Cine-File continues to cover streaming and other online offerings during this time of covidity. We will list/highlight physical screenings at the top of the list for theaters and venues that have reopened, and list streaming/online screenings below. Cine-File takes no position on whether theaters should be reopening, nor on whether individuals should be attending in-person. Check the venues’ websites for information on safety protocols and other procedures put in place.
CINE-CAST: The Cine-File Podcast
Cine-File is pleased to revive our no-longer-dormant Cine-Cast with this very special Episode #12! To start, Associate Editor Ben Sachs and contributors John Dickson and Megan Fariello talk about recent virtual screenings of note hosted by Chicago venues. Then, Sachs and Dickson interview legendary independent filmmaker John Sayles, who is currently partnering with the Gene Siskel Film Center to discuss five personally selected films of his every Monday night in March. This wide-ranging conversation covers Sayles' early work as a screenwriter for such genre directors as Lewis Teague and Joe Dante; some of his aesthetic choices as director; his curiosity about how different regions of the U.S. influence how people talk; and his longstanding interest in Chicago history.
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The introductory theme is by local film composer Ben Van Vlissingen. Find out more about his work here.
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Listen here!
PHYSICAL SCREENINGS
Ishirô Honda’s MOTHRA VS. GODZILLA (Japanese Revival)
Music Box Theatre - Saturday, 3:30pm and Sunday, 4:30pm
My relationship to the Godzilla films had for the longest time been a passive one; the Blue Öyster Cult song named for the kaiju gets stuck in my head fairly regularly, for instance. It was never something I sought out, but I’ve grown to appreciate its consistent presence. After thoroughly enjoying a theatrical screening of MOTHRA a few years ago, however, my interest in the Showa era monster movies was set. Drawing on the popularity of both titular creatures, director Ishirô Honda pits them against each other in MOTHRA VS. GODZILLA—Godzilla the symbol of nuclear destruction and Mothra a benevolent representative of nature. It is notable that this is the last time in the series Godzilla is portrayed as a complete villain as the creature shifts from destroyer to protector in subsequent films. After the desolation of Mothra’s island by nuclear testing and the exploitation of her giant egg for profit, a group of sympathetic locals implore her aid when Godzilla returns to wreak havoc on their coastal city. Mothra, as usual, is accompanied by the Shobijin, two colorfully dressed fairies who speak in unison—played by pop singing twins The Peanuts (Emi Ito and Yumi Ito). The film moves along quickly, its zany plot balanced in part by its Cold War-era themes. The real delight of MOTHRA VS. GODZILLA, though, are the special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. Effects-heavy sequences such as Godzilla’s entrance rising out of a wasteland and the Shobijin’s first appearance are truly impressive and epitomize these films’ expert use of scale—large and small—to create remarkable fight scenes and dazzling set pieces. For anyone new to these films, MOTHRA VS. GODZILLA is a fun and exemplary place to start. (1964, 89 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]
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Screening as part of the “Godzilla vs. the Music Box” series, which also includes three other films by Ishirô Honda: GHIDORAH, THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER (1964, 93 min, DCP Digital), INVASION OF ASTRO-MONSTER (1965, 94 min, DCP Digital), and DESTROY ALL MONSTERS (1968, 89 min, DCP Digital). The four films show this Friday-Sunday and next week, March 26-30. Check the Music Box website for showtimes.
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COVID policies for the Music Box here.
LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS – New Reviews
Maya Da-Rin’s THE FEVER (Brazil/France/Germany)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
Forty-five-year-old Justino (Regis Myrupu), a member of the Tukano tribe from the northwestern part of the Amazon rainforest, has lived all of his adult life in Manaus, a city at the confluence of the Negro and Solimões rivers, where ocean-going vessels carrying containers are offloaded to waiting tractor-trailers to be driven to industrial centers around Brazil. Recently widowed, he works at the port as a security guard and raised two children who are adapted to modern, “white” life. Just as his daughter, Vanessa (Rosa Peixoto), is preparing to attend medical school in Brasília, Justino starts running a fever and has unsettling dreams about being pursued by white men with dogs and confronting himself in his work uniform in the forest. With quiet urgency, director Maya Da-Rin sounds the alarm about ecological catastrophes encroaching on Brazil and the contempt white Brazilians have for both Indigenous people and the natural landscape. Her film shows the behemoth machinery at work at the docks, but also the primordial rainforest that surrounds Manaus as a potent force in the lives of the Brazilian people. First-time actor Myrupu is a mesmerizing and sympathetic guide through this world. It is with poignancy that the film’s producer, Leonardo Mecchi, wrote about the burning rainforest and the fact that THE FEVER was the last film to be funded by the government before a far-right regime took power and ended arts funding. (2019, 98 min) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor’s ROSE PLAYS JULIE (Ireland/UK)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
People who have been adopted often feel as though their identity is somehow incomplete until they can connect with their birth parents. Sometimes knowing about one’s birth parents can fulfill fantasies or, at least, fill in some nagging blanks to achieve more peace of mind. But what if one is the child of rape? That is the shocking fact veterinary student Rose (Ann Skelly) learns when she finally tracks down her birth mother, Ellen (Orla Brady), an actress based in London who has tried to forget her trauma and the daughter she named Julie before giving her up for adoption. What happened to Ellen sets Rose on a quest to find her birth father, Peter (Aidan Gillen), and try to right his wrong. ROSE PLAYS JULIE is an atmospheric, slowly episodic film filled with pregnant silences and mournful music. The symbolism of Peter’s occupation as an archaeologist and the fact that Rose is learning about euthanizing animals overburden the film with a certain obviousness that shows up the cracks and conveniences in the plot. Nonetheless, the performances are magnificent. In particular, Skelly inhabits a quiet, emotional Rose who can play her cards close to her chest and act swiftly when necessary without losing her humanity. For those who like their revenge served cold, this film will hit quite a few right notes. (2019, 100 min) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Chris McKim's WOJNAROWICZ: FUCK YOU FAGGOT FUCKER (US/Documentary)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
This documentary about the late New York City artist David Wojnarowicz is incredibly impressive. Using an abundance of primary documentary sources from Wojnarowicz’s life, we get to have the late artist be a living voice in his own story from beyond the grave. The sources are an embarrassment of riches: 8mm home movies, audio diaries dating back to his early 20s, letters to and from family members, video interviews, journals, live footage of his no-wave band 3 Teens Kill 4, sketches, photographs, and even answering machine messages. For a film about a (mostly) visual artist, this is a heavenly bounty. Using all of these materials, WOJNAROWICZ charts the biography of the artist, who through his early street art and conceptual pieces (such as his photo series Rimbaud in New York) inadvertently made a name for himself in the New York art scene of the late 1970s and early 80s. What director Chris McKim does with the narrative form of the doc, however, is to curve the story—the politics of Wojnarowicz’s work and life, which become fully realized in both his art and anger after his diagnosis of AIDS in 1987, are given as much emphasis as the art itself. McKim shows the art making and attitude at the end of Wojnarowicz’s life were inevitable given everything that he lived before. The film opens with Wojnarowicz being filmed in December of 1989 while doing a phone interview about a group show about AIDS he was participating in that was losing funding due to the perception of it being too political. On the call you hear him very succinctly argue, “I don't have health insurance and I don't have economic access to adequate health care, isn't that political? To try to pretend that the subject of AIDS doesn't have a political tinge to it is ridiculous.” Three years later Wojnarowicz would be dead from the illness. Weaving us back to the beginning of his life, the film takes us through his history, from his childhood in an abusive home, to his street life and street art, to his first exposure in a legitimate gallery show, and to his later highly politically charged work and political activism of his post-AIDS diagnosis years. What makes WOJNAROWICZ a brilliant film, though, is that it is more than a film just about David Wojnarowicz. This is a film about queer art. About queer history. About queer anger. There is an overt indignation throughout the film at American society of the time. Something that is still echoed loudly right now. As is said in the film, this isn’t “gay as in I love you, [it’s] queer as in fuck off.” In the footage of Wojnarowicz at an ACT UP protest we see him wearing the now (in)famous jacket reading, “If I die of AIDS — forget burial — just drop my body on the steps of the FDA.” Produced by WOW Docs (the documentary arm of RuPaul’s production company) and directed by the former showrunner of RuPaul’s Drag Race, this is a movie made with an obvious love and passion for queer culture, for one’s own culture. I can’t even imagine what this film would have been like if it only focused on Wojnarowicz’s art in and of itself. We don’t ever need another hollow story about art, with a patina of queer politics, focusing on the New York art world ever again. I so wish it was possible to destroy those films before they're even made. This is a documentary on the level of THE NOMI SONG, a doc that has the distinct possibility to bring its subject back into the limelight of the (queer) community from which he left far too soon. It could quite possibly even take David Wojnarowicz’s name out of the art world, and academy, and back into the streets—where he belongs. I hope it does. Wojnarowicz’s art, writings, politics, and especially his voice—of which there is so very much of in this film—are just as relevant now as they were 30 and 40 years ago. When he sang “we are all essential laborers / you will die soon enough” in 1982, we can feel that now. We he said “There’s absolutely no way you can separate politics from AIDS” in 1989, we can feel that now. This film is David Wojnarowicz as mouthpiece for an epidemic that killed tens of thousands of Americans before the President addressed in a major policy address. This is David Wojnarowicz as the specter of all the art we know we lost, and all the art we’ll never possibly know we lost, because of AIDS. This is David Wojnarowicz not as a metaphor, but as example. WOJNAROWICZ shows the artist’s life and work as the angry, queer mirror reflecting back the American culture that is truly diseased. This film has the capacity to truly affect people. Queer folks have forever been under attack in our society and we’re always in need of heroes of action, we need to hear the stories about the people like us that used every bit of themselves to fight against this perpetual pressure. If not an angry queer role model, WOJNAROWICZ gives us an angry queer role hero—and we could use one now as much as ever. (2021, 105 min) [Raphael Jose Martinez]
LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS – Held Over/Still Screening/Return Engagements (Selected)
Maryam Touzani’s ADAM (Morocco)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
ADAM opens on a heart-wrenching sequence that depicts a destitute, pregnant woman knocking on strangers’ doors and begging them for work. The setting is contemporary Casablanca, though writer-director Maryam Touzani refrains from any touristic or “big picture” views of the city, generally keeping the camera just a few feet away from the pregnant woman, Samia (Nisrin Erradi), and locking viewers into her dire experience. Touzani is likewise reluctant to reveal much background information about the character; Samia’s crisis is all-consuming. The film’s tone relaxes considerably once a single mother named Abla (Lubna Azabal) takes Samia in for a night. Abla puts up a tough front, but she’s really an angel; the one-night sojourn gets extended by a few days, then a week, then indefinitely. As Samia becomes part of this small family, a life-affirming portrait emerges of women supporting one another in the face of a patriarchal society that routinely demeans and punishes women (Touzani doesn’t go into great detail about Samia’s past, but what she conveys is still quite depressing). ADAM is a worthy addition to the growing category of Middle Eastern films directed by women; in presenting a perspective that’s so often suppressed, the film deserves attention. (2020, 101 min) [Ben Sachs]
Thomas Vinterberg’s ANOTHER ROUND (Denmark)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here and the Music Box Theatre here
Reuniting with leading man Mads Mikkelsen, Danish writer and director Thomas Vinterberg’s (THE HUNT) newest film, ANOTHER ROUND, reaches for a full bottle of vodka and lands in a drunken state of elation, depression, and mid-life difficulty. Denmark’s submission to the 2021 Oscars for Best International Feature Film, ANOTHER ROUND finds Mikkelsen in an acting showcase, surrounded by other steady and solid counterparts in Magnus Millang, Thomas Bo Larsen, and Lars Ranthe, playing four high school teachers that enter into an odd experiment: keeping themselves at a blood alcohol content of .05 at all times. Vinterberg directs the film like a drunken night on the town, from the joy of dancing on tables with great friends to waking up disoriented, broken, and desperate to either never see alcohol again or grab the nearest bottle and take a swig. ANOTHER ROUND’s tonal shifts work, mostly with ease, due to Mikkelsen’s performance, one in which every look, smirk, and curling of his lips is measured and intentional. It’s not a film filled with speeches or fights that last longer than a couple of minutes. ANOTHER ROUND becomes a snapshot into life at its most middling, in which characters reexamine their place in the world, and the oft overwhelming dreams they feel they haven’t accomplished. Though the structure of the film, especially its third act, falters in finishing this wild idea (and experiment), ANOTHER ROUND should satisfy one’s thirst for high-quality acting, careful and considerate storytelling, and a chance to remember, forget, or attempt to capture the supposed “good ole days.” (2020, 117 min) [Michael Frank]
Nora Twomey's THE BREADWINNER (New Irish/Canadian Animation)
Available to rent through Facets Cinémathèque on Saturday and Sunday only here
THE BREADWINNER, Nora Twomey’s film about a spirited, brave girl living in war-torn Kabul, moved me intensely. It's a beautiful and moving tale about human rights for women, storytelling as a form of freedom through imagination, the importance of nonconformity, and the universal longing for freedom and peace. While it can be intense, I can’t think of a worthier film for thoughtful young people. Based on a 2000 young adult novel by Deborah Ellis, the film is set before the 2001 U.S. invasion and ensuing perpetual war. Its hero is named Parvana (voiced by an excellent 13-year-old Canadian actress, Saara Chaudry, who has a delightful storytelling voice). The central situation has her becoming a "bacha posh"—a girl who dresses as a boy to be the breadwinner for her family. She was raised to be a freethinker by her father (Ali Badshah), a teacher in peacetime, pre-Taliban Afghanistan, who taught her to think of stories as transmitters of her ancestors' history, memory, and knowledge. They live in constant fear of the authorities, who, when they come, bang on the door like moralistic, ignorant, intolerant authorities do in every time and place. When the Taliban arrests her father on a pretext of "having forbidden books and teaching the women with them," the family falls into desperate straits. Since women are banned from moving around outside the house without a male escort, she's confined, along with her grieving mother (Laara Sadiq), big sister, and baby brother. So, she begins to tell them a story: an amusing fable of a boy on a quest to retrieve a sack of precious seeds stolen from his village by the ferocious Elephant King. The boy must find three things—something that shines, something that ensnares, and something that soothes. (As Twomey notes, this is a universal myth: the story of a hero with three tasks is told across cultures.) Once, Parvana had an older brother, the late Sulayman. When she's pressed to give the boy a name, she names him for her brother. The family is on the verge of starvation when she transforms herself. As a boy, she feels free; she befriends another bacha posh, the streetwise Shauzia (Soma Chhaya), who dreams of one day seeing the sea, and who helps her raise money to bribe a prison guard, on the million-to-one chance that she may be able to find her father. Ellis is a Canadian peace activist who based her book on the testimony of women she met in refugee camps in Pakistan; the screenplay is co-credited to her and Anita Doran. Twomey is Irish, working in association with Cartoon Saloon, an Irish animation studio. She's spoken about “the idea of mixing cultures to tell stories,” as though the very point of THE BREADWINNER is that it's a truly international co-production. She calls it “the ultimate expression of hope”: “over 300 people from different countries and cultures bringing all of their skills together to make one film and tell one story with one central performance.” The "story world" is rendered in a theatrical, colorful style that mimics a paper cutout puppet show. The "real world" is vivid, with hand-painted backgrounds and unforgettable spaces: the market, the candy factory, the little home on the hill overlooking Kabul. The performances are expressive and rich, cartoons or no. The movie makes relatable each and every one it touches. We witness everyday cruelties, yes, but, much more importantly, everyday kindnesses. I think of the way Parvana’s mom, a writer in pre-Taliban days, takes up telling the story, at a moment when Parvana is too sad and tired to continue. And I can't stop thinking of a Taliban soldier, Razaq (Kawa Ada), a gentle man who, in a moving scene, employs Parvana’s reading skills: she reads him a letter bearing unexpected news. (Pay close attention to what Razaq says later about his wife's name, and the outline of the moon—think about it as you watch the ending.) I like to think young Western viewers will notice the way Parvana's culture is different, yes—all the more to be struck by her humanity, her inner strength, her courage and hope, and her love. I learn that Ellis has continued Parvana's story in three subsequent novels. My imagination is piqued. Like a kid of any age wrapped up in a good, deeply human story, I want to know how hers ends. (2017, 93 min) [Scott Pfeiffer]
Simon Bird’s DAYS OF THE BAGNOLD SUMMER (UK)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
Most of us have, at some point, been that sulky teenager who can barely stand a second longer with their parents. Naturally, most parents will, at some point, have to deal with raising a teen who wants nothing to do with them. This thorny, universally recognizable relationship is at the heart of DAYS OF THE BAGNOLD SUMMER, director Simon Bird and screenwriter Lisa Owens’ amiable, low-impact adaptation of the Joff Winterhart graphic novel. Divorced single mom Sue (Monica Dolan), a school librarian, and her metalhead son Daniel (Earl Cave, son of musician Nick Cave) are perpetually at odds with each other. Daniel would rather be anywhere else, so when summer rolls around, he’s all too eager to spend it with his dad in Florida. But when his plans are called off, mother and son are faced with the prospect, exciting or devastating depending on which party you ask, of a long vacation shared together at home in Britain. While Daniel does what he can to escape by pursuing his dream of forming a metal band, Sue chases her own desires by starting a relationship with her son’s history teacher (Rob Brydon), hoping to put her dismaying romantic past behind her. Bird and Owens sensitively balance the perspectives of both characters throughout, from bitter contretemps to flashes of reconciliation, empathizing with their respective emotional ordeals while refusing to paint either side as the antagonist. This even-handed approach characterizes the gentle spirit of DAYS OF THE BAGNOLD SUMMER, which transpires episodically without much dramatic incident; it’s a film that brushes past like a light summer breeze, the soft, wistful indie sound of Belle & Sebastian the natural musical accompaniment. It’s perhaps surprising, then, that in this familiar groove Bird and his creative team have found a number of ways to make the material so visually dynamic. With the advantage of color over Winterhart’s original illustrations, they humorously juxtapose Sue’s all-pastel home with Daniel’s all-black rock attire. Bird and cinematographer Simon Tindall also consistently use windows, door frames, and wall partitions to segment the frame into panels, at once communicating the rift between the characters and paying homage to the look of the graphic novel. Such considered aesthetic strategies elevate DAYS OF THE BAGNOLD SUMMER, making it hum as much in cinematic as in comic form. (2019, 85 min) [Jonathan Leithold-Patt]
Andrei Konchalovsky’s DEAR COMRADES! (Russia)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
Winner of the Special Jury Prize at this year’s Venice International Film Festival, DEAR COMRADES! is writer-director Andrei Konchalovsky’s fraught depiction of the Novocherkassk massacre that occurred June 2, 1962, in Soviet Russia. We follow the labor strike leading to the massacre, the pandemonium of the massacre itself, and the chaos and uncertainty of its aftermath. Yuliya Vysotskay, is Lyudmila, a committed Communist still reeling from the death of Stalin. When her daughter disappears in the anarchy of the massacre, she frantically has to search for her, threatening not only her own safety, but that of those around her. She begins to question not only the methods of the Party but the idea of faith itself. DEAR COMRADES! is filmed in black and white, giving it a gorgeous patina of false historicity that allows us to fall deep inside of it, forgetting that this is a period drama, confusing it for a film of the time. Konchalovsky plays with the perception of the Soviet government quite cleverly through Lyudmila and her family. While she openly laments Stalin’s death, her nameless father gets drunk and wears his pre-Soviet military garb and expresses his wish that JFK would just nuke them all. Lyudmila’s daughter is a product of the era of de-Stalinization and is willing to go against the Party and participate in the strike and demonstrations that lead to the massacre. Konchalovsky pulls off the feat that so many filmmakers attempt and rarely, if ever, achieve, successfully taking a single moment or event and turning it into a true microcosm of the greater political zeitgeist. While I wouldn’t be so brash as to say he thoroughly dissects the entirety of Soviet Russia through this single film, Konchalovsky does manage to leave his fingerprints across it in a way that shows a deft handling. All this, through a story of desperation and mystery; a mother searching for her missing daughter, in the face of the government she has worked her whole life for. DEAR COMRADES! is a dramatic political thriller of the most personal nature. Where faith in government, self, others, God, and oneself all come into question. Films reflect the times in which they are made. Right now, across the globe, we’re seeing a rise of a type of politics that feeds on unquestioning faith, DEAR COMRADES! utilizes the framework of history to unfold today, and warn us about tomorrow. (2020, 120 min) [Raphael Jose Martinez]
Olivier Assayas’ DEMONLOVER (France)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
DEMONLOVER was one of the first movies to address the internet’s impact on communication and interpersonal relationships; what distinguishes it from many of the other, lesser movies on the subject to have come in its wake is that Olivier Assayas, a cineaste of the highest order, doesn’t regard the Information Age from a detached, moralizing position, but rather from an immediate and sensuous one. Perhaps the defining trait of the movie’s intoxicating style is Assayas’ tendency to cut from one tracking shot to another and then another. The technique conveys a sense of constant movement through the physical world and, more importantly, the fluidity with which we move online between ideas, cultures, and the intimate details of other people’s lives. Likewise, the narrative of DEMONLOVER is a fusion of high- and lowbrow cinematic references that include David Cronenberg’s VIDEODROME, Michael Mann’s THE INSIDER (Gina Gershon, who appears here, essentially plays a variation on her character from that movie), espionage thrillers, and animated S&M porn. This mixture suggests an early 21st century update of the French New Wave in that Assayas—who, like the New Wave directors, wrote criticism for Cahiers du Cinéma before he started making movies—builds on his references to craft a statement about the zeitgeist. What he has to say is unsettling as well as seductive: the movie posits that the most typical relationships in the Information Age involve people using or being used by others; it also suggests a dark underside to the world of knowledge created by the Internet. Yet Assayas’ concerns never come across as cerebral, thanks to the mobile filmmaking and the exciting plot, which has to do with power plays (both corporate and sexual) within internet bondage porn companies. The score—written and performed by Sonic Youth when they were a five-piece with Jim O’Rourke on third guitar—adds to hypnotic effect. (2002, 122 min) [Ben Sachs]
Francine Parker’s F.T.A. (US/Documentary)
Available to rent through Facets Cinémathèque here
In 1971 Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Paul Mooney, and a few other performers, put together a war protest roadshow aimed specifically to entertain the American G.I.s deployed abroad—a sort of anti-U.S.O. tour. Traveling to Hawaii, the Philippines, and Okinawa, the group set up performances outside of American military bases and performed satirical sketches along with outright anti-Vietnam War protest songs. Director Francine Parker’s camera and crew documented each of these performances, capturing the energy and excitement of the internal anti-war movement of the American military. What makes this documentary especially important and insightful are the segments in which the members of the F.T.A. roadshow and crew interview the members of the military. With so much of the popular narrative about the protest of the Vietnam War centered on activity back home in the U.S., by mostly white, middle-class college students, F.T.A. gives voice to the people actually deployed and their thoughts against the war. Black soldiers speak out against being sent to die for a country that doesn’t respect them, as well as a military that treats them with extreme prejudice—how they see themselves aligned with the Vietnamese as oppressed POC. Both the roadshow and the filmmakers give space for performers and people of the occupied countries to express their sentiments about the war, and the US military presence in their homelands. Nearly half of the film’s running time is given to voices of protest, making it less of a concert film than an out-and-out piece of radical left propaganda. Considering when this was made, it’s almost shocking how virulently, and overtly anti-war, anti-military, and anti-colonial this film is. There is zero ambiguity about the politics involved, and because of this F.T.A. was, until 2009, largely forgotten. The film was pulled from theatres a mere two weeks after release, and suspicions abound that the U.S. government itself was behind this decision. After all, the distributor, American International Pictures, was notorious for milking their films for all they’re worth, especially the more exploitative and controversial ones. Once nearly impossible to find (the only other time I was able to track it down was via an Nth generation bootleg DVD by an older Maoist I met while living in San Francisco, natch), this new version is a wonderful 4k restoration that gives the film the clarity of picture and sound that really allows for the verité immersion Parker was attempting to achieve. As the U.S. enters its second decade of continuous foreign war, F.T.A. provides a reminder that there has always been political dissent in the military, and, if given a chance to speak about it, people will. So while this is a great document of a specific time, place, and movement, it’s still just as riveting and straight-up entertaining now as it was in 1972. Rentals of the film are accompanied by a new introduction by F.T.A. troupe member Jane Fonda. (1972, 96 min) [Raphael Jose Martinez]
Éric Baudelaire’s UN FILM DRAMATIQUE (France/Documentary)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
I could relate easily to UN FILM DRAMATIQUE, a French documentary about middle school students in a diverse urban community with a large immigrant population. Since the fall of 2019, I’ve taught middle school students in Chicago’s Uptown, which is also a diverse urban community with a large immigrant population. Director Éric Baudelaire captures this milieu so precisely that I must admit I found the movie a little tiring—watching it felt like tacking an extra two hours onto my work day. In its design, UN FILM DRAMATIQUE resembles a big class project: Baudelaire didn’t just document a group of students over four years; he taught them about filmmaking along the way, assigning kids different tasks of shooting, recording sound, editing, et cetera, so that they became co-creators of the project. This clever (and aptly pedagogical) approach to documentary cinema provides an ideal means of considering the subject of pre-adolescence, an exciting time when kids take long strides toward independence and self-awareness. The film is most compelling when it presents kids speaking frankly with each other on such subjects as current events, national identity, filmmaking, and life in the Paris suburbs (an area comparable to the “inner city” of most American metropolises). These scenes provide an inside look at kids discovering new intellectual frontiers as they form complex arguments and articulate abstract ideas. It’s gratifying to watch their conversations grow more sophisticated as the movie proceeds; more immediately uplifting is the humanist spectacle of kids from so many different backgrounds working together and becoming friends. The onscreen subjects come from all over (eastern Europe, the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa), but they find common ground in their experiences as foreigners, as pre-teens, and, finally, as filmmakers. The kids’ ideas about what makes films “dramatic” aren’t highly developed—the scenes they stage and shoot are the least interesting in the movie, making one long for the imagination and control of THE WE AND THE I (2012), Michel Gondry’s fiction feature made with New York high school students. Still, the subjects’ bourgeoning awareness of how filmmaking works allows for some enjoyable, self-reflexive moments. Michael Sicinski likened UN FILM DRAMATIQUE to Agnès Varda’s work, and I can understand where he’s coming from. In drawing attention to the filmmaking apparatus to illustrate learning, Baudelaire creates the impression that the film itself is thinking, growing. (2019, 114 min) [Ben Sachs]
Rodney Ascher’s A GLITCH IN THE MATRIX (US/Documentary)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
Revolving around a 1977 lecture by legendary sci-fi writer Phillip K. Dick, A GLITCH IN THE MATRIX explores the ever-expanding idea that the world in which we exist is actually some kind of computer simulation. Ascher—best known for his documentary ROOM 237, about outré interpretations and readings of THE SHINING—pieces together a loose overview of this increasingly popular idea through an essay-style framework that never leans too far into staking a claim for, or against, this idea. Not to say that Ascher’s film lacks conviction; it instead leaves space for the viewer to contemplate. There are interviews with experts such as Oxford professor Nick Bostrom (whose 2003 article “Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?” has become one of the biggest influences on the popularization of Simulation Theory) and culture writer Emily Pothast, as well as interviews with average people who have come to this idea themselves as children—and even a man currently incarcerated for murdering his family after becoming obsessed with THE MATRIX. Stylistically, A GLITCH IN THE MATRIX falls somewhere between a standard talking-head documentary and an Adam Curtis collage essay. Ascher leans heavily on Fair Use to bring visual clips of examples of the various arguments made—STAR WARS, BLADE RUNNER, STARSHIP TROOPERS, Grand Theft Auto, Wolfenstein 3-D, The Man in the High Castle (and various other Phillip K. Dick adaptations), and countless more are all intercut throughout to buttress points made. There are two very interesting choices made, though. Firstly, for a film with the title in its name, no one from THE MATRIX is interviewed in the film. It leans heavily on it as being the biggest pop culture parcel that introduced Simulation Theory, but neglects to speak to anyone involved in the franchise. The second interesting choice is that while the “experts” are shown in a Zoom/Skype style window all the “average people” are made visually anonymous by overlaying them with a digital avatar. Does Ascher want us to think of them as lost in their own personal simulation? Possible biases aside, A GLITCH IN THE MATRIX does a good job of not making anyone seem any more eccentric than anyone else even though the chance to paint some of the people interviewed as complete tinfoil wingnuts is right there. The film gives everyone involved a dignity, which helps the viewer take the film seriously as a whole, because as a movie exploring a mind-altering philosophical conceit, it does a great job of explaining what Simulation Theory is, and the various ways people view it. The film also doesn’t shy away from discussing the theological implications of what living in a simulation brings. If we are in a digital simulation and we are in a world created by a computer programmer, how is that different than being created by God? The mythologies of Christianity and Hinduism are given the same conceptual weight as Minecraft, an idea that might seem offensive until you see it unpacked here, so well done that it almost seems obvious in hindsight. A GLITCH IN THE MATRIX manages to cover its complex subject matter deftly, in a way that guides you while never insulting your intelligence. (2021, 108 min) [Raphael Jose Martinez]
Fernanda Valadez’s IDENTIFYING FEATURES (Mexico/Spain)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
Watching Fernanda Valadez’s auspicious debut feature, I was struck by how a film about something so ugly—the ugliness of pain, of an exodus spurred and eventually terminated by a too-cruel world—could also be so beautiful; each shot wringed for a certain visual ecstasy is at odds with the disquieting subject matter. Claudia Becerril Bulos’ cinematography is extraordinary, but the true achievement is how the visual sublimity complements the story of a middle-aged mother in Mexico seeking her teenage son, Jesus (Juan Jesús Varela), who’s left their small town for the southern U.S. border. The film begins as Magdalena (Mercedes Hernández, outstanding) recounts in voiceover the circumstances of her son’s departure while the memory is realized onscreen. Valadez then cuts to Magdalena and her friend, the mother of another boy with whom Jesus left for the border, in a sterile office, attempting to locate their children after months without contact. The friend discovers that her son was found dead, while Jesus is still missing. This begins what Valadez describes as a road movie, with Magdalena traversing the countryside to discover the whereabouts of her child. At a facility where she’s nearly coerced into having her son declared dead (on the basis of authorities having found just his duffle bag), she meets another mother in a similar situation; she encourages Magdalena to continue searching. Along her journey to find a man who’d allegedly been on the same bus as her son, she meets a young man, Miguel (David Illescas), himself a migrant who had been compelled to self-deport from the U.S. back to Mexico. The film is deliberately ambiguous, though it’s clear that the ongoing presence of Mexican drug cartels is to blame for the lingering violence and chaos; the threat of disappearance and senseless murder, especially among the migrant population, looms large. Valadez and cowriter Astrid Rondero aren’t explicit in their indictment of this culture. Instead they consider the phenomenon on a metaphorical level, with Magdalena representing all those impacted by the brutality, her journey a modern-day odyssey as regrettable as it is epic. Some elements of the film are disturbing—early on, we see someone cutting into an eyeball, and, later, rotting animal corpses and people being murdered by what appears to be the devil incarnate—and others are reminiscent of the thriller genre, but in general it’s breathtakingly beautiful. Valadez renders transcendent such mundane images as a makeshift office formed out of plastic and the crack in a windshield, to say nothing of the verdurous landscapes that the protagonists tread. The beauty serves to lay bare the ugliness that Magdalena and others like her suffer. Other techniques (such as not subtitling the dialogue over a pivotal flashback, a recurring motif of people speaking to the protagonists not shown in full) convey a sensation of uncertainty that plagues not just the characters, but a society in crisis. (2020, 95 min) [Kathleen Sachs]
Ephraim Asili’s THE INHERITANCE (US)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
Based on writer and director Ephraim Asili’s own experiences, THE INHERITANCE combines a scripted narrative about a group of Black artists and activists starting a collective in a West Philadelphia home with a documentary-style exploration of Black political and artistic movements; the film focuses particularly on Philadelphia’s MOVE organization and the infamous 1985 police bombing of their row house. THE INHERITANCE is an impressive and exceptional amalgamation of cinematic forms with direct and profound audience engagement through musical performance, dance, and readings of theory and poetry; integrated, too, are segments of the collective’s workshops with real-life MOVE members and poets, including spoken word artist Ursula Rucker. With a subplot revolving around the creation of a house library, Asili emphases the significance of text within the collective, featuring numerous shots of book piles, photographs, vinyl records, and ever-changing quotes largely written in chalk on the walls. The cast at times reads directly to the audience from important 20th century works of the African diaspora, looking straight into camera, encouraging the audience to engage in the experience of exploration and education in the collective; this is particularly felt in a scene where poet Sonia Sanchez reads from her work, glancing up frequently into the camera, acknowledging the viewer as part of her audience. Asili uses bright, bold colors within the collective house itself which mirror shots of West Philadelphia and its vibrant outdoor spaces. Sound, too, is distinctive throughout: the whirring of the camera provides background noise, there are moments of persistent silence, and the recurring tuning of an obstinate radio. Asili also weaves in levity, with the scripted scenes of the collective members working through the everyday logistics of sharing space with others providing genuinely funny and sincere moments. THE INHERITANCE is a spectacular and unique first feature—a jubilant and commanding expression of Black culture, art, and politics. (2020, 100 min) [Megan Fariello]
Robin Lutz’s M.C. ESCHER: JOURNEY TO INFINITY (Netherlands/Documentary)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here and the Music Box Theatre here
This documentary about M.C. Escher hangs on a clever conceit: all the narration comes from Escher’s letters and diaries, so the film proceeds as if the great Dutch artist is telling his own life story. Recited with delicious hamminess by Stephen Fry, the narration allows for a more intimate portrait than one usually gets from contemporary biographical docs; you come away from the movie having learned not just about Escher, but how Escher saw himself. One of the more interesting insights is that Escher didn’t see himself as an artist, but rather as a mathematician who worked in visual design to realize various logical puzzles. Apparently, Escher described the whole creative project of his mature period as one of depicting infinity within defined spaces—a paradox to describe a series of paradoxes! He also claimed to have less interest in achieving beauty with his work than a sense of wonder, which reveals his creative intentions as well as his modesty. Much of the personal information presented in JOURNEY TO INFINITY supports the film’s characterization of Escher as self-effacing: he maintained a low profile, spent much of his adulthood caring for his mentally ill wife, and gently disparaged the individualist youth counterculture that popularized his designs in the 1960s. The movie really sings when it gets into the designs themselves, often deploying animation to illustrate Escher’s lucid explanations of his work. (2018, 81 min) [Ben Sachs]
Ousmane Sembène’s MANDABI (Senegal)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
By the time Ousmane Sembène directed his second feature at the age of 45, he was already a legend. Sembène had been a war veteran, a labor organizer, the author of several book-length works of fiction, and the first sub-Saharan African to release a feature film. One might expect a movie by such an accomplished individual working at the height of his renown to display a certain grandeur or sweeping perspective, yet the greatness of MANDABI (as with most of Sembène’s films) lies in its humility. The story unfolds so plainly that it could be understood by a child, while the imagery, however bright and engaging, tends to be organized around such basics as character and locale. In short, MANDABI feels like a folktale; and like many folktales, the apparent simplicity serves as a conduit to deep wisdom. Dieng, the film’s put-upon hero, is an unemployed, but big-talking man who lives on the outskirts of Dakar with his two wives and seven children. Near the start of the story, Dieng receives a money order from a nephew living in Paris (in a bittersweet montage, Sembène illustrates what the young man has had to do to earn the money), who asks his uncle to cash the order, set aside most of the money, and keep some for himself. Dieng sees this windfall as a chance to pay off his debts, but cashing the money order (or mandabi in Wolof) opens up all sorts of new problems. He learns he lacks the proper documentation required for any banking transaction—and that acquiring this documentation means tangling with an especially messy local bureaucracy. Dieng also finds himself besieged by strangers and acquaintances coming out of the woodwork and asking for loans. But the biggest setback of all comes in the form of a “New African” businessman who promises to help Dieng solve his problems. Sembène characterizes the businessman with the same bitter, satirical sensibility he’d later flesh out in his novel Xala (and his film adaptation of it), but for the most part, the writer-director reserves his anger for institutions rather than individuals. MANDABI condemns the societal factors that keep people in poverty while maintaining, against all odds, an ingratiatingly cheery tone. When seen from the proper perspective, Sembène asserts, injustice is nonsensical enough to seem funny. (1968, 92 min) [Ben Sachs]
Andrei Tarkovsky's THE MIRROR (USSR)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
Long before the great TREE OF LIFE euphoria of 2011, another film (from another director's famously sparse oeuvre) went off uncharted into the space between memories past and present, mapping onto them a universal significance. Andrei Tarkovsky's THE MIRROR may lack dinosaurs and metaphorical doors in the desert, but it does set a mean precedent for everything a passion project can be when an auteur is working on such an intensely personal level. Long a dream project of Tarkovsky's, it was only in the wake of SOLARIS that he was able to secure funding, and armed with a meager allotment of film stock, he began production in late 1973. Given the non-linear, dreamlike progression of the film, such obstacles aren't hard to comprehend, and they perhaps explain why this is his most fleeting film outside his debut, IVAN'S CHILDHOOD. Drawn across the middle of the 20th century, THE MIRROR takes a stream of consciousness journey through familial memories, with actors in dual roles as father and son, as wife and mother. Woven in are poems penned by Tarkovsky's own father, assorted clips of wartime newsreel footage, and the quiet, ethereal imagery characteristic of all his films. It all makes for a hazy dream of cinema, one from which you tragically wake too early. But lest the length should fool you, this is not Tarkovsky for beginners. No surprise that at his most personal he's also at his most esoteric, so an afternoon spent with one of his aforementioned films would be a good primer. As for those already in his thrall, this is imperative viewing. (1975, 108 min) [Tristan Johnson]
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]
Philippe Lacôte’s NIGHT OF THE KINGS (Ivory Coast)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
At once folkloric and cutting-edge, NIGHT OF THE KINGS transposes elements of the Arabian Nights to a prison in present-day Ivory Coast, showcasing in the process writer-director Philippe Lacôte’s talents for narrative construction, mise-en-scène, and suspense. The film dispenses with all the necessary backstory in a few minutes: the setting, “La Maca,” is the world’s most dangerous prison, where the inmates have so overwhelmed their captors as to have created their own self-governing society. One of the society’s traditions is that on the night of a red moon, a prisoner is chosen to entertain all the inmates through storytelling until dawn. Enter a fresh-faced new prisoner whose innocent look catches the eye of the inmate Boss. The young man is named the new “Roman,” or storyteller. He has a few hours to prepare for a nightlong performance; if he fails, he will be killed. Lacôte introduces a claustrophobic and highly realistic setting, only to subvert it through the fantastic power of the Roman’s storytelling. The surprise appearance of Denis Lavant early on signals that NIGHT OF THE KINGS will not be a straightforward prison drama, and indeed, Lacôte finds ways to open up and complicate the confined setting, first in the Roman’s performance, then in scenes visualizing the stories he tells. The director handles the transformation elegantly, generating mounting tension along the way. (2020, 93 min) [Ben Sachs]
Lili Horvát's PREPARATIONS TO BE TOGETHER FOR AN UNKNOWN PERIOD OF TIME (Hungary)
Available to rent through Facets Cinémathèque here, the Gene Siskel Film Center here, and 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]
Andrei Konchalovsky’s SIN (Russia/Italy)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
Multifaceted Russian screenwriter/director Andrei Konchalovsky has made many types of films over the past 60 years, from Chekhov adaptations (UNCLE VANYA, 1970) to mainstream Hollywood fare (TANGO & CASH, 1989). He will probably always be best known as the screenwriter of Andrei Tarkovsky’s masterwork ANDREI RUBLEV (1966), an impressionistic rendering of the life of the eponymous Russian artist. It seems even Konchalovsky is haunted by this indelible association. In an interview, he said of RUBLEV, “There is no love story, just an enigma of his life, and only at the end of the film his works are shown, which, to some extent, could be projected to what you’ve just seen. And once I’d written the script of THE SIN, I realized it was, in a sense, a continuation of RUBLEV.” There are indeed similarities of approach between the two films. Both are as interested in the harsh and teeming worlds in which their dramas are set as they are in their protagonists, both are biopics of a sort, and both end with allusory comparisons of the art with the artist. SIN focuses on a short period in the life of Michelangelo Buonarroti (Alberto Testone), from the completion of the Sistine Chapel frescos under Julius II (Massimo De Francovich), the pope and a member of the reigning Della Rovere family, to his assumption of a commission from the newly empowered Medicis under their kinsman, Pope Leo X (Simone Toffanin). Political intrigue mixes with Michelangelo’s obsession with money, beginning with his instruction to his family of financial leeches to buy several properties near Florence before the Medicis take power and jack up the prices. He returns to Rome, determined to redo the Sistine frescos to correct a proportion problem, only to be restrained as workers dismantle the scaffolding, bringing his work to its divine conclusion. Way behind on his commission to create 40 sculptures for the pontiff’s tomb, the plan is permanently derailed when Julius dies. From then on, he maneuvers between the Della Roveres and the Medicis, taking their money and stringing them along. Seeing this genius play politics, steal, lie, and lose the trail of conversations while he studies people’s hands provides a grounded portrait of the artist during the height of his fame. Every frame of this film shot by Aleksandr Simonov is a miraculous work of art that brings this world completely to life, including actions on the edges and behind the main focal point in ways that reminded me of Michelangelo’s Dutch contemporary Pieter Breugel’s human mélanges. The film is interspersed with evocative dreams and hallucinations, many of which relate to Michelangelo’s idol, Dante Alighieri, disorienting not only the artist, but also the viewer and leading us to doubt what we are seeing. Testone, who bears a resemblance to the man he plays, is perfect as he moves precariously between inspiration, paranoia, and shrewd intelligence. The major set-piece and moment of greatest suspense in SIN is Michelangelo’s procurement of a huge marble slab “as white as sugar” nicknamed the “monster.” Moving a piece that size had never been done and proves irresistible to the Carrara quarrymen who help him with this quest. The parallels with Moby-Dick and Ahab are obvious, but this white monster helped Michelangelo realize his artistic ambitions, offering a vision of hope instead of destruction and elevating the filmic experience. (2019, 134 min) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Elizabeth Lo’s STRAY (US/Documentary)
Available to rent through Facets Cinémathèque here, the Gene Siskel Film Center here, and the Music Box Theatre here
The first film from documentarian Elizabeth Lo often moves in slow motion. STRAY follows several dogs living on the streets of Istanbul, focusing on one homeless animal named Zeytin. She walks around the bustling city looking for food, familiar faces, and a place to rest her head at night, as the camera follows close behind. Lo never involves herself in Zeytin’s life, or the lives of both the strays and people she interacts with, keeping a level of distance despite the camera’s close proximity. You experience her life from ground level, only hearing conversations that she hears from restaurant tables, park benches, and late-night protests. Lo decides not to craft a heartbreaking story from Zeytin’s kind eyes, instead opting for a clear-eyed look at loneliness, connection, and the way we treat others, humans and dogs alike. Lo doesn’t rest on any one shot or scene for longer than a few moments and, like its protagonist, the camera keeps moving along, looking for the next place to rest. A beautiful, different look at the city of Istanbul, STRAY forces you to think about the obvious metaphors in this story, from how we treat our fellow passersby, especially a person without a roof over their head, to our apathy towards the people and things that don’t directly affect us. Zeytin drifts around the city without a final destination. Even without a constant stream of love or affection, she seems to have a stake in this place, and a sense of warmth fills you by the time the film ends. Whether you want to watch some good boys and girls run around and play in a bustling city, or you’d like to examine the isolation of city life, Lo’s STRAY satisfies both with certainty and intentionality. (2021, 72 min) [Michael Frank]
Shatara Michelle Ford’s TEST PATTERN (US)
Available to rent through the Music Box Theatre here
Like Joyce Chopra’s SMOOTH TALK and the more recent PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN, the most affecting films I’ve seen about sexual assault are those that do not shy away from complete terror of the situation as they teeter into full horrors from other genres—in this case a romance film. TEST PATTERN, unlike the aforementioned films, however, brings in a necessary consideration of race, highlighting the injustices and failures of a system that is concurrently sexist and racist. The tension built throughout the film is palpable, as director Shatara Michelle Ford begins with the assault and then flashes back to the lead up. The first section follows the meet cute start of the relationship between Renesha (Brittany S. Hall) and Evan (Will Brill), an interracial couple. The title—and only opening credit—doesn’t appear until about fifteen minutes in, as the film establishes that the two’s burgeoning relationship has resulted in them now happily living together. After Renesha is sexually assaulted by a man she met while out for the night with a friend, Evan insists they go to a hospital so she can get a rape kit done. Renesha now has to navigate a dismissive healthcare system that makes it exceedingly difficult to get any kind of help. Hall is incredible as she skillfully captures the heartbreaking reality of self-blame and confusion as Renesha—mostly silently—tries to piece together the trauma of what’s happened to her. This is all while Brill brings a more frenzied performance as Evan, who is taking action and making decisions on how Renesha should handle the situation; a scene where she watches on as he and a police officer—two white men—discuss her assault is quietly shocking. First time feature director Ford, who also wrote TEST PATTERN, provides deliberate pacing and nuance throughout, slowly making clear that Renesha is not only facing sexism and racism in this moment of trauma, but throughout her relationship with Evan. This is achieved in part through unsettling flashbacks, which are filmed like romantic interludes, shot in gorgeous sunlight, but are instead unsettling insights into Evan’s treatment of Renesha. TEST PATTERN is a remarkable and timely first feature—an honest and important portrayal of sexual assault and the many injustices that surround it, particularly for a Black woman. (2019, 82 min) [Megan Fariello]
Filippo Meneghetti’s TWO OF US (France)
Available to rent through Facets Cinémathèque here, the Gene Siskel Film Center here, and the Music Box Theatre here
TWO OF US eerily opens with a game of hide-and-seek between two young girls, during which one of them suddenly vanishes. A traumatic memory or a nightmarish omen, this prologue summarizes the predicament of the two septuagenarian women we’re about to meet, whose decades-long, closeted lesbian relationship has never progressed beyond the “hide” part of the game. Living across from each other in an old Parisian apartment complex, Madeleine (Martine Chevallier) and Nina (Barbara Sukowa) have become accustomed to carrying out their romance in secret, Nina routinely crossing the hallway for a meal or late-night rendezvous with her beloved. The two agree to sell Madeleine’s apartment and move to Rome; it seems the couple will finally find the freedom they’ve been looking for. But obstacles loom, particularly in the form of Madeleine’s children, who guilt their mother into staying put. The situation becomes even more fraught when a stroke leaves Madeleine in a semi-catatonic state, and the installment of a live-in caretaker augurs the end of the women’s apartment-hopping trysts. Rather than hit the obvious keys of melodrama, first-time filmmaker Meneghetti unfolds this ripe scenario using a cinematic language more allied with a psychological thriller, making especially unnerving use of peepholes, reflections, and pregnant silences punctuated only by the churn of a washing machine or the sizzle of a frying pan. Implacably driven to get her Madeleine back, Nina ends up taking matters into her own hands, Sukowa expertly and scarily conveying the mania that can grow from a love denied. The horror and tragedy of TWO OF US lie not so much in her increasingly unhinged behavior, but in the suppression of desire that fosters it, the absence reflected in the sad, hollow eyes of a mute Madeleine, forced to listen to her children prattle on about her nonexistent devotion to her late husband. Meneghetti invests so strongly in the women’s indestructible bond that he has the tendency, intentionally or not, of belittling his other characters, while too easily waving away Nina’s ruthless actions. Yet the performances from Chevallier and Sukowa are so powerful, you can’t help but root for them to find their way back to each other. “I will follow him / follow him wherever he may go,” goes the Little Peggy March song. An Italian translation of the earlier version of this song, Petula Clark’s “Chariot,” plays throughout TWO OF US as the women’s theme. Here, in lieu of “him” or any sexist declarations of obedience, there is only the mountains-moving force of love. (2020, 95 min) [Jonathan Leithold-Patt]
Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdóttir’s THE VASULKA EFFECT (Iceland/Czech Republic/Documentary)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
When Icelandic violinist Steinunn Briem Bjarnadottir and Czech engineer Bohuslav Vašulka met in Prague, where he was studying television and film production and she was studying music, the first thing he said to her was, “Take me as your husband, and take me out of here.” She said, “yes,” and thus, the personal and creative partnership of pioneering video artists Steina and Woody Vasulka began. The Vasulkas were part of the fertile arts scene of 1960s New York, where they collaborated with the likes of Andy Warhol and founded the essential arts space The Kitchen, while building their own electronic tools to mix the sounds and video images they captured in interesting and abstract ways. The film also documents their later years, with the couple in their 80s, as they catalog their works from their home in Santa Fe and learn that the art world has rediscovered them. (Woody died in 2019, after the film was completed.) THE VASULKA EFFECT is a homey look at this singular couple as it surveys their history and their current and past homes and work spaces. One shortcoming of the film is that it is a bit more interested in the celebrities the Vasulkas hung with than it is in helping the viewer to understand their art and how they made it. Nonetheless, Steina and Woody are a pleasure to spend time with and are more than worthy of the belated attention they are receiving now. (2020, 87 min) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
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 – Also Screening/Streaming
Society for Contemporary Art (Art Institute)
The Art Institute’s Society for Contemporary Art presents a lecture by film and video artist Charles Atlas on Tuesday at 6pm. More info and registration here.
Conversations at the Edge (SAIC/Gene Siskel)
CATE presents Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich: Speculative Archives, which includes an online conversation between filmmaker Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich with SAIC professor and art historian Romi Crawford on Thursday at 7pm, and an online screening of four of Hunt-Ehrlich’s recent films from Monday through March 28. More info and links here.
Asian Pop-Up Cinema
Asian Pop-Up Cinema presents a mix of online and drive-in screenings of more than 30 films for their Spring season. The online programming continues through April 30 and the drive-in screenings take place April 15-May 1. More information and a complete schedule here.
Video Data Bank
VDB presents Stephen Varble’s 1982 experimental video work LADY HERCULES, A PRELUDE TO ‘JOURNEY TO THE SUN’ (41 min) here.
Facets Cinémathèque
Check the Facets website for hold-over titles.
Gene Siskel Film Center
Hüseyin Tabak’s 2019 German/Austrian film GIPSY QUEEN (112 min) is available for streaming beginning this week. Check the Siskel website for hold-over titles.
The Film Center’s new online lecture series, Talking Pictures, presents three thematic strands through the spring featuring critic and author Jonathan Rosenbaum (Tuesdays, continuing through April 13), filmmaker John Sayles (Mondays in March), and journalist and curator Sergio Mims (Mondays in April and May). Details here.
Music Box Theatre
Slawomir Grunberg’s 2019 Polish film STILL LIFE IN LODZ (75 min), Maya Zinshtein’s 2020 UK/Israeli documentary 'TIL KINGDOM COME (76 min), and Pål Øie’s 2019 Norwegian film THE TUNNEL (104 min) are all available for streaming beginning this week. Check the Music Box website for hold-over titles.
ADDITIONAL ONLINE SCREENINGS
John Sayles’ CASA DE LOS BABYS (US)
Available to rent through Amazon Prime
One of John Sayles’ best films, MEN WITH GUNS (1997), follows an elderly doctor on an upsetting journey through the jungles of an unnamed Latin American country to consider the legacy of the dictatorships that dominated Central and South America for much of the second half of the 20th century. Many of those dictatorships, of course, were supported (and sometimes even installed) by the United States government, which makes MEN WITH GUNS as much a commentary on Sayles’ home country as it is about any other nation. Sayles’ CASA DE LOS BABYS might be seen as a postscript to MEN WITH GUNS in that it also considers the relationship between North and South America, but this film looks to the future as much as it reflects on the past. The story juggles almost a dozen major characters, most of them wealthy U.S. women hoping to adopt orphan babies in an unnamed South American country. Delayed in their aims by local bureaucracy, the women take up residence at a hotel and get to know each other as they wait. Much of the film observes them hanging out and enjoying their privileges—it feels as though every other scene takes place at a sumptuous brunch. With the exception of a brash, shampoo-stealing mother-in-waiting played by Marcia Gay Harden, Sayles doesn’t caricaturize the women, though he acknowledges that it takes an entire economic system to cater to their whims. Some of the most interesting scenes involve the hotel manager, played stridently by the great Rita Moreno, and her disappointing grown children; another subplot follows some young, local pickpockets who, in better circumstances, might have been adopted by a wealthy North American. Sayles doesn’t bring the various narrative lines to any sort of climax; he lets situations unfold so that a picture of the local social structure comes into view. The relaxed pace also allows one to luxuriate in the superb ensemble cast, which features, in addition to Harden and Moreno, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Darryl Hannah, Mary Steenburgen, and Lili Taylor. (2003, 95 min) [Ben Sachs]
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CASA DE LOS BABYS is the subject this week of the Gene Siskel Film Center’s online conversation series with John Sayles on a selection of his films. The event is on Monday at 6pm. More info and a link to purchase a ticket here.
Roberto Rossellini's PAISAN (Italy)
Available to stream on the Criterion Channel (subscription required)
If PAISAN is not as well known today as the films that precede and follow it in Roberto Rossellini's celebrated "War Trilogy" (i.e., ROME, OPEN CITY and GERMANY YEAR ZERO), that is likely because it has existed for most of the past few decades only in dire-quality prints and has thus been the most difficult of the three to see. But the movie itself has always exerted a massive influence on the work of other filmmakers: Gillo Pontecorvo credited it with making him want to be a director (his landmark BATTLE OF ALGIERS from 1966 would be unthinkable without it), and it served as a major reference point in THE IMAGE BOOK in 2018 when Jean-Luc Godard provocatively juxtaposed its grim final images with cell-phone footage of ISIS executions. Cinephiles everywhere therefore owe the Cineteca di Bologna a huge debt of gratitude for carrying out a digital restoration in 2013 that seemingly rescued the film from oblivion. Among other things, this restoration proves that PAISAN, which was funded in part by MGM after the unexpected success of ROME, OPEN CITY in the United States, is a more polished-looking picture than many of us thought, and that much of what we assumed was its gritty "Neorealist aesthetic" can actually be attributed to worn and battered prints. Unlike the other films in the trilogy, PAISAN employs a vignette structure and is broken into six chapters, each focusing on the experiences of different characters in different parts of Italy in the final days and immediate aftermath of World War II. For each vignette, Rossellini hired a different writer (including Federico Fellini before he had ever directed a movie himself), although Rossellini reportedly revised the script extensively while shooting it, which is perhaps why the film ultimately feels so cohesive. Each story seems to carry some trace of the one that precedes it (there are American G.I.s named “Joe” in each of the first two chapters to cite but one obvious example) and a major theme running through all of them is the tragic inability of characters to communicate, often as the result of a language barrier. Also giving the film unity of purpose is the way the stories progress temporally and geographically; it begins with the first Allied landing operation in Europe when Anglo-American troops arrive on the southern coast of Sicily, and each subsequent episode moves both further north and forward in time so that the final chapter ends in the Po Delta with Germans executing Italian partisans who are not protected by the Geneva conventions after Italy's surrender. All of the stories are powerful in their own right, often culminating with a surprise or ironic twist ending a la O. Henry, although the second episode is probably the most fascinating to watch from a modern perspective. This Naples-set story concerns the relationship between a bitter African-American soldier (a non-stereotypical character beautifully played by American actor Dots Johnson) and the Italian street urchin who steals his shoes. The soldier's drunken confession that he doesn't want to return home after the war has been rightly celebrated as one of the first moments in any movie made anywhere to criticize Jim Crow-era American racism. (1946, 126 min) [Michael Glover Smith]
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PAISAN is the subject this week of the Gene Siskel Film Center’s online lecture series by Jonathan Rosenbaum on “World Cinema of the 1940s.” The event is on Tuesday at 6pm. More info and a link to purchase a ticket here.
CINE-LIST: March 19 - March 25, 2021
MANAGING EDITOR // Patrick Friel
ASSOCIATE EDITORS // Ben Sachs, Kathleen Sachs
CONTRIBUTORS // Megan Fariello, Marilyn Ferdinand, Michael Frank, Tristan Johnson, Jonathan Leithold-Patt, Raphael Jose Martinez, Scott Pfeiffer