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
Valentyn Vasyanovych's ATLANTIS (Ukraine)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
Every now and again a film appears that gets compared to Andrei Tarkovsky’s classic STALKER. More often than not the comparisons are facile at best, using only the basic plot points as comparison—think 2018’s ANNIHILATION. But Valentyn Vasyanovych’s ATLANTIS falls so precisely into that slow cinema sci-fi micro-genre that it feels like it could be taking place in the same universe at STALKER. ATLANTIS is set in a near future Ukraine of 2025, where, after a prolonged war with Russia, the country, and its people, have been devastated. Serhiy is a former soldier with PTSD who loses his job as a smelter when the local works is closed due to automation. The world he once knew is so far in the past that it’s almost unrecognizable. Water now has to be shipped in. A giant wall is being built along the border. As he tries to cope with this new normal, Serhiy takes on a job exhuming corpses. Here he meets Katya, one of the rare individuals who can see past the immediate. Serhiy’s world in ATLANTIS has the same kind of meditative expanse as Tarkovsky’s STALKER and Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky’s WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES. It’s a sci-fi film only in that it presumes a near future; it could very well be in a contemporary setting—I can think of at least one American city that has lost its metalwork economy and requires bused-in drinking water. ATLANTIS has a poetic ugliness to it that is an absolute joy to revel in. The psychic devastation of a post-war society, resigned into submission of duty, is rendered nearly physical as we watch the quietly mundane pace of people’s lives. With nearly nothing left, the past literally becomes the future: the exhuming and examining of the dead has become one of the only reliable means of employment. Filmed with nearly all wide-angle stationary shots, the film immerses us as voyeurs in this world. We have no choice but to examine everything, including ourselves. Vasyanovych’s framing both creates a sense of claustrophobia with its tight borders and a pronounced sense of agoraphobia, from an inescapable emptiness that threatens to go on forever. Despite its darkness, ATLANTIS is a gorgeous film, and a must see for anyone interested in slow cinema, speculative sci-fi, or explorations of existentialism. As the official Ukrainian entry for the 2021 Academy Awards, I very much hope this becomes Ukraine’s first ever film nominated for Best International Feature Film. (2019, 106 min) [Raphael Jose Martinez]
Stéphanie Chuat’s and Véronique Reymond’s MY LITTLE SISTER (Germany)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
Through and through, Stéphanie Chuat’s and Véronique Reymond’s MY LITTLE SISTER is about the twin pairing of Lisa (Nina Hoss) and Sven (Lars Eidinger). Born two minutes prior, Sven is battling a brutal bout of leukemia, though the majority of the film exists to service Lisa’s journey. More often than not, the writer-director duo focus on this younger sister, mom of two, and dutiful wife to her private-school-running husband. Once a playwright, Lisa serves others throughout this German drama, showing her willingness to compromise, to care, and, finally, to drop everything to live solely for her dying brother and her family’s well-being. MY LITTLE SISTER hits a familiar rhythm in its depiction of cancer within the family, complete with marital fights, relapses, and one wild night in which Sven is able to let loose, despite the obvious repercussions. Still, the film strikes a chord, as Hoss gives a gut-wrenching, full-body performance, causing the emotion to well up inside of you, even if you know it might not be wholly warranted. MY LITTLE SISTER remains compelling due to the strength of its performances and the sheer emotional punch it has the ability to produce, especially if, as many of us do, you have seen the pained depths that cancer can instill into a once-healthy person. (2020, 99 min) [Michael Frank]
Tom Noonan’s WHAT HAPPENED WAS… (US)
Available to rent through Facets Cinémathèque here
Filmmakers had drawn on stage plays for inspiration for as long as movies have existed, but the success of films like HOUSE OF GAMES and SWIMMING TO CAMBODIA (both 1987) signaled the rise of a particular kind of theatrical cinema that would remain in vogue in the U.S. for at least a decade. In their 1990s work, writer-directors Whit Stillman, Hal Hartley, and Neil LaBute (to name some of the most popular of this trend) foregrounded language over mise-en-scene—or, more appropriately, they made language part of the mise-en-scene, with the visual style and even the arrangement of physical space seeming to grow out of how the characters talked. WHAT HAPPENED WAS…, the first feature written and directed by character actor Tom Noonan (who adapted his own stage play), certainly belongs to this wave of American indie cinema; at the same time, its most likely theatrical reference points—the quasi-absurdist dramas of Harold Pinter and Edward Albee—come from three or four decades earlier. Like certain Pinter and Albee plays, WHAT HAPPENED WAS… teeters at the edge of realism; the film is exacting in its depiction of some things (middle-class banality, certain ways of speech), but eerily vague in other areas. It’s often unclear whether the characters are lying or telling the truth; to further complicate matters, it’s often unclear if the characters know the difference themselves. The film unfolds more or less in real time as two single, middle-aged co-workers, Michael (Noonan) and Jackie (Karen Sillas), have dinner at the latter’s apartment. What begins as a portrait of urban lonelyhearts mutates into something richer and stranger, as the characters get lost in the stories they tell to each other and themselves. WHAT HAPPENED WAS… displays a lot of visual invention for a movie that takes place in a single apartment; Noonan executes deft camera movements, stark lighting, and a snappy montage that respects the rhythm of the dialogue. Still, it’s the film’s tone that leaves the most lasting impression. Noonan has always been a distinctive onscreen presence (as anyone who’s seen MANHUNTER can attest), his soft voice and lanky gait suggesting a looming force that’s too close for comfort. WHAT HAPPENED WAS… advances a worldview in keeping with that presence. (1994, 91 min) [Ben Sachs]
Amjad Abu Alala’s YOU WILL DIE AT TWENTY (Sudan)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
Stunning from its opening shot, YOU WILL DIE AT TWENTY is a fully realized, flowing visual examination of faith and mourning life before it’s fully lived. Set in a small Sudanese village on the Nile, the film was the winner of Lion of the Future Award at the Venice Film Festival and is Sudan’s first-ever Oscar submission. After being told by a Sheikh that her newborn son will die before he reaches age twenty, Sakina (Islam Mubarak) shelters the boy throughout his life, protecting what little time he has left—his father (Talal Afifi), takes off immediately, unable to cope with the anticipation of death. Muzamil (Mustafa Shehata), grows up fully aware of his predicted fate and, like his mother, is preoccupied by the knowledge that he’ll die young. As he reaches closer to twenty, however, Muzamil begins to question both his belief in the prophecy and his faith in general, prompted by those in his life who are unconvinced, including his frustrated childhood sweetheart (Bunna Khalid) and a local (Mahmoud Maysara Elsarraj) who’s back from spending years travelling abroad. Individual shots are strikingly composed, as director Amjad Abu Alala contrasts the beige, rocky, static spaces of the village with mindful, colorful movement of life, including people, wind, and water; in addition, sounds of life—breath, heartbeat, and even the recurrence of a buzzing fly—all work subtly yet effectively to reflect Muzamil’s strange position as a young person expecting death. The remarkable and sometimes dreamlike visuals are complimented by a series of earnest performances, particularly by Mubarak as a mother mourning her son his whole life. The film does miss some opportunities in its more grounded moments to directly speak to suggested themes surrounding the political backdrop and even sexual abuse—a few scenes stand out as completely unaddressed, but particularly unsettling is one towards the end between Muzamil and an older woman. Overall, however, YOU WILL DIE AT TWENTY artistically threads its themes on life and death through both its gorgeous visuals and thoughtful performances. (2019, 102 min) [Megan Fariello]
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
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]
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]
David Osit’s MAYOR (US/UK/Documentary)
Available to 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]
Lili Horvát's PREPARATIONS TO BE TOGETHER FOR AN UNKNOWN PERIOD OF TIME (Hungary)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
Feeling middle age encroaching, brilliant neurosurgeon Dr. Marta Vizy (Natasa Stork) returns to her native Budapest after 20 years of practicing in America. Dr. Janos Drexler (Viktor Bodo), a visionary in her field, is the man she met a month earlier at a conference in New Jersey; as she recalls, they arranged a rendezvous at her favorite bridge back home. Yet at their next encounter Janos claims not to know her, and Marta begins to wonder if she wanted love so badly she dreamed up the whole thing. Lili Horvát wrote and directed this intriguing, poignant story about loneliness and tricks of perception. Her well-made film is worth a look for its sensitively handled treatment of love’s dark, obsessive, potentially destructive side. Horvát keeps Marta framed closely as she glides through the city in cabs and trams, and Stork gives her a shaky self-possession, a secretive expression encompassing Marta’s angst and hope. (2020, 95 min) [Scott Pfeiffer]
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]
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]
Lance Oppenheim’s SOME KIND OF HEAVEN (US/Documentary)
Available to rent through 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]
LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS – Also Screening/Streaming
Video Data Bank
The Video Data Bank presents Zach Blas’ 2016 experimental short CONTRA-INTERNET INVERSION PRACTICE #3: MODELING PARANODAL SPACE (3 min). No ending date listed. Viewable here.
Facets Cinémathèque
Sam Soko’s 2020 Kenyan documentary SOFTIE (96 min) and Lynne Sachs’ 2020 documentary A FILM ABOUT A FATHER WHO (74 min) are both available for rent beginning this week. 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
Dzintars Dreibergs’ 2019 Latvian film BLIZZARD OF SOULS (123 min) and Naomi Kawase’s 2020 Japanese film TRUE MOTHERS (140 min) are all available for rent beginning this week.
ADDITIONAL ONLINE SCREENINGS
Joan Micklin Silver’s BERNICE BOBS HER HAIR (US)
Streaming for free on Kanopy through participating libraries with your library card; also available to rent or stream (with subscription) on Amazon Prime and Apple TV
BERNICE BOBS HER HAIR, in keeping with many of the great works by the late Joan Micklin Silver—who died in December at age 85—is a sharply observant comedy that leaves a bitter aftertaste. An adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s flapper-era short story, which first appeared in The Saturday Evening Post in 1920, the movie presents Bernice (Shelley Duvall), a socially stiff Wisconsinite, as she visits her supremely confident cousin Marjorie (Veronica Cartwright) for the summer. Like the Carol Kane heroine of Silver’s HESTER STREET (1975), about Jewish immigrants settling on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Bernice is a visitor, noticeably uncomfortable with the customs and machinations of her newfound realm—all Ivy League suitors and country-club dances. Desperate to fit in, Bernice asks Marjorie to take her under her wing, and the latter grudgingly obliges with a breathtaking crash course in style, tone, conversation, and appearance. But as Bernice’s updated mannerisms and bold declaration that she plans to bob her hair win the enthusiasm of Marjorie’s competitive orbit, the cousins’ mentor-mentee relationship morphs into a cutthroat rivalry. Silver generously rounds out this core tension with a cross section of amusingly etched peripheral players: the bespectacled minister-in-training Draycott Deyo (Patrick Reynolds), who loathes dancing, and the self-serious Warren McIntyre (Bud Cort), home for the season from Yale. Far from straightforwardly adapting Fitzgerald’s story, Silver grandly accentuates certain themes of performance—mirrors are a dominant presence—and articulates the contradiction of a budding generation that views itself as enlightened and progressive while still placing enormous, superficial burdens on women. The climactic sequence, in which Bernice follows through on her barbershop proclamation, is a grueling portrait of communal ostracization in real time, as Silver and editor Ralph Rosenblum bluntly survey the shocked expressions of the lookers-on—the very people who encouraged Bernice’s makeover to begin with, and who will just as soon desert her entirely. (1976, 45 min) [Danny King]
Keith Gordon’s WAKING THE DEAD (US/Canada)
Available to rent from Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, FandangoNOW, Vudu, and RedBox
Writer Joyce Carol Oates called Scott Spencer “the poet-celebrant of Eros.” As someone whose memory of his highly sensuous prose and love-mad teenagers is as vivid as it is some 30+ years after reading Endless Love, I find his elegant explorations into the depths of romantic love and obsession to be nearly without peer. Even after two tries, Spencer’s celebrated vision of teen love still hasn’t gotten the screen version it deserves, but his 1986 novel Waking the Dead is another matter. With WAKING THE DEAD, director Keith Gordon must navigate emotional commitments both personal and universal. In the process, he gives us a much larger picture of what it means to be a good person than most films care to approach. The opening sequence immediately announces the field of action on which Fielding Pierce (Billy Crudup) has been sparring with his girlfriend, Sarah Williams (Jennifer Connelly). Fielding watches the TV news in mounting horror as a report about a car bomb that killed two Chilean dissidents touring in Minnesota mentions that an American activist from Chicago was also killed in the blast. Sarah’s picture flashes on the screen, doubling the one on display near the television. Fielding squeezes his head as though to keep his skull from exploding and shrieks in jagged despair. From this point, the film toggles between 1972 through 1974, the two tempestuous years of their love, and 1984, when Fielding has taken his seat in the U.S. Congress. Fielding and Sarah first meet at the office of his brother Danny (Paul Hipp), a counterculture publisher. Fielding’s attraction to her is immediate. When he asks her to dinner, she is a bit put off by his U.S. Coast Guard uniform, but agrees. At dinner, Sarah tells him she was educated at a Catholic convent school and is a committed activist for human rights. Fielding enlisted in the Coast Guard to build his resume as a patriot who has served his country; he intends to become a U.S. senator, though he confides to Sarah that he’d really like to be president. Fielding walks Sarah home, but she resists kissing him good night; however, moments after she enters her apartment, she opens her window and throws her keys down to him. Despite their unlikely pairing, their affair becomes a grand passion. Leaving aside the chemistry between Fielding and Sarah, there is a sounder basis for their relationship. Both are dedicated to making the world a better place in part because of their early training. Fielding comes from a working-class family; his parents gave him a patrician name to match their hopes for his social mobility. His own observations of the needs of ordinary Americans drive him to become their representative in the halls of power. Sarah’s Catholic upbringing set her up for a life of service—indeed, she had ambitions to become a nun until puberty struck. When the pair met, American involvement in the Vietnam War was winding down and the Watergate scandal was about to surface, leading to massive disillusionment and the widespread radicalization of youths like Sarah. At another point in time, she might have welcomed Fielding’s ambition to reform the system from within, but her distrust of conventional solutions brings her into regular conflict with Fielding, who longs for her to choose him over her activism. Years after Sarah’s death, when Fielding is running for Congress, he starts seeing Sarah everywhere. Has he finished grieving? Is Sarah the “Jiminy Cricket” on his shoulder to keep him in line as he ascends the staircase of influence? Is she alive? What is great about WAKING THE DEAD is that it places the mystery of love ahead of the mundane whodunit of Sarah’s fate. In Spencer’s world, the intensity of the feelings Fielding and Sarah shared transcend the grave. The sticking point between Sarah and Fielding is a greater love than what they feel for each other—the love of humanity that Sarah ultimately chooses over the private happiness she has with Fielding. The script by Robert Dillon, which preserves some of the best of Spencer’s writing, is smart and literate, but this film could have been little more than a hectoring indictment of boomers if not for Jennifer Connelly. She hits every note, utterly convincing in her commitment to her cause and to Fielding, acting both completely vulnerable and strong with determination. Crudup nearly matches her, but he is somewhat hampered by having to portray a shallower individual. Still, in their final scene together, tellingly, nothing but tears and touches pass between them, a sign of Fielding’s growth through great pain. This film, though fairly conventional in its attitudes, can awaken the romantic in all of us, but especially those of us who have lived through heady times and loved with all our hearts. (2000, 105 min) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
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 29 - February 4, 2021
MANAGING EDITOR // Patrick Friel
ASSOCIATE EDITOR // Ben Sachs, Kat Sachs
CONTRIBUTORS // Megan Fariello, Marilyn Ferdinand, Michael Frank, Danny King, Raphael Jose Martinez, Scott Pfeiffer, Michael Glover Smith