floridian. Designed for faux nostalgia built around a faux history complete with a bronze statue of its founder, land speculator Harold Schwartz, The Villages has become a haven for its almost entirely white residents who want to retreat from the world into the country’s most elaborate summer camp, where custom golf carts are the vehicles of choice. Oppenheim emphasizes the pursuit of conformity at The Villages in the opening scene, which features a synchronized golf cart team, a rowing team, and a synchronized swimming team. But we learn all is not fun and games once Oppenheim introduces us to four people in this bubble—married couple Reggie and Anne Kincer, recent widow Barbara Lochiatto, and Dennis Dean, who lives in his van and is not an official resident of The Villages. None of them looks particularly happy, and we learn why as Oppenheim unfolds their stories. Reggie seems like an old hippie, indulging in polydrug abuse and yoga to find enlightenment, much to the unhappiness of his neglected wife. Barbara works in The Villages’ healthcare system, yearning to return to her native Boston but unable to because her savings are gone after 11 years on the property. Dennis is on the run from a California warrant related to a DUI conviction; he’s a restless man whose credo is to live fast, love hard, and die poor. All four of them face their troubles and different varieties of loneliness in ways that seem to demonstrate that our essential character remains relatively fixed throughout our lives. David Bolen’s gorgeous cinematography and ability to capture facial emotions in unguarded moments contrast the heaven of the South Florida landscape with the frenetic activity of the seniors who are determined, as the song goes, to live till they die. It’s tempting to think Oppenheim cherry-picked outliers from this community to feature, but nothing is as idyllic as it seems at first glance, nor is enduring one’s hardships as hopeless at it sometimes seems. Exposing these truths in such an affecting way does all of us—and especially the residents of The Villages—a service we all need. (2020, 81 min) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH (Japan/Uzbekistan)
Available to rent through Facets Cinémathèque here
Made to commemorate the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Uzbekistan, TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH finds Kiyoshi Kurosawa reflecting on the subjects of travel, national identity, and cross-cultural communication. The film recalls Powell and Pressburger’s A CANTERBURY TALE (1944), not only in how it extracts universal themes from arcane subject matter, but in how its seemingly low-stakes drama slowly opens onto profundity. Former J-Pop superstar Atsuko Maeda (in her third collaboration with Kurosawa) stars as Yoko, a moderately successful TV hostess shooting a Japanese travel show in Uzbekistan. For a while, Kurosawa mines pleasant, understated humor from Yoko’s misadventures in a strange land. She and her crew are unable to speak Uzbek, and while they have a translator at their disposal, they still encounter frustrations in communicating with the native population, along with the expected problems that come with television production (trouble finding locations, having to do endless retakes of particular shots, et cetera). Yet as the movie progresses, one intuits larger issues beneath the comedy of mistranslation. For one thing, Yoko seems like a terribly lonely person; even though she has a boyfriend back in Japan, she appears to lack warmth or a sense of connection with the people around her. For another, Uzbekistan seems most inhospitable to Japanese tourists. About a third of the way into ENDS OF THE EARTH, Yoko leaves her hotel in Samarkand to walk to a restaurant and gets lost on her way back. Justly celebrated for his horror and suspense pictures, Kurosawa effortlessly generates a strong sense of dread as Yoko struggles to navigate the alien landscape, suggesting the possibility she’ll never reach the hotel. Kurosawa also abandons the movie’s lighthearted tone in a later sequence where Yoko visits a symphony hall in the capital city of Tashkent. Watching the orchestra rehearse, Yoko imagines herself singing onstage; rather than evoke feelings of abandon, the scene is jarring and eerie, as Kurosawa heightens through filmmaking style the character’s unexpected break with reality. And so, the fear of losing one’s way gives way the fear of losing one’s mind, but these dark notions don’t overwhelm the film. When Kurosawa finally addresses the historic relationship between Uzbekistan and Japan in the movie’s final act, his conclusions are optimistic, even life-affirming. Yoko experiences a genuine cross-cultural exchange on her journey, and this means she learns as much about herself as she does about Uzbekistan. (2019, 120 min) [Ben Sachs]
Gwendolen Cates’ WE ARE UNARMED (US/Documentary)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
The recent January 6th domestic terrorist attacks on the U.S. Capitol sharply contrasts with the Indigenous-led resistance of the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock and other such peaceful protests that were met with violence from law enforcement, highlighting the government’s tolerance of white supremacy and the systemic racism in its policies. Gwendolen Cates’ WE ARE UNARMED is an emotionally powerful and extremely timely look at the DAPL protests through the lens of the current political climate. The film also places significance on framing the present moment through an understanding of the historical context; as Kelly Morgan, a Standing Rock Lakota and Tribal Archaeologist states, “there is so much to tell and so few who know the true history of the United States.” Morgan and two other Lakota women are featured as noteworthy and eloquent figures of the movement, including a longtime activist, Phyllis Young, and a camp leader, Holy Elk Lafferty. WE ARE UNARMED follows the stand they took against the treaty violations of the DAPL from the beginning of the protests in September 2016 to a forced evacuation which occurred the following February. The inspiring struggle to protect culture and land, including water rights, is juxtaposed against the unjust and violent—both current and historical—treatment of Indigenous peoples. Cates’ camera lingers on flags and signs and sounds of prayer, music, and song are featured throughout, creating a collage of visual and aural symbols that emphasize the power in collective words and voices—as one sign reads, “no spiritual surrender.” Morgan profoundly observes, “Every day that we breathe as Native people—that is a political act.” WE ARE UNARMED will always be an essential watch, but right now, it is critical. (2020, 77 min) [Megan Fariello]
Juan José Campanella’s THE WEASELS’ TALE (Argentina)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
From Oscar-winning director Juan José Campanella, THE WEASELS’ TALE is a biting meta-homage to film in general, but particularly mid-century Argentine cinema in its casting of well-known stars—it is also a remake of José A. Martínez Suárez’s YESTERDAY’S GUYS USED NO ARSENIC from 1976. The film immediately brings to mind SUNSET BOULEVARD, opening with actress Mara Ordaz, herself played by famous Argentine star Graciela Borges, wistfully watching films from the heyday of her career. She lives in a country mansion with her husband, Pedro (Luis Brandoni), another former actor, and their two friends, director Norberto (Oscar Martínez) and screenwriter Martín (Marcos Mundstock). The four collaborated on projects together in their youth though are now prone to bickering and resentful about the past, with the men especially exhausted by Mara’s unwavering star persona. Their living situation is threatened, however, by a scheming young couple (Clara Lago and Nicholás Francella) who convince Mara it’s time to get back to her career and sell the house. The couple think they’ve found easy targets, but the seniors are more than capable of keeping up, constructing a real-life cinematic thriller on their own terms. Watching Martínez and Mundstock as Norberto and Martín humorously plot using their directing and writing backgrounds is great fun, though Borges as Mara is the undisputed stand-out; adorned with furs and turbans—the costuming is wonderful throughout—she carries her Norma Desmond-esque performance with equal parts comedy and melancholy. THE WEASELS’ TALE’s long run-time encumbers the twisting plot at points, but the colorful and detailed production design—especially of the mansion—keeps things visually interesting; this dark comedy is at its best in its self-referential moments, focusing the convergence of the main characters’ past cinematic careers and the current real-life crime thriller in which they’ve found themselves. (2019, 129 min) [Megan Fariello]
WONG KAR-WAI RETROSPECTIVE
Music Box Theatre – Virtual Screenings
Films available for rent here
---
The Music Box presents this “touring” package from Janus Films of seven films by Hong Kong master Wong Kar-wai, presented in new 4K restorations.
---
Wong Kar-wai’s AS TEARS GO BY (Hong Kong)
Wong Kar-wai’s directorial debut is often compared to Martin Scorsese’s MEAN STREETS; while there are indeed similarities between the two films, Wong’s mentor, Hong Kong director and editor Patrick Tam, noted that Wong also had in mind Jim Jarmusch’s auspicious 1984 debut, STRANGER THAN PARADISE, specifically with regards to the plotline involving the protagonist’s second cousin, Ngor (frequent Wong collaborator Maggie Cheung, effervescent as always), who briefly comes to stay with him—as Eszter Balint's character did with her cousin in Jarmusch’s film—and later emerges as the love interest. Though it doesn’t explicitly embody the art-house differentia that defines Wong’s output, AS TEARS GOES BY does display a merging of technique that seems to split the difference between those two influences—on the one hand, a straightforward action-romance centered on the social framework of a Hong Kong triad gang; on the other a comparatively stylized drama with elegant flourishes and an abundance of pathos. Wah, played by Cantopop heartthrob Andy Lau, is a debt collector for a local gang and “big brother” to Fly (Jacky Cheung), a young, hot-headed wannabe-bigshot who’s eager to prove himself. Much of the skillfully-wrought action revolves around Wah helping Fly out of various scrapes; concurrently Ngor comes to stay with him, and the two fall in love. Desperate to save face in light of various humiliations, Fly takes on the task of assassinating an informant at a police station, which takes Wah away from his newfound bliss with Ngor. The ending elevates TEARS above other films of its kind; it’s near Shakespearean in its amalgamation of ‘family’ loyalty and star-crossed romance. (Wong would describe his 1994 wuxia epic ASHES OF TIME as “Shakespeare meets Sergio Leone,” which isn’t precisely applicable to TEARS but represents Wong’s propensity for merging genres.) Throughout are hints of what’s to come in Wong’s career: glinting neon, passages of ethereal beauty, and a ravishing sequence set to an exhilarating Cantopop version of Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away,” which results in the coming-together of Wah and Ngor. It takes place midway through the film and signals a shift from the familiar to the sublime. Wong made the film as part of a new production company, In-Gear, for which he had previously scripted Tam’s FINAL VICTORY and Joe Cheung’s FLAMING BROTHERS, both from 1987 and thematically similar to TEARS, eager to prove himself, much like the gangsters in his film; thankfully what came after was far from despairing. (1988, 102 min) [Kathleen Sachs]
---
Wong Kar-wai’s DAYS OF BEING WILD (Hong Kong)
DAYS OF BEING WILD is not just the movie where Wong Kar-wai came into his own as a filmmaker; it introduces themes, motifs, and even music cues that would appear in most of his subsequent films. Wong’s distinctive, poetic style is fully realized here, and it’s so rapturous that the film sustains its hypnotic effect even when little is happening onscreen. Befitting a movie about early adulthood, DAYS OF BEING WILD is brimming with a sense of possibility: Wong’s seductive camera movements, vibrant color combinations, and jazzy shifts in place and time reveal a director at play with the elements of cinema (not for nothing did his 90s work inspire comparisons with the French New Wave), and his good cheer is infectious. At the same time, the film is infused with melancholy, communicating the irretrievability of the past and longings for love and home. Set in Hong Kong in 1960, the movie begins with the promise of a love story between Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung), a ticket seller at a downtown stadium, and a Lothario called York (Leslie Cheung). They meet cute, and he seduces her with moony talk about the nature of time. Yet York quickly grows tired of Li-zhen and takes up with a showgirl named Mimi (Carina Lau); sometime later Li-zhen captures the romantic attention of a lonely young police officer played by Andy Lau. The plot splinters between all four characters, each of whom gets a chance to narrate the action, yet the bittersweet mood carries across each of the narrative strands. Everyone pines for someone who won’t reciprocate his or her feelings—even the callous York, who longs to connect with the biological mother who abandoned him as a baby. (York was brought up by a prostitute, and his thorny relationship with her feels like something out of a Tennessee Williams play.) DAYS OF BEING WILD is overwhelming in how it conveys so many conflicting emotions at once (romance and lovesickness, loneliness and connection, nostalgia and a heightened sense of the present), but the filmmaking is always fluid and enticing. (1990, 94 min) [Ben Sachs]
---
Wong Kar-wai’s CHUNGKING EXPRESS (Hong Kong)
Love is a beautiful thing. Film is a beautiful thing. To create something that celebrates not only love but also film requires the craftsmanship of a master and none are better equipped for this than Wong Kar-wai, as demonstrated in CHUNGKING EXPRESS. Centered on two separate tales of two different, lovelorn Hong Kong policemen, the movie explores what heartache and love can mean on a person-to-person basis. Is it about physical proximity, as in the case of the young policeman who tries nightly to reclaim his ex-girlfriend by phone while simultaneously trying to find a new lover, only to come “0.01 cm apart”—the closest he will get? Or perhaps it’s about the older policeman whose daily trip to a food stand and his subsequent flirtations with the young woman who works the counter; can this form the basis for a different kind of relationship? Beyond Wong’s thematic concerns, what truly makes CHUNGKING EXPRESS stand out is the aesthetic juxtaposition of the two storylines; the first story takes on a French New Wave vibe, both in its cinematography and its pacing, while the other has a more calculated pace, with patient shot composition and deliberate camera movement. The biggest question Wong asks is whether intimacy is defined as physical proximity in space to another or is it sharing of the same space while not in proximity? While the two plots are distinctly separate from one another, eagle-eyed viewers will appreciate the minute crossovers that can occasionally be seen in the background, à la THE RULES OF THE GAME. The film’s dreamy shot composition and well-curated soundtrack allows one to bask in the movie’s marvels and float downstream in tandem with its characters. A masterfully poetic musing on love, loss, memory, and the many forms they can take, CHUNGKING EXPRESS is the perfect entry point to the esteemed auteur’s filmography. (1994, 102 min) [Kyle Cubr]
---
Wong Kar-wai’s FALLEN ANGELS (Hong Kong)
Released on the heels of his international breakthrough, CHUNGKING EXPRESS, Wong Kar-wai’s FALLEN ANGELS was initially envisioned as a section of the earlier film. Expanded into its own exploration of loneliness and longing in the neon-colored and noir-inspired cityscape of Hong Kong, FALLEN ANGELS follows two intersecting stories of chance encounters. The first concerns a detached hitman (Leon Lai), who’s ready to quit killing for good, and his associate (Michelle Reis). They’ve never met, but she cleans for him and sends him his next assignments—she’s also completely infatuated with him, fantasizing about this mysterious partner as they exchange secret messages. The second story has a lighter and more comedic tone and features the partner’s cheerful neighbor (Takeshi Kaneshiro), a mute delinquent who still lives with his father. He roams the city at night breaking into various businesses, pretending to be the proprietor to unwitting customers in order to make money. He ends up helping—and falling for—Charlie (Charlie Yeung), who he meets after her boyfriend dumps her for another woman, leaving her heartbroken and out for revenge. The two stories spiral around each other as characters intersect in the neon-lit nightscape. Wong uses kinetic camera movements and canted wide-angled close-up shots to drive emotion and intensity—in one scene, blood drips down the lens. The camera traps the audience in the visual maze of the city while still whimsically expressing the characters’ sense of isolation and aching for connection. It is clear how the film is both an extension of CHUNGKING EXPRESS while still standing on its own as a noirish, melodramatic departure; the world of FALLEN ANGELS is simultaneously dark yet sweet, cool yet funny, where it’s always night and everything—including love—has an expiration date, though that doesn’t mean it is without significance. (1995, 99 min) [Megan Fariello]
---
Wong Kar-wai’s HAPPY TOGETHER (Hong Kong)
Many of Wong Kar-wai’s films are preoccupied with the cultural anxieties surrounding the British handover of Hong Kong, from CHUNGKING EXPRESS’s expiration date-obsessed cop to the titular year of 2046, which marks the period before the city’s self-regulation ends. Released in 1997, the year of the handover, HAPPY TOGETHER filters these anxieties and longings—as well as the possibilities of what a new, globalized Hong Kong might mean—through the prism of a tumultuous gay romance. The partners are the assertive Ho Po-Wing (Leslie Cheung) and more mild-mannered Lai Yiu-Fai (Tony Leung), who have come to Buenos Aires looking to recharge their floundering relationship, and to see Iguazu Falls, their symbolically elusive destination. We understand this is not the first time they have tried an implausible romantic gambit: Fai instructs us via voiceover of Po-Wing’s constant refrain after each so-called breakup, “Let’s start over.” Start over, and over, they do. After a split in Argentina, and without money to fly back home, the two reluctantly get back together when Fai spots Po-Wing cruising at the tango club where the former has taken a job. Wong proves that, indeed, it takes two to tango, as the lovers push and pull in a torrid dance, quarreling over money and their cramped apartment at one moment, and then, in Wong’s impressionistic montage, tenderly swaying in one another’s arms in the next. The two might seem like polarities, echoing the antipode status of Buenos Aries and Hong Kong, but really they are sides of the same coin, lonely and displaced, even if their desires manifest differently. Wong conveys their underlying reversibility through sleight-of-hand doublings and substitutions, using mirrors and jump cuts to make the men assume each other’s places. It doesn’t take much parsing to read their relationship as a metaphor for Hong Kong’s uncertain future with China, while a third character introduced later, Chang (Chang Chen), represents a similarly unmoored Taiwan. But HAPPY TOGETHER can also just be enjoyed as a ravishing, emotionally plangent song from the heart, saturated with all of Wong’s dreamy stylistic flourishes and musical grace notes. Few shots in his filmography are so simply, shatteringly poignant as Tony Leung sobbing into a tape recorder, or the protracted aerial footage of Iguazu Falls pouring its contents with both the majesty and implacable flux of nature. (1997, 96 min) [Jonathan
Leithold-Patt]
---
Wong Kar-wai's IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (Hong Kong)
Taking place in 1960s Hong Kong or in the memory of 1960s Hong Kong—that city deemed too modern, many of the film's exteriors were shot in Bangkok, after all—Wong Kar-wai's film is a beautiful rumination on its title. Much has been made of IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE's restraint, and there is that: a couple, married to other people who are themselves having affairs, become intimate in every way but physical—save for slight, loaded gestures and tight spaces. The film is pregnant with the overwhelming feeling of infatuation, executed in a lusciousness that recalls something from a dream. But for every restraint there is a counterpoint in excess: Maggie Cheung's many gorgeous dresses are as flamboyant as they are confining; the musical score is both pitch-perfect and overwhelming, familiar and foreign; the cinematography is so rich and meticulous that its multitude of color is evocative of Douglas Sirk's melodramas. IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE has hit upon such acclaim because of its local particularity—a commemoration of sorts for Hong Kong's transfer of sovereignty that had not yet happened—as well as its thematic universality as a transnational melodrama. As characters move through Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines, Cambodia, and the film shifts forward and backward in time, we are reminded of the fluidity of borders, time, and memory. The moment is paramount, and Wong Kar-wai gives us a series of beautiful, sumptuous moments that we can live in forever. (2000, 98 min) [Brian Welesko]
---
Wong Kar-wai’s THE HAND [Extended Cut] (Hong Kong)
Wong Kar-wai’s 2046 was the official sequel to his IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, but the featurette THE HAND (originally released as part of the omnibus film EROS) is just as much of a follow-up, expanding on the earlier feature’s fetishistic approach to the 1960s and its theme of unrequited longing. Containing few characters and locations, (though spanning a number of years in its narrative), it’s a chamber drama in which every gesture carries great weight. The story charts the relationship between Zhang (Chang Chen), a timid tailor’s apprentice, and Ms. Hua (Gong Li), a confident, high-class courtesan. Zhang idolizes the courtesan from the moment he sees her, though she mocks him on their first encounter, making a joke of his sexual desire. Over time, however, she comes to rely on him—first for fancy dresses, then ultimately for companionship when she falls from her social station. Their second and final sexual encounter is a bittersweet facsimile of the first, with the power dynamics between the two having been upended. This moment occurs after what feels like hours of pining; Wong stretches out every minute so that the film feels much longer than its 56 minutes, often presenting the action in rapturous slow motion. Working again with production designer William Chang and the great cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Wong builds a complex past environment where even the effect of fluorescent light on a grease-stained wall exudes a mysterious power. (2004, 56 min) [Ben Sachs]
LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS – Also Screening/Streaming
Media Burn Archive
Media Burn presents a free online screening of Eric Scholl, Cyndi Moran, and Peter Kuttner’s 1994 documentary THE END OF THE NIGHTSTICK (45 min) on Thursday at 7pm, accompanied by a discussion with the filmmakers and UofC PhD candidate Maggie Sivit. More info and registration here.
Video Data Bank
The Video Data Bank presents “Holiday with the Kuchars,” a program of two works by George Kuchar: XMAS 1986 (1986, 37 min) and SOLSTICE (2009, 4 min). No ending date listed. Viewable here.
Facets Cinémathèque
Check the Facets website for hold-over titles.
Gene Siskel Film Center
Fernanda Valadez’s 2020 Mexican film IDENTIFYING FEATURES (95 min) and Oeke Hoogendijk’s 2019 Dutch documentary MY REMBRANDT (97 min) both are available for rent beginning this week. Check the Siskel website for hold-over titles.
Music Box Theatre
Check the Music Box website for hold-over titles.
ADDITIONAL ONLINE SCREENINGS
Avant-Garde Films by Polish Female Artists of the 1970s (Poland/Experimental)
Available to stream through Anthology Film Archives here
According to the notes for this program, “[t]he 1970s represented a period of revival in Polish art, which manifested itself in artists’ interest in new media… [A]n especially striking feature of the art of the period was a strong tendency to engage with the moving image, and in particular with the nascent medium of video, which made its appearance within the realm of Polish art in 1973.” Included in the collection are 21 short films and videos made by seven Polish women in the 1970s and early 80s. These multidisciplinary artists thrived in experimental cinema despite the obstacles they faced not just because of their sex, but because of the capricious political climate of communist Poland; the notes explain that cameras, especially of the portable video variety, were limited and that art schools didn’t provide opportunities for students to utilize them. As a result, much of the work here seems to acknowledge the quagmire of its existence, the harried shooting and editing conveying a sense of ecstatic exploration into the new and the generally inaccessible. The first five are by Jolanta Marcolla, whom one source says “was the first Polish female artist to select video” as a medium; her work interrogated the practice of film- and video-making. FORCED RESPONSE (1976) depicts people filming unwitting subjects; like many of the works in this program, it ends abruptly, signaling a lack of concern for concrete finality. One can’t help but think of Warhol during Marcolla’s KISS (1975), which, like Warhol’s own ode to the verb, focuses single-mindedly on the title activity. Marcolla blows kisses to the camera, and variations of the action are looped to create the impression of a woman continuously blowing kisses into the void. Polish art historian Bożenna Stokłosa writes in a catalog of Marcolla’s photo work that she explores the “problem of relation between spheres of reality and its images created by using of concret (sic) technique and methods.” Until recently it was believed that Jadwiga Singer’s archive had perished with her; a fascinating interview with Marika Kuźmicz, chairperson of the Arton Foundation and the curator of this program, reveals how much of her work was re-discovered. In DESTRUCTION (1978), a picture of a room (the room we’re in by way of the camera) is affixed to a wall. The camera zooms in on the picture, and it’s lit ablaze; as it disintegrates, the real room, now without the picture affixed to the wall, is again revealed. It would seem Singer had a penchant for using the moving image to toy with fixtures of reality. Case in point, MASTER MIND depicts a man who often appears twice in the image, opening and closing curtains that either reveal or obscure one or the other of his apparitions. The clever structuralist trickery again questions one’s perceptions of what we’re seeing—or what we think we’re seeing. Łukasz Ronduda notes in his book The Films of Polish Women Artists in the 1970s and 1980s that “[t]he majority of Iwona Lemke-Konart’s film experiments originate from her work in the field of artistic books, her main area of creative activity.” This comes through in the next series of works, specifically ART IS IN LIFE (1984), set to a classical violin score, in which influences of photography and performance art are gracefully melded. LIMITS OF HUMAN POSSIBILITIES (1984) features a woman moving in relationship to a line drawing on a wall; random movements appear against a drawing of what appear to be mountains, with what one sees in the relationship between the moving body and the static image becoming a sort-of inkblot test. There’s only one film by Izabella Gustowska included in the program, RELATIVE SIMILARITIES (1979/80), which features a set of twins making silly poses and faces with one another. Apparently this is a throughline in much of Gustowska’s work; she’s a fraternal twin, and her mother had had a set of twins before she was born who passed away. The program also includes two other RELATIVE SIMILARITIES works as bonus features. For better or worse, Teresa Tyszkiewicz’s body art-oriented films stand out among the assortment. ARTA (1984/85), which was recently re-discovered and digitized, shows, amidst other psychosexual imagery, partially nude women clad in what seems to be lingerie made of spaghetti and which they remove and later appear to give birth to. BREATH (1981) also focuses on beautiful women doing inane things, such as gluing their hands together and then separating them. An inexplicably soothing scene finds a woman with manicured nails tenderly smoothing her hands over a lump of clay (or something that looks like it). The disconcertment one feels perhaps reflects the ridiculous ways that women’s bodies and the objects they come into contact with become sexualized. That’s also the theme of Tyszkiewicz’s DAY AFTER DAY (1980), where one of those old-school vibrating exercise belts figures heavily. It’s been written that “[i]n the 1960s and 1970s, Natalia LL was one of the first artists to step forward and criticise conceptual art for excessive rationalisation and avoidance of physical sensuality.” Indeed, she’s best known for a series of videos and photographs of her sucking on a banana that have been removed from galleries for their apparent salaciousness, yet the works of hers featured here—PERMANENT MEASUREMENT OF EVERY 1 KM OF THE E22 MOTORWAY and PERMANENT MEASUREMENT OF TIME (both from 1970)—total less than three minutes combined and, as is suggested by their titles, include little in the way of fruit fellating. It seems LL and Ewa Partum, three of whose films conclude the program, are among the most famous of the artists included. Partum’s TV DRAWINGS (1976) is another entry in the long tradition of avant-garde film and video artists interacting with a television monitor as a means of confronting it. Partum draws directly on the screen, her illustrations either maiming or mocking the images on it; in an introduction to the program, Kuźmicz from Arton elucidates that it can also be read as a commentary on censorship during communism. In CHANGE. MY PROBLEM IS A PROBLEM OF A WOMAN we witness a performance during which half of Partum’s body is aged using make-up; the concept of aging is conveyed as the process it is, the results similarly hard won. Also included are Marcolla’s CAP (1975) and CAPRICE (1975); Singer’s FIGHT (1979), 50 KM/H (1978), and 13 SHOTS (1978); and Lemke-Konart’s PICTURES (1984), as well as various bonus features, including the introduction with Kuźmicz , a discussion with some of the artists, and the two additional RELATIVE SIMILARITIES. (105 min total) [Kathleen Sachs]
Francis Ford Coppola’s THE GODFATHER CODA: THE DEATH OF MICHAEL CORLEONE (US)
Available to rent on multiple platforms, including Amazon Prime, Google Play, iTunes, and Vudu
As he did with the unfairly maligned THE COTTON CLUB, auteur/movie-brat/winemaker Francis Ford Coppola has hit the editing room, re-worked another dogged-on jewel of his canon, THE GODFATHER: PART III, and retitled it MARIO PUZO’S THE GODFATHER CODA: THE DEATH OF MICHAEL CORLEONE. THE COTTON CLUB was initially uneven due to studio-head (and Las Vegas mob) tinkering, which removed the majority of the black characters’ storylines (on the grounds that they made the movie “too muddled”), along with many of the enrapturing musical numbers. On the other hand, the problems of THE GODFATHER: PART III were the result of slight re-structuring, rather than re-making. There are some who claim that GODFATHER: PART III was great the way it was, but that never stopped the masses from parroting a now basic quip that went something to the tune of, “The first two are great but the third… yikes.” Maybe for this reason did Francis Coppola feel it was time to try to wrest PART III out of the mires of failure. That’s admirable, but here's the thing: the new version is almost the same movie. THE COTTON CLUB benefitted from re-editing, with crucial scenes restored that effectively changed the experience. GODFATHER CODA (much like Coppola buddy Brian De Palma’s recent, overlooked RAISING CAIN re-cut) simply restructures the original film, with a slightly tweaked ending and a new opening scene (pulled from about 30 minutes into the original movie) involving Michael Corleone’s “legitimate” business with the Vatican. The re-positioning of the scene underscores the film’s theme of how corruption finds ways to transform and mutate. Case in point: Michael’s teen daughter Mary (Sofia Coppola) is put in charge of the “legitimate” wing of the organization. I suppose no one wanted to see THE GODFATHER’s characters in a late-80s setting. They also might not have been ready for Michael’s new haircut, softened demeanor, or his diabetic scene with a cardinal. But could there be a more fitting destination for Michael Corleone? Michael failed where his father succeeded—namely, in maintaining his family despite his criminal behavior. Michael murdered his brother Fredo, lost the love of his wife Kay and the respect of his son Tony, and has turned to his hot-headed, mildly psychotic nephew Vincent (Andy Garcia), Sonny's bastard son, to help maintain his empire. Where, in the past, the family’s deals were conducted “man to man,” now everything happens through lawyers, puppet bosses, and foundations—things Vito Corleone despised. GODFATHER: PART III moves away from the rich character development of the first two installments to the complexity of systems the characters inhabit. If much of the film feels procedural up until the show-stopping opera house climax, that may be by design; GODFATHER: PART III is a funerary waltz to the slow fate that Michael haphazardly called upon himself and his family. So what exactly has kept its reputation buried all these years? Was it Sofia Coppola’s performance, which underwent intense, unwarranted scrutiny from the press? Was it Andy Garcia’s? Was it due to the near-simultaneous release of GOODFELLAS, a film whose exhilarating energy contrasts heavily with GODFATHER III’s slowed rhythm and pensive attitude? Could it be because Coppola had already messed with the beloved series before? (The mashing together of all three films, THE GODFATHER LEGACY, not only served zero purpose, but severely hampered the brilliant dichotomy of character created by GODFATHER II’s generational cross-cutting.) Maybe it's because Coppola’s reputation never recovered from the “reckless auteur” branding brought on by his never-ending work on APOCALYPSE NOW, along with the mountain of debt and bad press created by ONE FROM THE HEART? GODFATHER III’s pared-down style seems tame compared with the fever dream imagery of RUMBLE FISH or the subtle camera-trickery of PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED, but it remains the rich, pensive work of a master. This new version of an already fine film provides another chance to appreciate its many strengths while shrugging off the dated criticisms surrounding it. (1990/2020, 157 min) [John Dickson]
Joseph Lerner’s GUILTY BYSTANDER (US)
Streams with a subscription to Amazon Prime or MUBI
Film noir is no stranger to miniscule budgets and convoluted plots. In my experience, however, GUILTY BYSTANDER takes these two staples of the genre to new extremes. This cheapie co-produced by Edmund L. Dorfmann Productions, an off-label if ever there was one, boasts a director with a short resume who seems to have had a real feel for realism and some rapport with his experienced cast. Shooting in New York City with his regular cinematographer, Gerald Hirschfeld, and a lenser of Westerns, Russell Harlan, Joseph Lerner establishes the seedy world through which his protagonist, Max Thursday (Zachary Scott), traverses looking for his 2-year-old son, who has disappeared along with his uncle (Dennis Patrick). We meet Max passed out on his bed in a flop house. His estranged wife, Georgia (Faye Emerson), rouses him out of his drunken stupor and implores him to find their son. Max is an ex-cop who made a big mistake and was ousted from the force. He tries to turn her down, but Georgia appeals to his paternal instincts and keeps him on the scent through a labyrinth of criminal associations and a growing number of dead bodies. Max is an interesting character. He started hitting the bottle when he lost his job and failed as an insurance salesman, husband, and father. Scott signals Max’s loss of self-respect through his faltering resolve, as every lead seems to be a dead end, increasing his fear of a worse failure than his previous ones. The flop house, run by Smitty (Mary Boland), is the kind of dusty, knickknack-strewn dump that may not have an address, and the shoddy construction that includes plywood doors on all of the one-room apartments only emphasizes the fragility of its inhabitants. Every location seems dark and provisional, and one scene of a gangland hit stacks up admirably against photos I’ve seen of the real thing. Among the performances, the most affecting character for me is Angel (Kay Medford, astonishing in a dramatic role), on the downside of youth and beauty whose tough, cynical behavior conceals a heart longing for love. She fairly ripped my heart out over the betrayals and rough treatment she suffers. Kudos also go to J. Edward Bromberg as a health-conscious gangster whose anger constantly spills over his borders. While the script by Don Ettlinger seems to throw reason to the wind, Lerner’s attention to detail is what really puts this underappreciated noir among the better films of the genre. (1950, 92 min) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Emerald Fennell’s PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN (US)
Available to rent on multiple platforms, including Amazon Prime, Google Play, and iTunes
PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN struck me personally in a lot of ways, but particularly in the theme that it’s so much easier to be angry on behalf of others than for myself and how hard it is to move forward from the trauma of sexual violence and abuse—that healing isn’t a straight line but circular with the hope that at least some progress is being made. The film is a dark comedy—dancing cleverly around both horror and rom-com—that also deals directly and takes seriously the horrors and aftermath of rape and assault. Cassie (an extraordinary Carey Mulligan) is a med school dropout, living with her parents and working at a local coffee shop. Every week she pretends to be drunk out at a bar or club, and every week a “nice guy” inevitably takes advantage. Catching them by surprise, Cassie terrifies them in an act of revenge for the rape of her childhood best friend and classmate, Nina. Cassie dropped out as a result and is fueled by anger at the way Nina was completely dismissed by friends and faculty alike. When she runs into the funny and charming Ryan (Bo Burnham), an old classmate, she’s legitimately interested. Ryan, however, keeps in touch with those involved in Nina’s assault and Cassie starts a new, aggressive mission to take them all down. She wrestles with continuing her plan for vengeance or letting it all go in order to move forward. Director Emerald Fennell gives the film an uncompromisingly feminine color palette and effervescent soundtrack which at times harshly juxtaposes the darkness of Cassie’s mission and her grappling with the past. The design reminded me of Joyce Chopra’s 1985 SMOOTH TALK, with its pastel colors contrasting the escalating horror of sexual assault, without at all feeling exploitative—they are both films about violence that aren’t graphically violent. PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN is by no means a perfect or complete depiction of sexual violence and the trauma of its aftermath, but it is empowering to see a film that plays with multiple genres while simultaneously bringing the topic unapologetically to the forefront with a shrewd script (also by Fennell) and great performances—including a slew of entertaining cameos. The film feels important, both because it leans into the dark reality of these topics but also shines a light on them—and, for me at least, it is cathartic to see these things so unswervingly tackled on screen. (2020, 114 min) [Megan Fariello]
SUPPORT LOCAL THEATERS AND SERIES
As we wait for conditions to improve to allow theaters to reopen, consider various ways that you can help support independent film exhibitors in Chicago weather this difficult time. Memberships, gift cards, and/or merchandise are available from the Gene Siskel Film Center, the Music Box Theatre, and Facets. Donations can be made to non-profit venues and organizations like Chicago Filmmakers, the Chicago Film Society, South Side Projections, and many of the film festivals. Online streaming partnerships with distributors are making films available through the Gene Siskel Film Center, the Music Box Theatre, and Facets; and Facets also has a subscription-based streaming service, FacetsEdge, that includes many exclusive titles.
COVID-19 UPDATES
Most independent, alternative, arthouse, grassroots, DIY, and university-based venues and several festivals continue to have suspended operations, are closed, or have cancelled/postponed events until further notice. Below is the most recent information we have, which we will update as new information becomes available.
Note that venues/series marked with an asterisk (*) are currently presenting or plan to do regular or occasional “virtual” online screenings.
CLOSED/POSTPONED/HIATUS:
Beverly Arts Center – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice
Block Cinema (Northwestern University) – Closed until further notice (see above for “virtual” online screenings)*
Chicago Film Society – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice*
Chicago Filmmakers – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice*
Comfort Film (at Comfort Station) – Programming cancelled until further notice
Conversations at the Edge (at the Gene Siskel Film Center) – The Fall 2020 online season has ended; plans for Spring 2021 not yet available
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Screenings cancelled until further notice
Facets Cinémathèque – Closed until further notice (see above for “virtual” online screenings)*
Film Studies Center (University of Chicago) – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice*
filmfront – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice
Gallery 400 (UIC)*
Gene Siskel Film Center – Closed until further notice (see above for “virtual” online screenings)*
Music Box Theatre – The Music Box has again suspended in-person screenings; it continues to present online-only screenings*
The Nightingale – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice
The Park Ridge Classic Film Series (at the Park Ridge Public Library) – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice
FESTIVALS:
Postponed with no announced plans yet:
The Cinepocalypse film festival (June) – Postponed with plans to reschedule at a future time
The Windy City Horrorama festival (April 24 - 26) – Cancelled; will possibly be rescheduled or reconfigured at a future date
The Chicago Critics Film Festival (May 1 - 7) – Postponed until further notice
CINE-LIST: January 22 - January 28, 2021
MANAGING EDITOR // Patrick Friel
ASSOCIATE EDITOR // Ben Sachs, Kat Sachs
CONTRIBUTORS // Cody Corrall, Kyle Cubr, John Dickson, Megan Fariello, Marilyn Ferdinand, Michael Frank, Tristan Johnson, Jonathan Leithold-Patt, Raphael Jose Martinez, Scott Pfeiffer, Michael Glover Smith, Brian Welesko