We will highlight physical screenings at the top of the list for theaters and venues that are open, grouped in our standard Crucial Viewing and Also Recommended sections, as well as all other physical screenings, and list streaming/online screenings below.
Please note: With an uptick of Covid cases, remember to check the venue websites for information on safety protocols and other procedures put in place. All venues are now requiring proof of vaccination or a negative PCR test. We recommend verifying those protocols before every trip to the theater. And, of course, stay home if you’re sick, be nice to theater staff, and always wear a mask!
🔊 CINE-CAST: The Cine-File Podcast
Episode #22
In anticipation of the Highs and Lows series starting this Saturday at the Music Box (which comprises eight double features of a “lowbrow” movie paired with an art film), Cine-File editors Ben and Kat Sachs talk high and low cinema with series programmers Will Morris and John Dickson (who's also a Cine-File contributor). The discussion topics range from Robert Bresson to '90s teen comedies, with considerations along the way of critic Robin Wood, programmer Henri Langlois, and the 1980s work of Francis Ford Coppola. Things get a little wild. 🙃 The introductory theme is by local film composer Ben Van Vlissingen.
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Listen to the Cine-Cast here!
🔥 HIGHS AND LOWS AT THE MUSIC BOX
Through Thursday, March 10, Oscarbate and Hollywood Entertainment present Highs and Lows at the Music Box Theatre. Below are reviews of select films playing in the series, which includes several double features of “high” and “low” cinema. In addition to the below film pairings is Maurice Pialat’s 1978 French film GRADUATE FIRST (86 min, 35mm) and Paul Weitz’s 1999 American film AMERICAN PIE (96 min, 35mm) on Saturday at 2pm. One admission admits you to both films. More info here.
Francis Ford Coppola’s PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED (US)
Sunday, 2pm
PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED is a familiar film from both a contemporary perspective and from a 1986 perspective, as it came out amidst a trend of similarly themed movies (such as the 1985 blockbuster BACK TO THE FUTURE); it’s also part of a larger '80s cultural fascination with revisiting mid-century America. At the start of the film, Peggy (Kathleen Turner) is attending her 25th high school reunion with her daughter instead of her philandering husband Charlie (Nicolas Cage), once her childhood sweetheart. She faints when the pressure of the event becomes too much, then wakes up twenty-five years younger, back in high school with a chance to do things differently. The plot successfully balances lightheartedness with dark melancholy about regret and longing; the most emotional moments of PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED are driven by the heroine's interactions with those she’s lost over the years, especially her grandparents. While there are obvious jokes about “look how times have changed!”, the film is more about change—and constancy—on a personal scale. It's held together by Turner’s playful and sincere performance as Peggy, who exhibits self-awareness and determination from the beginning. The supporting cast includes, among many recognizable faces, Joan Allen, Jim Carrey, and Helen Hunt. Standing out, unsurprisingly, is Cage, whose acting choices as teenage Charlie are wholly wild, not least is the squeaky voice he uses throughout; while his performance infamously prompted pushback from production and fellow actors alike, it somehow totally works. (1986, 103 min, 35mm) [Megan Fariello]
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Screening before Martin Scorsese’s THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (1988, 163 min, 35mm).
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Peter Farrelly's DUMB AND DUMBER (US)
Tuesday, 7pm
A happy couple walks through the snow together. The woman playfully throws a bit of snow at the man. The man's face drops and becomes stern. He hard-packs a snowball. The woman smiles: unaware, adoring, joyful. The man whips a snowball directly into her face. This is a great moment in the history of cinema. It's primal, perfect, crystalline. The music, the performance, the camera, and the editing all work in harmony. It's as graceful as Fred Astaire's "Drum Crazy" performance in EASTER PARADE. It's as forceful as the sequence on the Odessa Steps. Also, right before this scene, Jeff Daniels puts the carrot and two lumps of coal as a snowman's dick and balls instead of his nose and eyes. (1994, 107 min, 35mm) [JB Mabe]
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Screening before Alfonso Cuarón's Y TU MAMÁ TAMBIÉN (2001, 106 min, 35mm).
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Robert Bresson’s MOUCHETTE (France) and Patrick Read Johnson’s ANGUS (US)
Thursday, 7pm
MOUCHETTE (1967, 81 min, 35mm) marks a critical turning point in Robert Bresson's monumental career. Made immediately after what is arguably his greatest achievement, AU HASARD BALTHAZAR (1966), the film finds Bresson shifting his thematic focus from transcendence to damnation; he’d go on to plumb the depths of this latter subject until he reached the apocalyptic endpoint of his final film, L’ARGENT (1983). MOUCHETTE still shows strong ties to the director’s previous work. Like DIARY OF A COUNTRY PRIEST (1951), it’s based on a novel by “Catholic realist” Georges Bernanos (whose family had been asking Bresson to adapt his 1937 book Nouvelle histoire de Mouchette for over a decade), and like the eight films Bresson made before it, it’s in black and white (Bresson’s subsequent five films, on the other hand, are all in color). MOUCHETTE reflects the same intensity as all of Bresson’s movies; what’s different vis-à-vis the preceding ones is that there are no spiritual implications to the suffering here. The title character—a 14-year-old peasant girl whose mother is dying of a painful terminal illness and whose alcoholic father is alternately neglectful and abusive—undergoes a steady progression of humiliations, though she gains neither wisdom nor beatitude as a result (at least Bresson didn’t think so, per interviews he gave during the making of the film). All she seems to gain is a resolute defiance toward the mean and spiteful people around her, and as the film’s unforgettable conclusion makes clear, to live with defiance as your primary consolation is to embark on a literal dead end. In no other film does Bresson’s rigorous aesthetic feel as punishing as it does in MOUCHETTE; the director’s strict formal rules (filming every shot with the same lens, instructing his “models” to deliver the dialogue with no overt emotion, presenting details whenever possible through offscreen sound effects rather than onscreen imagery, etc.) seem to reinforce the unrelenting brutality of the heroine’s world. But Bresson believed above all in complexity; the moments of levity and tenderness in MOUCHETTE add fascinating layers to the work, demonstrating that the director had more on his mind than just wallowing in cruelty. The ending notwithstanding, it is undoubtedly one of the most powerful films about the resilience of children. The largely forgotten teen comedy ANGUS (1995, 90 min, 35mm) may not inspire such superlatives, but for an American studio film of the 1990s, it’s remarkably honest about the harmful effects of bullying, and its sympathetic vibe is irresistible. The title character is a high school freshman who’s been picked on all his life because of his weight. In a move out of CARRIE, Angus’ classmates elect him king of the upcoming winter dance as a mean joke, but, drawing inspiration from his iconoclastic grandfather (a surprisingly committed George C. Scott), the boy determines not to be humiliated at the dance and learns to stand up for himself. Director Patrick Read Johnson, perhaps taking a page from Bresson, cast in the lead someone with no previous film experience, Kenosha native Charlie Talbert, whom he discovered at a Wendy’s in Lake Forest, Illinois. Talbert certainly projects more emotion than any of the people in Bresson’s films; still, he exhibits an authentic Midwestern ordinariness that cannot be directed, only found. Talbert's greenness in front of the camera (especially when acting alongside such accomplished thespians as Scott and Kathy Bates, who plays his mom) adds to the characterization of Angus as a lovable underdog. I don't know whether he actually developed a friendship with Chris Owens, who plays his socially graceless best friend, but the two young men develop a sometimes obnoxious, but generally winning rapport that's true to the behavior of 14-year-old boys. On the whole, ANGUS excels at dramatizing the transitional period between childhood and adolescence, when kids start to shed immature behaviors and take on new responsibilities. The film's most respectable achievement is its suggestion that standing up to bullies is a responsibility every self-respecting individual should assume. [Ben Sachs]
📽️ CRUCIAL VIEWING
Kazuo Kuroki’s LA NOVIA DE CUBA (Japan/Cuba)
Film Studies Center (at the Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St., University of Chicago) – Friday, 7pm [Free Admission]
Among the cinematic new waves that sprung up around the world in the 1960s, the Japanese New Wave produced an interesting variety of filmmakers, centering around Japan’s Art Theatre Guild, a distribution company that eventually got into the production business. Among the more famous Japanese New Wave directors—Shōhei Imamura, Nagisa Oshima, Seijun Suzuki, and Hiroshi Teshigahara—was Kazuo Kuroki. Kuroki started off making promotional films and documentaries and soon became associated with the so-called Blue Group, which hoped to revolutionize the form and content of documentaries. If it can be said that there is a perfect Blue Group movie, it might just be LA NOVIA DE CUBA, a black-and-white, Japanese-Cuban co-production. Kuroki, who edited the film and co-wrote the script with three other Japanese screenwriters, folds his narrative of Akira (Masahiko Tsugawa), a Japanese sailor on vacation in Cuba, into a semi-documentary of daily life on the island as the inhabitants prepare to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the communist overthrow of the authoritarian Batista regime. A strange love story anchors Akira’s movements, as he becomes smitten with a young Cuban woman named Marcia (Obdulia Plasencia) and follows her wherever she goes. The enigmatic Marcia leads Akira to the Bay of Pigs, where she dons military attire and drills with other revolutionary soldiers. Collective farming gets a brief chapter when Marcia and Akira join the farm workers cutting sugar cane and loading it into trucks. In Santiago de Cuba, Marcia gives Akira the slip, and he chats up an 18-year-old Black Cuban named Gloria (Gloria Lee) and has dinner with her family. Remembering that Marcia said she could see Morro Castle from her mother’s home, Akira ventures to this symbol of colonial rule and reunites with Marcia, only to learn the tragic story of her family and why she is such a dedicated revolutionary. LA NOVIA DE CUBA, artfully shot by Tatsuo Suzuki, avoids the semblance of a travelog by capturing the beauty of the people, the city streets and country roads, and the beaches and shoreline. Kuroki intercuts the film with speeches by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, the latter of whom had been killed in Bolivia just three months before filming began. Images of the martyred leader, as well as billboards that decry U.S. involvement in Vietnam, form an intermittent backdrop for the action onscreen. Kuroki also inserts Marcia’s memories of armed conflict, which he titles “Marcia’s Testimony,” offering a rarely seen Cuban view of the nation’s history and current prospects that eschews both demonization by the United States and paternalism by the Soviet Union. Tsugawa, a handsome man who plays a horny jerk for most of the film, may be a stand-in for the director himself. When Marcia calls him a counter-revolutionary and too soft to be a fighter, her sentiments might be giving voice to Kuroki’s reported self-reproach for failing to help his countrymen and women who were bombed during World War II. This very rare screening of a near-pristine print of LA NOVIA DE CUBA from the National Film Archive of Japan should not be missed. (1969, 98 min, 35mm) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Haile Gerima’s WILMINGTON 10 – USA 10,000 (US/Documentary)
Block Cinema (at Northwestern University) – Friday, 7pm [Free Admission]
Chicagoans now have the opportunity to see the Academy Film Archives’ new restoration of Gerima’s rarely screened masterpiece, his third feature (after BUSH MAMA and HARVEST: 3,000 YEARS, both made in 1976) and also his first documentary. Centered on the Wilmington 10, a group of nine young men and one woman in Wilmington, North Carolina, who were wrongfully accused of arson on a local grocery store, the documentary probes the group of political prisoners vis-à-vis testimonies and remembrances from their families and other community members. Gerima’s technique is provocative in its unfettered approach. Parts of the film are essayistic, with an almost New Wave-ish quality in Gerima’s use of archival images and footage; mostly, though, it features interviews with subjects on the perimeter of the 1971 conspiracy against the titular group. Mostly older people, including the parents and relatives of the accused, ruminate on the situation. Learned wisdom around the societal landscape that resulted in their marginalization is expressed poignantly, albeit in a casual way that belies how this has become an accepted part of their reality. “I told my crew, ‘I’m not interested in young revolutionaries, because I don’t know what they’ll become tomorrow,’” Gerima said in a 2021 interview with MUBI. “I wanted to know who bred them, who are the parents behind these people?” In doing so, he found “philosophers among them,” an apt estimation of their sagacious intellect. Sometimes these sequences are shot in a standard way befitting a documentary; sometimes Gerima shoots them from audacious viewpoints, such as across the street from a couple sitting on their porch. His subversion of the documentary mode emphasizes the subversion of the film’s subjects, for whom sitting in front of their home, being viewable from across the way, is a revolutionary act. Gerima also avoids identifying these figures until the end, eschewing the tradition of assigning labels—and therefore importance—with on-screen intertitles. Gerima was also able to interview Assata Shakur in prison the same year she escaped. Walter Cronkite and various news stations offered him lots of money for the footage; he refused. This footage is awe-inspiring but no more so than that of the other, less widely recognized participants, one of whose remarks gave the film its name. Their insights transcend the injustice in question; in going beyond his purported subjects, whose convictions were overturned and who were later pardoned, Gerima made a living manifesto that's ripe for reevaluation. (1979, 120 min, 4K digital restoration) [Kat Sachs]
Mia Hansen-Løve’s ALL IS FORGIVEN (France)
Facets Cinema – See Venue website for showtimes
There’s a great 1993 episode of the long-running French TV series Cinéma de Notre Temps about André Téchiné in which the critic-turned-filmmaker speaks with near embarrassment about his cinephilia. He confesses that one reason he makes movies is to better understand other people, whom he had long neglected in favor of studying cinema. Téchiné seems to have identified the psychological impulse behind a good deal of post-’60s French filmmaking, which has distanced itself from the influence of the Nouvelle Vague by finding reference points not in other movies, but rather in life itself. Ironically, the best filmmakers to have worked in this mode have always made intensely cinematic movies. The work of Téchiné, Maurice Pialat, and Mia Hansen-Løve (to name three personal favorites) experiment with bold and idiosyncratic ways to communicate lived experience through the tools of their particular medium. To cite one powerful example, Hansen-Løve (who started writing for Cahiers du cinéma as a teenager and directed her first feature, ALL IS FORGIVEN, at 25) and her regular editor, Marion Monnier, like to cut the beginnings and ends off of scenes so as to create a continuous dramatic flow, with no downtime between events. The goal, the director has said, is to reflect “the rhythm of life, not the rhythm of movies.” This approach to editing dovetails with Hansen-Løve's unpredictable choices about what she chooses to dramatize, devoting rapturous passages to relatively mundane moments in her characters’ lives and leaving important events offscreen. A straightforward synopsis of ALL IS FORGIVEN might make it sound like any number of naturalistic dramas, yet whenever it starts to feel familiar, Hansen-Løve and Monnier execute some deft narrative leap, whether to consider the story from a different character’s perspective or move the events forward in time. For roughly its first half, ALL IS FORGIVEN centers on Victor, a self-absorbed aspiring writer, as he slides into drug addiction. The filmmakers regard this character—all their characters—with empathy, presenting his addiction through a rather engrossing montage that catalogs the little things he does to fill time when he's not doing drugs. But as any recovering addict will tell you, the satisfaction doesn’t last, and the film is appropriately sobering when it cuts away from Victor to show how his actions have hurt other people. ALL IS FORGIVEN takes this decentralized approach even further in the second half, when it jumps 11 years into the future and shifts focus from Victor to his daughter Pamela, now a teenager who hasn’t seen her father since her mother walked out on him at the end of the first part. What ensues is not the straightforward redemption drama you might expect from the title, but instead an elusive, tonally complicated film that proceeds according to the staggered process of psychological healing. In this way, it feels like the film itself is a living thing. (2007, 100 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
Takashi Miike’s THE BIRD PEOPLE IN CHINA (Japan)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Thursday, 9:30pm
***Note: This screening was rescheduled from last week and the week before that. Please check Doc’s website to verify the screening is still happening.
Among the world’s most renowned directors, Takashi Miike is not only one of the most prolific, but also one of the most unpredictable. While he may be best known for his ultraviolence and crime films, he has produced everything from science fiction films (TERRA FORMARS [2016]) and fantasies (YATTÂMAN [2009]) to the almost undefinable horror musical THE HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS (2001). Miike himself has traced the varied cinematic opportunities he has tackled to THE BIRD PEOPLE IN CHINA, a film he took over from another producer who just couldn’t get it done. The magical story of a Japanese businessman and a yakuza who go deep into an undeveloped region of Yun Nan Province in search of high-quality jade is based on a book by Makoto Shiina, a serious novelist and essayist who has said that he writes fantasy and science fiction to refresh himself and his imagination. The idea of trying something new in a new country appealed to Miike, and he threw himself into the difficult shoot. Masahiro Motoki plays Wada, the young salaryman who is a last-minute substitute for this geological expedition when the original project manager ends up in the hospital (possibly by design). As Wada starts on his way to the “jade village,” Ujiie (Renji Ishibashi) accosts him and attaches himself to the project to protect the financial interests of the yakuza gang that loaned a large sum of money to Wada’s company. The trip to the village is arduous for Wada and Ujiie, but absolutely hilarious to watch. Their guide and translator, Shen (Mako), takes them over pitted roads in motorized wrecks, up mountain trails on foot, and finally, to a river they must negotiate on a raft pulled upstream by a team of river turtles. Once they reach the village, Wada and especially Ujiie are spellbound by the spectacular scenery and the flying class a young woman (Li Li Wang) conducts for the village youngsters, who strap homemade wings to their arms and flap through the verdant fields. The two men settle into the village, and Ujiie starts to undergo a radical change. When Wada prepares to return to Japan, Ujiie becomes the unlikely champion for rejecting capitalism and preserving the natural environment and the traditional lives of the people. Cinematographer Hideo Yamamoto seduces the audience with images that recall Fan Kuan’s “Travelers Among Mountains and Streams.” A wonderful score by Kôji Endô has a contemporary feel that unites the traditional with the modernizing Chinese society. The origin of the “bird people” of Yun Nan is a wonderful surprise I wouldn’t dream of spoiling. Suffice to say that I’ll never hear the Scottish folk song “Annie Laurie” again without thinking of THE BIRD PEOPLE IN CHINA. Screening as part of Doc’s second Thursday night series: No Love in Your Violence: A Takashi Miike Retrospective. (1998, 118 min, 35mm) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Howard Hawks’ FAZIL (US/Silent)
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King Vidor’s HALLELUJAH (US)
Chicago Film Society at the Music Box Theatre – Saturday, 11:30am /
Chicago Film Society at Northeastern Illinois University (The Auditorium, Building E, 3701 W. Bryn Mawr Ave.) – Wednesday, 7:30pm
This week, the Chicago Film Society spotlights an important transitional period in movie history, when cinema went from being a silent medium to one with sound. The programming reflects both sides of the transition, with one film made before the introduction of sound and one made just after. FAZIL (1928, 75 min 16mm) comes from the end of the first period, with production having wrapped in August 1927, a few months before the release of THE JAZZ SINGER. The film was made on the cusp of another important development: the following year, director Howard Hawks would make A GIRL IN EVERY PORT, which many scholars consider his first truly characteristic film. Hawks fans should be fascinated, then, by the seemingly uncharacteristic FAZIL, which CFS programmer (and sometime Cine-File contributor) K.A. Westphal describes as a parody of Rudolph Valentino vehicles. Charles Farrell plays the title character, an Arabian potentate who moves to Paris after he marries a French socialite played by Greta Nissen. Presumably, humorous cultural clashes ensue. As evidenced by TWENTIETH CENTURY, BRINGING UP BABY, HIS GIRL FRIDAY, MONKEY BUSINESS, and GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES, Hawks was one of greatest comedy directors in American movies, advancing a breakneck pace and eliciting incredible ensemble work from his actors. It should be interesting to see whether these qualities were evident before Hawks embarked on his groundbreaking work with overlapping dialogue. King Vidor’s first sound film, HALLELUJAH (1929, 100 min, 35mm), was groundbreaking in its own right, not only for being one of the first Hollywood productions to feature an all-Black cast, but for its complicated approach to cinematic realism—it was shot mostly on location, but the soundtrack was recorded entirely in a studio. These achievements are characteristic of Vidor, one of the most versatile and eccentric of major American directors. A born pioneer and a born salesman, Vidor first came to Hollywood from Galveston, Texas; he shot footage of regional American life on his drive across the Southwest, then promptly sold it to a newsreel company when he got to town, effectively beginning his career as a filmmaker. HALLELUJAH practically owes its existence to Vidor’s salesmanship; according to legend, he had wanted to make the movie for years, but only convinced MGM executives to finance it when sound came along and he decided to turn the film into a musical. The director’s interest in novelty paid off, because the music of HALLELUJAH is one of the best parts about it, an exciting mix of spirituals, jazz, and show tunes (with two numbers written by Irving Berlin). The story is an explicitly Christian morality play about a sharecropper who falls in with bad company before redeeming his soul and reinventing himself as a preacher. Vidor ameliorates the starkly conceived drama with vibrant images of Tennessee and Arkansas locations as well as a sharp journalistic eye; an early sequence depicting the inner workings of the cotton industry would be compelling as a stand-alone documentary short. As one might expect of a film about Black characters made by white filmmakers in 1929, HALLELUJAH reflects some outmoded ideas, namely in its characterization of Black people as either all good or all bad. Still, the movie stands tall as an early example of technological innovation in the movie musical. FAZIL will be preceded by the 1929 Laurel and Hardy short BACON GRABBERS (20 min, 16mm); HALLELUJAH will be preceded by the 1932 Nina Mae McKinney short PIE, PIE, BLACKBIRD (11 min, 16mm). [Ben Sachs]
Margaret Byrne’s ANY GIVEN DAY (US/Documentary)
Chicago Filmmakers – Saturday, 7pm
For me, the most difficult part about having a mental illness is not the low periods themselves, but the anticipation of those descents when things are generally going well. At some point it becomes a learned anxiety, dreading the inevitable downturns that follow weeks, months, and even years of relative contentment. This is further compacted by such factors as addiction and socioeconomic misfortune; I’ve been privileged not to experience these things, but many people with mental illnesses do. With her 2016 documentary RAISING BERTIE (produced by Kartemquin Films), Margaret Byrne distinguished herself as a likely successor to KTQ’s own Steve James in how she interacted with and subsequently documented a marginalized community; with her second feature-length documentary, ANY GIVEN DAY, Byrne solidifies that connection. She comes into her own as a non-fiction filmmaker adept at blending the stuff of documentary with distinctly personal elements, which uplift the content above just facts. But the facts are certainly harrowing: Byrne focuses on three people, all of whom had recently been in jail because of crimes committed in the throes of their respective mental illnesses. Each subject also participated in a voluntary two-year probation program through mental health court that provides a treatment plan in lieu of typical penalties, one of the last vestiges of state-funded assistance after Mayor Rahm Emanuel unceremoniously closed half the city’s mental health clinics in 2012. Two of the subjects are Black: Angela has several children, including a few younger kids who had been removed from her custody upon her arrest; and Daniel has long-term struggles with substance abuse in addition to mental illness. The Bulgarian-American Dimitar, who’s white, endures intense, schizoid-like episodes and contends with other vices. The film follows the subjects toward the end of the program and afterwards, showing with remarkable compassion the journey, rife with setbacks, of those suffering from mental illness. Byrne herself has had to fight similar demons and includes references to her own breakdowns and hospitalizations, one of which occurred while she was making the film. Her use of graphics to mimic the text messages she exchanged with the participants, about details of their lives and her own, aids in probing the dark crevices of mental illness and the shame and secrecy that often surround it. Also included are scenes of the participants at what might be considered some of their darkest depths; Byrne and her subjects, who generously allowed her to include this footage, don’t shy away from the aspects of mental illness that go overlooked either in abject ignorance or overcompensating acknowledgement. Filmed over the course of several years, Byrne’s film shines a light on issues related to the experience of mental illness, including our flawed justice system; lack of treatment, community support, and stable housing; and the intersection of these issues with substance abuse. The film also implicitly advocates for treatment over incarceration. I wish I could say it has a happy ending, but, even though it’s subjectively positive, there still lingers a sense of melancholy that’s part and parcel of our dire social landscape. It’s difficult to say, on any given day, how a person existing with these illnesses may feel. Let’s just hope that, at some point, our system stops mirroring that volatility and becomes a source of stability instead. Followed by a conversation with director Margaret Byrne and Kartemquin Films' Gordon Quinn moderated by Dan Ribicky. (2021, 94 min, DCP Digital) [Kathleen Sachs]
Guy Maddin’s THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD (Canada)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Wednesday, 7pm
As Roger Ebert succinctly wrote, “You have never seen a film like this before, unless you have seen other films by Guy Maddin.” Taking a screenplay by renowned novelist Kazuo Ishiguro and stripping away everything besides the title and the basic premise, Guy Maddin created yet another gorgeously hauntological film that's as much ghostly apparition as black comedy. It’s the middle of the Great Depression, and a legless beer baroness holds a publicity-stunt competition to find the saddest music in the world. The other characters are failed Broadway producers, musicians, fortune tellers, and amnesiacs, all thrown together in a story of lost love and forgotten memories. Played for deadpan comedy with Kids in the Hall troupe member Mark McKinney, THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD feels like a high-concept Steve Martin comedy, a pastiche of ‘30s German Expressionism, Cecil B. DeMille, classic Hollywood glamor, Harold Lloyd's nickelodeon one-reelers, and lost nitrate films. Maddin is nearly drowning in hauntological atmosphere, using the visual language of past cinema, both real and imagined, to create a world that seems hazily nostalgic and familiar. Like nearly all of Maddin’s work, there is nothing about this film that feels contemporaneous to when it was created. But at the same time, it’s not of any past era. This film exists in the alternate now of Maddin’s own creation, a kind of arthouse goth aesthetic that transcends time and place. So, while we get a black screwball comedy about drinking beer out of prosthetic glass legs and Romanesque thumbs up/thumbs down judgments of depressing music, Maddin also reminds us that the past can be now and now can be the past. That with art, time need not be linear. As gorgeous as it is hilarious, this movie is one of Maddin’s finer works. While his prior films (such as TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL) and subsequent ones (like BRAND UPON THE BRAIN!) draw on the same Dali/Man Ray surrealism and Robert Wiene/Fritz Lang expressionism, this film in particular leaves the Gothic storytelling and phantasmagoria aside for a touch of the fast-talking Hollywood of Howard Hawks and George Cukor. The dry humor and overacting fit perfectly within Maddin's artificial past, making one wish there were a vast library of films like this to look back at. Instead, we have to rightly appreciate Maddin for the eccentric genius he is and appreciate THE SADDEST SONG IN THE WORLD for what it is: a weird, unique ride by an auteur so singular that he not only leaves us wanting more, but tricks us into thinking that perhaps, in another world at another time, there may have been. Screening as part of Doc’s Wednesday night series A Guy Maddin Retrospective. (2003, 100 min, 35mm) [Raphael Jose Martinez]
📽️ ALSO RECOMMENDED
Yu Hyun-mok’s AIMLESS BULLET (South Korea)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Friday, 7pm
AIMLESS BULLET, STRAY BULLET, OBALTAN: three different names for the same heavy-hitting neorealist film by Yu Hyun-mok. Cheolho is a working-class man in postwar Korea. We only really see him at home sleeping or shuffling to and from work while he holds his mouth in agony, a recurring toothache torturing him daily. The supporting characters are likewise affected by hard realities. For example, Cheolho's mother's mind has slipped from PTSD; as a result, she writhes in confusion, screaming “Let’s get out of here!” throughout the day. Others in Cheolho’s life try to help the family: his sister has turned to prostitution and his young son skips school to deliver newspapers. A large section of the story focuses on his brother, Yeongho, who was a commander in the army. With his glory days behind him, he's now jobless and frequently getting loaded at the bar with his war buddies. AIMLESS BULLET pulls none of its punches and isn’t afraid to dangle a piece of meat in front of its characters. Another life is possible for these people, perhaps a better one, but unfortunately this can sometimes come only from chance. In another film, the coincidences of AIMLESS BULLET could feel magical and hopeful, but this film feels far too real, almost sinister. It's a film about the echoes of war and the ennui that comes with them. By the time the film’s final act comes to a close, Cheolho makes a simple decision that weighs heavier than any of the crimes committed earlier in the film. In his one act of selfishness, we're able to understand what it's like to be in his shoes. The working class truly carries the weight of the world, fighting a war that seemingly has no end in sight.Screening as part of Doc’s Friday night series Classics of South Korean Cinema. (1961, 112 mins, DCP Digital) [Drew Van Weelden]
Albert Birney and Kentucker Audley’s STRAWBERRY MANSION (US)
Music Box Theatre – See Venue website for showtimes
There is something uniquely magical about STRAWBERRY MANSION that I can't quite nail down, but I’m sure as hell going to spend the next few hundred words attempting to do so. This film, written and directed by Albert Birney and Kentucker Audley, lives in a weird liminal space between low-budget mumblecore and high-concept sci-fi, and I want to put down the first and last months’ rent to move into it. It takes place in a near future where dreams are taxed and filled with product placement, which at first suggests some kind of BLADE RUNNER-esque neon future world or a criminal, noir-ish hellscape à la STRANGE DAYS. Instead, the entirety of the film takes place in a Victorian farmhouse. STRAWBERRY MANSION gives a twee, yet not saccharine, type of dystopia. There is a low-budget indie feel of “let’s make a movie!” that maintains its charm throughout, even baking into the film a kind of pass for some VFX visuals that might seem underwhelming otherwise. Even the hand-painted props, with their obvious imperfections, feel charming and acceptably dreamlike. This is the kind of movie that is concrete proof that a good premise is more than enough to hang an entire film on if you can see the vision holistically. James (played by Audley) is a "dream auditor" who comes to check on the backlog of Bella, who never upgraded her dream recordings from VHS to digital. Faced with mountains of old tapes, James stays at Bella’s home while auditing her dreams, until he eventually finds himself more involved in them than he expected. It's obvious that Charlie Kaufman, Michel Gondry, and Spike Jonze are influences, but those comparisons are facile and should be used only as reference points. Birney and Audley not only create a bucolic, thoroughly romantic dream world but add a patina of social commentary that doesn't feel at all forced. The influence of John Carpenter’s THEY LIVE is far more evident than any of the cutesy indiewood features that seem like more obvious parallels. STRAWBERRY MANSION argues that our current technologies have taken such control over us that we no longer see clearly, directly asking, Do you believe your dreams are your own? At what point are we losing our dreams to the advertising we are endlessly inundated with? When you dream about getting some fast food, is it because you are dreaming it, or is it because it's been placed in your dream by looking at ads all day? Do you like what you think you like? Do you love what you think you love? Who you think you love? STRAWBERRY MANSION judiciously draws questions of social control into a story of romance, all while avoiding the antiseptic dystopian sci-fi of a film like George Lucas’ THX-1138. This is a film that comes along rarely. It's smart, it's charming, and overwhelmingly beautiful. The blend of sociopolitical commentary and sweeping romance is exquisite and the visuals commanding. This is one of those films that makes you wish you could cross over into the screen and live in the world it presents. But since that’s an impossibility, go and see this in the theater if possible. (2021, 90 mins, DCP Digital) [Raphael Jose Martinez]
Payal Kapadia's A NIGHT OF KNOWING NOTHING (France/India)
Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes
Payal Kapadia is emerging as something of a mainstream experimental filmmaker, creating poetic collage films that have won prestigious international film awards. Her latest , the Golden Eye-winning A NIGHT OF KNOWING NOTHING, is a documentary that uses a box of letters and diaries found at The Film and Television Institute of India as its source text. The writings are from a student identified as “L”; some are addressed to her lover, a student of a higher caste who is away from school for an unidentified reason. Context places them around 2015-2016, in the aftermath of student protests and a 139-day strike following the appointment of several Modi-friendly figures to the school’s governing council. Reading the texts in voiceover, Kapadia collects archival footage from the 2015 student protests to mix with original footage from unidentified years. While the intellectual basis of the film is clear, the mixed materials and poetic nature of the narration create a more complicated portrait of the inner life of a very public and politicized student body. The personal and political merge as Kapadia tries to understand a person as an amalgamation of her external conflicts. The film thus has a sense of remove, trying to understand recent history through the lens of an incomplete primary source, and that adds a layer of nuance to an already complex portrait of political discord. Where Kapadia sacrifices some sense of directness to marry the narration and images, she takes poetic license to create a more evocative collage, which allows the film’s inevitable descent into police brutality to be calibrated along L’s own increasing sense of despair and nostalgia for her lost love. The film is a more complicated philosophical document for this reason, raising questions about the nature of subversive filmmaking in a cinematic ecosystem that relies so heavily on state-funded institutions. Kapadia, educated herself at the Institute, is in a prime position to provide answers. (2021, 97 mins, DCP Digital) [Maxwell Courtright]
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT (Belgium)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Monday, 7pm
The most masterful film of 2014 was also the quietest, a characteristically nuanced portrait from the Dardenne brothers of a young mother recovering from a bout of severe depression. Steadily regaining her strength and ready to return to work, Sandra (Marion Cotillard) is told that to keep her job she must convince her coworkers to vote to save her and lose their bonus. It seems an act of supreme cruelty that a woman who can barely bring herself to get out of bed should be forced to persuade others to sacrifice so that she can return to life, and her greatest battle is not to convince her coworkers but to summon the strength to try. Her campaign provides a window into the lives of the men and women she works with. We see their homes, their families, their weekend lives. They're a diverse group, but they occupy the same economic position—not dire, but precarious. Their reactions are telling—guilt, anger, reluctant yeses and apologetic nos. There may be a right choice—solidarity over self interest, but the Dardennes resist easy moralizing, and their main indictment is of the system which forces such a choice. It's hard to imagine any other filmmakers with a soft enough touch to keep the material from edging into melodrama, but it's that restraint and precision which makes the film so effective. Their control is matched by that of Cotillard, whose performance as Sandra is powerful without being overpowering. "But they're right. I don't exist. I'm nothing. Nothing at all," Sandra says to her husband before collapsing on the floor. It's hard to read without cringing, but in Cotillard's hands it feels honest, unnervingly real. So much rests upon Cotillard's performance. She is so fragile, so often on the verge of tears, that her moments of triumph, however small or short lived, are truly moving. TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT is a film that does so many things so well and so quietly. It's at once a study of depression, of family dynamics, of community and of an inhumane and exploitative economic system. But perhaps most excitingly, it's a convincing work of realism that's much more hopeful than it is grim. Screening as part of Doc’s Monday night series Which Side Are You On? Labor and Collection Action On Film. (2014, 96 min, DCP Digital) [Elspeth J. Carroll]
Shirley Clarke's THE CONNECTION (US)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Tuesday, 7pm
Often when a play is adapted for the cinema there are complaints that the resulting film is "too stagy," that it hasn't been "opened up for the movies." Those kinds of criticisms completely miss the point, for when it's done correctly, a faithful adaptation of a theatrical piece can be the most cinematic of all movies. Certainly, suspense films like WAIT UNTIL DARK and ROPE show exactly how restricting the action to a single set can ratchet up the tension, using a play's claustrophobia as its greatest asset. THE CONNECTION is also a study in claustrophobia. By trapping us in a dingy loft apartment with several junkies, and some documentary filmmakers, while they wait for their dealer to arrive, every tiny shift in mood and behavior becomes a change writ large. We're given the time and space to study every aspect of the loft, every curl of peeling paint and black scrape on the wall; to "live" there for two hours. That includes hanging out with legendary Blue Note jazz musicians like Freddie Redd and Jackie McLean. Their argot may be dated ("This cat is corroded!") but the opportunity to watch them jam is priceless. Chronically underappreciated, Shirley Clarke's remarkable body of work is slowly getting the attention it so richly deserves. Screening as part of Doc’s Tuesday night series Nights of the Swingers! Jazz in Film. (1962, 110 min, DCP Digital) [Rob Christopher]
Godfrey Reggio's KOYAANISQATSI (US/Experimental/Documentary)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Saturday, 3pm
Reggio's description of KOYAANISQATSI is worth quoting at length. "Created between 1975 and 1982, the film is an apocalyptic vision of the collision of two different worlds—urban life and technology versus the environment... If one lives in this world, the globalized world of high technology, all one can see is one layer of commodity piled upon another. In our world the 'original' is the proliferation of the standardized. Copies are copies of copies." As if to prove his point, the film's arpeggiated city nightscapes, which were at once disorienting and disquieting, were co-opted long ago by car commercials and music videos. We are living in a copy of a copy of a copy. "Life out of balance" is the rough translation of the Hopi word which provides the film's title; but paradoxically, the film itself is an exquisite balance of image and sound, viscerally showcasing the power of juxtaposition through editing. Philip Glass's score—shimmering, pulsing, utterly propulsive—is the film's heart and soul; KOYAANISQATSI without it would be like PSYCHO without Bernard Herrmann's strings. When experienced on a big screen with a stellar sound system, KOYAANISQATSI is as hypnotic and beautiful as ever. The film doesn't have a "story," but you won't miss it. Screening as part of Scored by Glass, a partnership with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra celebrating composer Philip Glass. (1982, 86 min, DCP Digital) [Rob Christopher]
Adrian Lyne’s FATAL ATTRACTION (US)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Saturday, 7pm
FATAL ATTRACTION is remembered for two main reasons: it became a symbol of the Reaganite anti-feminist backlash and a landmark in the history of the erotic thriller. Further, Alex (Glenn Close) boiling her lover Dan’s (Michael Douglas) pet rabbit was a meme avant la lettre. Yet it’s a thornier, more complicated film than it was commonly viewed at the time. If not exactly feminist or progressive, it reminds one how conservative texts can’t always defuse the anxieties they speak about. The film also seems surprisingly adult compared to current Hollywood fare, both in its frank horniness (whose combination with moralism about sex is an Adrian Lyne specialty) and its narrative built around the dilemma of a man who has fathered two children with different women. (Kevin Feige will make sure Captain America never has to worry about that!) Given his persona in the ’80s and ‘90s, which embodied a suit-and-tie conservative vision of American masculinity, Douglas has as much of a claim as Lyne to being the source of this film’s meaning. A happily married lawyer, Dan meets Alex at an office party. They hit it off and spend a weekend together while his wife and daughter are out of town. Alex shows hints of strange behavior, but Dan treats the affair cavalierly. (Condoms exist only in FATAL ATTRACTION’s negative space.) She winds up stalking him and his family, growing explicitly threatening. The first two thirds of FATAL ATTRACTION show a potential that winds up betrayed by the increasingly violent and over-the-top conclusion. Alex is far more emotionally complicated and fully realized than Dan’s wife Beth (Anne Archer), who exists only to play her part in the Madonna/whore complex. (Compared with Close’s diva turn and Douglas’ swing from smugness to dour pain, Archer had little to work with.) Dan treats her abysmally—for example, he breaks into her apartment after she tells him he impregnated her—and he never seems very sympathetic. A master of wealth porn, Lyne adeptly shows the family’s world of privilege coming apart, although his direction, full of foreshadowing, is hardly subtle. If the ugliness of Dan and Beth’s final turn towards violence is glaring—reviewing the film in 1987, Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote that “it offers the same kind of fun as a lynching”—it’s also possible to read FATAL ATTRACTION as an indictment of the lengths to which the middle-class nuclear family will go to evade responsibility and keep its complacency intact. Screening as part of the Film Center’s Bad Romance Series. (1987, 119 min, 35mm) [Steve Erickson]
Neil Jordan’s INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (US)
Music Box Theatre – Wednesday, 9:45pm
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE was a staple for my best friend and me in high school, with its sexy vampires, extended plot that spans centuries, and overwrought performances. It’s a film that delighted and intrigued us to no end; it inspired complicated inside jokes that I couldn’t begin to explain to anyone else. I reached out to them while preparing to write this blurb, and we had an amazing conversation about how much the film meant to us, particularly in its impact as a queer film. I’m not sure it was my gateway to vampire horror, but it was certainly part of establishing a lifetime love of the subgenre. Based on Anne Rice’s first novel, the film begins with a framing narrative about a reporter (Christian Slater) interviewing Louis (Brad Pitt), a man who claims to be a 200-year-old vampire. Louis relates his early life as a human, leading up to his encounter with the charming but cruel Lestat (Tom Cruise), who turns him into a vampire and makes him his protégé. It’s essentially an unrequited love story between the two: Louis struggles to commit to the violence necessary for a vampiric lifestyle, and Lestat constantly pressures him to stay. He does this primarily by turning a young girl into a vampire (Kirsten Dunst) and forcing Louis to stay on to protect the child. This subplot provides most sincere emotion and horror, due largely to Dunst’s excellent performance. But INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE’s general self-seriousness is what makes it so enjoyable. It attempts to say something thoughtful about American history through Louis’ tale, but this is a story about glam vampires destructively making their way to the 20th century, and it works best when it leans into its gothic, melodramatic nature. Director Neil Jordan would go on to make another moody vampire film, BYZANTIUM (2012), which follows a mother-daughter vampire pair; it’s even darker and more compelling, demonstrating the continuing cultural obsession and evolution of the horror subgenre. Presented by Ramona Slick and Rated Q - A Celebration of Queer, Camp, & Cult Cinema. Enjoy pre-show drinks and DJ set in the Music Box Lounge at 9pm. (1994, 123 min, 35mm) [Megan Fariello]
Andrei Tarkovsky's STALKER (USSR)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Monday, 6pm
Loosely based on the Soviet novel Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Tarkovsky's STALKER creates a decrepit industrial world where a mysterious Zone is sealed off by the government. The Zone, rumored to be of alien origin, is navigable by guides known as Stalkers. The Stalker of the title leads a writer and a scientist through the surrounding detritus into the oneiric Zone—an allegorical stand-in for nothing less than life itself—on a spiritual quest for a room that grants one's deepest subconscious wish. Tarkovsky composes his scenes to obscure the surroundings and tightly controls the audience's view through long, choreographed takes. Shots run long and are cut seamlessly. Coupled with non-localized sounds and a methodical synth score, sequences in the film beckon the audience into its illusion of continuous action while heightening the sense of time passing. The use of nondiegetic sounds subtly reminds us that this may be a subjective world established for the Stalker's mystical purpose. Where sci-fi films tend to overstate humanity's limitless imagination of the universe, Tarkovsky reappropriates the genre's trappings to suggest the cosmos' deepest truths are in one's own mind. STALKER posits—perhaps frighteningly—that, in this exploration of the self, there is something that knows more about us than we know ourselves. The writer and scientist, both at their spiritual and intellectual nadir, hope the room will renew their métier; the Stalker's purpose, as stated by Tarkovsky, is to "impose on them the idea of hope." But STALKER is a rich and continually inspiring work not for this (or any other) fixed meaning but rather for its resistance to any one single interpretation. Screening as part of 50/50, the Siskel’s year-long series including a film from each year the theater has been open. (1979, 161 min, DCP Digital) [Brian Welesko]
Wong Kar-wai's HAPPY TOGETHER (Hong Kong)
Gene Siskel Film Center – Tuesday, 7pm
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. Screening as part of the Film Center’s Bad Romance Series. (1997, 96 min, DCP Digital) [Jonathan Leithold-Patt]
Joachim Trier’s THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD (Norway)
Gene Siskel Film Center and the Music Box Theatre – See Venue websites for showtimes
After watching THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD, I was surprised to learn that it’s not an adaptation of a book, although director and co-writer Joachim Trier is a former novelist. The film perfectly captures the tone of a certain brand of literary novels about the messy lives of women in their 20s and early 30s. It also fits into the lineage of cinema using devices like voice-over and chapter headings, complete with a prologue and epilogue. Julie (Renate Reinsvke) is introduced to the audience as a medical student. The film speeds through her collegiate experience, taking us to the point where meets Askel (Anders Danielsen Lie), a comic book artist known for his character Bobcat, at 30. The two move in together, but she starts growing dissatisfied with this domesticity. One night at a party, she meets Eivind (Herbert Nordrum) at a wedding party and impulsively flirts with him without having sex. (The two watch each other going to the bathroom.) Catching up with him at a café several months later, the tension between them blossoms into a full-fledged romance. Trier may be best known for putting Lie, a part-time actor who has never given up his day job as a doctor, on the world stage. Lie’s role as a recovering heroin addict in Trier’s OSLO, AUGUST 31ST brought out a fragile masculinity, but THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD shows his range: without coming across a macho caricature or even a particularly flawed person, one can see hints of the dark impulses he brings up while arguing with a feminist on a talk show. Despite its title, THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD isn’t concerned with judging any of its characters, least of all Julie. While the film occasionally strains its efforts to feel up-to-the-minute—as in the section where Julie’s essay “oral sex in the age of #metoo” goes viral—its careful structure, embrace of physicality and tonal changes show tremendous backbone. I’m unsure Trier is aware of how small Julie’s world appears— critic Michael Sicinski has pointed out that she has no friends of any gender—but in general, he updates the rom-com for a time whose old fantasies have grown stale and whose new ones are still nascent. (2021, 127 min, DCP Digital) [Steve Erickson]
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s DRIVE MY CAR (Japan)
Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes
How do we deal with misfortunes that arrive when we least expect them? In DRIVE MY CAR, the characters channel their emotions (or lack thereof) into their art, their tools, and their environments. The film follows Yūsuke Kafuku, a theater director who is known for putting on multilingual productions, a concept you could spend hours discussing. For a large portion of the film, we find him traveling in his car, listening to a cassette recording of his wife reading lines for Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya in preparation for a production he's going to put on. The film takes on these various layers (it's a cinematic lasagna, if you will), filled with references, different languages, and emotions that are both explosively expressed and shamefully hidden. This comes as no surprise, given that the film is an adaptation of a short story by Haruki Murakami, whose work is also filled with references and taboo eroticism. Hamaguchi delivers a nuanced film that should only get better with each viewing, as details and subtleties are weaved into things said or left unsaid. This makes sense—Kafuku’s multilingual production raises some interesting questions on the ways we can approach communication. Despite a language barrier, or an unwillingness to say something out loud, intentions and feelings can still seep through with a knowing glance or shy shift of the body. Often, the audience and maybe one or two characters might know the truth of the scenario, but Hamaguchi places us in an awkward position, knowing right next to the main cast. It’s hard to say what's the right way to deal with these scenarios, but delaying the inevitable impact of your feelings will only do you harm in the long run. (2021, 179 min, DCP Digital) [Drew Van Weelden]
Wes Anderson’s THE FRENCH DISPATCH (US)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Saturday, 7pm
Wes Anderson's intricate compositional sensibility is on full display in THE FRENCH DISPATCH, his 10th feature film and the first to focus on the practice of journalism. Anderson lends his idiosyncratic style to a new fixation, meticulously crafting each moment as he explores another way of life. His style has lost luster for some audiences, yet this compendium of stories from a newspaper's single issue—told through three long vignettes and a travelog—cements Anderson's storytelling as more than whimsy, his style more than schtick. His films are more than just dollhouse frames slammed together, despite protestations from detractors. His curiosity fills each scene here; one senses his love and admiration for journalism, a profession widely seen as on the brink of death. The writer-director brings together another giant cast, with Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Benicio del Toro, and Léa Seydoux standing out; the latter two appear in the most effective of the vignettes, "The Concrete Masterpiece." Following an artist prisoner, his guard, and his muse, the mini-narrative finds meaning in the ethereality of art. It finds del Toro, Seydoux, and Adrien Brody in top form. Anderson wants to amaze, educate, intrigue, and sift through an abundance of information, characters, plots, and emotions—the film is sure to reward on third, fourth, and fifth viewings. It's a treat to spend time with an artist like Anderson, a filmmaker unperturbed by box office showings and corporate intellectual properties, even though he's working with a $25 million budget and a never-ending procession of movie stars. He still finds catharsis, political meaning, and myriad themes, creating something that deepens with time, analysis, and conversation. (2021, 103 min, DCP Digital) [Michael Frank]
Paul Thomas Anderson’s LICORICE PIZZA (US)
Various local theaters (Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema, The Logan Theatre) and multiplexes (AMC, Regal, et al.) – See Venue websites for showtimes
There are strong similarities between LICORICE PIZZA and PHANTOM THREAD (2017), Paul Thomas Anderson's previous film, though they present very different depictions of burgeoning romance. PHANTOM THREAD wrapped its lovers inside a hermetic world of high-end fashion, poisonous mushrooms, and very precise food orders. While the tone seemed to spell a romance bathed in doom, the results were closer to an arthouse rom-com. Anderson kicks up the romance and comedy for LICORICE PIZZA, yet the film’s construction doesn’t feel as pensive or classical as that of the previous film; it's something looser and shaggier, if only on the surface. LICORICE is glossy, loud, bright, and brimming with comedic subplots, but what holds it together are the experiences of its two main characters, played by Alana Haim (of the band Haim) and Cooper Hoffman (son of the late, great Phillip Seymour Hoffman)—their youthful romance will tug on the heartstrings of even the most jaded filmgoers. The film takes place in a world where youth is subjected to the forces of impending adult realities, represented here by a coked-out film producer (Bradley Cooper's winking portrayal of Jon Peters, the producer of the 1976 A STAR IS BORN), a gay politician with a cold attitude toward love (writer-director Benny Safdie, portraying LA politician Joel Wachs), or a pair of thrill-seeking actors hellbent on continuing the raucous nature of their lives well into their 60s (Tom Waits and Sean Penn, the latter portraying a character based on William Holden). The protagonists even encounter an actress based on Lucille Ball and America's gas-shortage crisis (pay close attention to a Herman Munster cameo as well). Though our young main characters remain locked in their growing views of love and human relationships, they're challenged in their beliefs when they come into contact with each of these adults. Anderson throws in plenty of quirks that could read as random flourishes, yet these quirks are designed to highlight our main characters’ lack of awareness of their surroundings, how the things they encounter make no sense to them; it makes sense that the audience isn’t allowed an easy explanation. I'm sure the surface-level casualness will be more deeply understood as the years roll by, but as far as entertainment goes on an immediate level, you aren’t going to find anything more heartwarming or funny than LICORICE PIZZA. (2021, 133 min, DCP Digital) [John Dickson]
Steven Spielberg’s WEST SIDE STORY (US)
Various local theaters (Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema, The Logan Theatre) and multiplexes (AMC, Regal, et al.) – See Venue websites for showtimes
It’s hard to imagine what cinema would be like without remakes. From the lowliest programmers to the most bizarre arthouse films, no producer, director, or film star seems immune from thinking, “I wonder what I could do with that.” But taking on a remake of a film as beloved and revered as Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’ WEST SIDE STORY (1961) is another matter. Despite its flaws—an unconvincing Tony, an Anglo Maria, stagebound scenes and dances, dubbed singing—the world embraces that version and quivered in apprehension when Steven Spielberg announced his intentions to give it another go. I was concerned about what would happen to Jerome Robbins’ magnificent choreography and use of space, and whether Spielberg’s patented emotional manipulation would somehow trivialize the genuine emotional pull of the original. At the same time, the moment seemed right to bring this story of tribal division and violence to the screen. I am happy to report that this new WEST SIDE STORY more than justifies its existence. The film blends elements of the original, such as Robbins’ choreography for Tony (Ansel Elgort) and Maria (Rachel Zegler) at the school dance, with more realistic actions. Instead of the world falling away in a white haze as the teenagers fall in love, Spielberg stages this moment behind some bleachers. Yet, he doesn’t entirely abandon the poetry of Robert Wise’s mise-en-scène. For example, the neighborhood that is the setting for this tragedy is haphazardly crumbling under the wrecking ball of “urban renewal,” rather than being efficiently clear cut for new high-rise apartments and (ironically) today’s artistic mecca, Lincoln Center. He also hangs the back courtyard of Maria’s apartment building with laundry that never comes in to be folded. Justin Peck, resident choreographer of the New York City Ballet, largely coordinates his style with Robbins’, but finds a way to open up the dances to incorporate the community and the everyday lives of the characters—a big plus for “America,” though the dance still does not escape its clichéd construction. His new dance for “Cool” isn’t as evocative for me as Robbins’ crablike scream of shock from the Jets following Riff’s death because the sequence was moved back to its original spot before the rumble. Nonetheless, the mixture of playful sparring between Tony and Riff (a magnetic Mike Faist) as they vie for the handgun Riff has just purchased (a great new scene) and the danger of the rotting dock on which they dance provides a satisfying foreshadowing of death. The biggest change in this WEST SIDE STORY is the script by Tony Kushner. The film was so frontloaded with dialogue in both English and Spanish that I grew impatient to hear Leonard Bernstein’s magnificent score, which benefits from new orchestrations and singing voices that can handle its expert level of difficulty. That said, the intelligence of Kushner’s dialogue and where he locates each scene drive home the point that the outmoded gang culture represented by the Jets and the Sharks was bound to give way to the toxic nationalism that is currently tearing our country apart. In a stroke of genius, it is left to Rita Moreno, who has moved from her portrayal of a youthful Anita to the shopkeeper Valentina, to plead for “a new way of living” and “a way of forgiving” in her rendition of “Somewhere” that is as timely as ever. Her life experience and understanding of this sad story grace the film with a welcome depth that I found extremely moving. If you have qualms, put them aside and immerse yourself in the pain and glory of this new WEST SIDE STORY. (2021, 156 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
🎞️ PHYSICAL SCREENINGS/EVENTS –
Also Screening
⚫ Doc Films (at the University of Chicago)
Marguerite Duras’ 1975 French film INDIA SONG (120 min, 35mm) screens on Sunday at 7pm as part of Destroy She Said: A Marguerite Duras Retrospective.
The Wachowskis’ 1999 cyberpunk thriller THE MATRIX (136 min, 35mm) screens on Thursday at 7pm as part of the Keanu and Nic’s Excellent Adventure series. More info on all screenings here.
⚫ Gene Siskel Film Center
Nagisa Ōshima’s 1967 Japanese film IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES (102 min, 35mm) screens on Friday at 7pm as part of the Bad Romance Series.
Scott Hicks’ 2007 documentary GLASS: A PORTRAIT OF PHILIP IN TWELVE PARTS (119 min, DCP Digital) screens Sunday at 3pm as part of Scored by Glass, a partnership with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra celebrating composer Philip Glass. More info on all screenings here.
⚫ Music Box Theatre
Juho Kuosmanen’s 2021 Finnish film COMPARTMENT NO. 6 (107 min, DCP Digital) continues; see Venue website for showtimes. |
Tommy Wiseau’s 2003 film THE ROOM (99 min, 35mm) screens Friday at midnight, while Jim Sharman’s 1975 film THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (100 min, 35mm) screens Saturday at midnight. More info on all screenings here.
⚫ Nightingale Cinema
If You Know Your Party’s Extension, a program of eight phone-themed film and video works curated by Drew Durepos and Caitlin Ryan, screens Saturday at 7pm. More info here.
🎞️ LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS –
Held Over/Still Screening/Return Engagements (Selected)
Blerta Basholli’s HIVE (Kosovo/Switzerland/Albania/Republic of Macedonia)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
One of the most difficult things for people to face is having a loved one vanish without a trace. Filmmakers are attracted to the inherently dramatic stories of the disappeared, particularly when political turmoil is the cause. For example, THE KILLING FIELDS (1984) rages over the mass murders of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and Patricio Guzmán’s NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT (2010) deals in part with the attempts of Chileans to find the remains of those disappeared by the vicious Pinochet regime. Now, from Kosovo, we have HIVE. First-time feature director Blerta Basholli has chosen to tell the true story of Fahrije Hoti, a mother of two living in Krusha e Madhe, where one of the largest massacres of the war in Kosovo (1998–99) took place. The film is set in Krusha in 2006. Fahrije (Yllka Gashi) and many of the other villagers whose husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers were taken are living in ramshackle homes after their own homes were burned to the ground. As Muslim women, they are not allowed to work outside the home or drive, and they rely on pooled income to make ends meet. When a supermarket in Mitrovica offers to sell their homemade avjar (a roasted red pepper spread), Fahrije defies convention—and suffers for it—by getting a driver’s license, starting a company, and trying to convince the village women to work with her. While watching HIVE, I was reminded of Aida Bejić’s marvelous SNOW (2008), a magic-realist tale of grieving widows of the Bosnian War. Despite the story similarities, the films are quite different, with HIVE planted squarely in the real world. It’s infuriating how the “rules” make it impossible for these Muslim women to survive without a man, and sadly predictable how the villagers seek to intimidate Fahrije and those who have joined her. Led by a grounded performance by Gashi and a great supporting performance by Çun Lajçi as Fahrije’s father-in-law, HIVE admirably highlights how Fahrije did what she had to do and inspired others to face their losses courageously and build a new future. (2021, 84 min) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY (Japan)
Available to rent through Facets Cinema here
HAPPY HOUR, the intimate epic that established Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's international reputation, achieves a novelistic density through the uncommonly detailed way it plumbs the emotional lives of its quartet of lead characters. WHEEL OF FORTUNE AND FANTASY, the first of two 2021 releases by the director (followed by DRIVE MY CAR), resembles a short-story collection in how it depicts three narratively unrelated vignettes that are formally separated by their own chapter headings and credit sequences. Hamaguchi proves to be equally adept at the short-film format as he was with a 5-hour-plus run time: the mini romantic dramas that comprise WHEEL are gratifying to watch as self-contained episodes, but when one contemplates how they might be linked on a thematic level, the entire project attains a profound resonance (it wasn't until the morning after my first viewing that I realized the magnitude of Hamaguchi's deceptively modest approach). The first section, “Magic (Or Something Less Assuring),” begins with an extended Rohmerian dialogue between two female friends, one of whom regales the other about a "magical" date with a man she has fallen in love with, unaware that he is also her friend's ex-lover. It ends with a chance encounter between all three characters, punctuated by a brief but daring fantasy sequence. The title of the second section, "Door Wide Open," refers to a literature professor's policy of avoiding scandal by always keeping his office door open when meeting with students. One day he receives an unexpected visitor, a woman who is attempting to ensnare him in a trap. Or is she? The final section, "Once Again," is the best: two women who haven't seen each other in 20 years meet providentially on a train-station escalator before spending the day together and eventually realizing that neither is whom the other had thought. Hamaguchi himself has said that "coincidence and imagination" are the movie's main themes and, indeed, as the title indicates, each of the stories involves the intersection of the free will of the individual and the fickle nature of fate. But WHEEL is also about the inexorable pull of the past and how the characters' regrets over roads not taken have keenly shaped who they are. This latter aspect is the key to understanding how a film so charming on the surface can also contain such a melancholy undertow and how characters with only a small amount of screen time can seem so fascinatingly complex and believable. Hamaguchi shows the psychological underpinnings of everyday human behavior in a manner rarely seen in the movies. He knows how to pierce your heart. (2021, 121 min) [Michael Glover Smith]
🎞️ LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS –
Also Screening/Streaming
⚫ Blacknuss Network
As part of the Carnegie Hall AfroFuturism Festival, the Blacknuss Network presents We Fly Away Home: A Film and Discussion Series on Afrofuturism in Cinema. The series is virtual; the third event, “Women in AfroFuturist Cinema,” takes place on Sunday at 3pm. More info here.
⚫ Facets Cinema
Alice Rohrwacher, Francesco Munzi, and Pietro Marcello’s 2021 documentary FUTURA (110 min) is available to rent. More info here.
⚫ Music Box Theatre
Check hold-over titles here.
⚫ VDB TV
In acknowledgement of the ten-year anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street Movement, the Video Data Bank is highlighting the work of Jem Cohen by making his twelve-part GRAVITY HILL NEWSREELS: OCCUPY WALL STREET series available for continuous and complete viewing. More info here.
CINE-LIST: February 18 - February 24, 2022
MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs
CONTRIBUTORS // Elspeth J. Carroll, Rob Christopher, Maxwell Courtright, John Dickson, Steve Erickson, Megan Fariello, Marilyn Ferdinand, Michael Frank, Jonathan Leithold-Patt, JB Mabe, Raphael Jose Martinez, Michael Glover Smith, Drew Van Weelden, Brian Welesko