Cine-File continues to cover streaming and other online offerings during this time of covidity. As of this week, the Music Box Theatre is reopening in a limited capacity. We will list/highlight physical screenings at the top of the list for theaters and venues that have reopened, and 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.
PHYSICAL SCREENINGS
Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (British/American Revival)
Music Box Theatre – Friday-Thursday
For many, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY is not simply a masterpiece, but the apotheosis of moviegoing itself. In no other film is the experience of seeing images larger than oneself linked so directly to contemplating humanity's place in the universe. Kubrick achieves this (literally) awesome effect through a number of staggering devices: a narrative structure that begins at "the dawn of man" and ends with the final evolution of humankind; one-of-a-kind special effects, the result of years of scientific research, that forever changed visual representations of outer space; a singular irony that renders the most familiar human interaction beguiling; blasts of symphonic music that heighten the project of sensory overload. It isn't hyperbolic to assert, as film scholar Michel Chion has in his book Kubrick's Cinema Odyssey, that this could be the most expensive experimental film ever made; it's certainly the most abstracted of all big-budget productions. As in most of Kubrick's films, the pervasive ambiguity—the product of every detail having been realized so thoroughly as to seem independent of an author—ensures a different experience from viewing to viewing. Much criticism has noted the shifting nature of "thinking" computer HAL-9000, the "star" of the movie's longest section, who can seem evil, pathetic, or divine depending on one's orientation to the film; less often discussed is the poker-faced second movement, largely set in the ultra-professional meeting rooms of an orbiting space station. Is this a satire of Cold War diplomacy (something like a drier follow-up to DR. STRANGELOVE)? An allegory about the limitations of scientific knowledge? Like the "Beyond the Infinite" sequence that makes up most of the film's final movement—an astonishing piece of abstract expressionist art every bit the equal of the Gyorgy Ligeti composition that accompanies it—one can never know concretely what it all "means," nor would one ever want to. (1968, 142 min, 70mm) BS
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More info (including COVID policies) here.
Also screening at the Music Box Theatre this week is Dawn Porter’s 2020 documentary JOHN LEWIS: GOOD TROUBLE (75 min, DCP Digital). The film is also available for rent online via the Music Box.
LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS – New Reviews
Otilia Portillo Padua’s BIRDERS (US/Mexico/Documentary)
Available for free via Full Spectrum Features from 6/7-6/12 here
Anyone who birds knows about and dreams of visiting some of the birding hot spots around the world. Chicago has one—the Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary at Montrose Avenue on the lakefront. As great as Montrose is, however, there really is nothing like the areas in South Texas and Mexico featured in the Otilia Portillo Padua’s BIRDERS. Not only are these areas rich in migratory birds that also visit Montrose, but they have significant numbers of beautiful and interesting species that live there year-round and can be found nowhere else, including the spectacular scissor-tailed flycatcher that opens the film. Where BIRDERS: THE CENTRAL PARK EFFECT focuses its binoculars mainly on birdwatchers, BIRDERS spotlights the guides, banders, and stewards whose vocation or avocation lies in preserving, protecting, and helping others enjoy the birds and the precious habitats that helps them thrive. While there is some awareness of the border wall that may not be a barrier to birds but that threatens the habitat they need, the film is largely apolitical. We spend time in 11 nature areas, with the largest amount of time at raptor hot spots in Mexico, at one of which stewards somehow manage to capture and band birds of prey. The film doesn’t offer identification of many of the birds shown, and the shots of migrating raptors flying high in the sky are just as frustrating as they are in real life for birders who want to get a good look at them. I most enjoyed meeting a Mexican bird guide nicknamed “Blue Mockingbird” because of his skillful bird-call imitations, one of which he demonstrates to coax a green jay out for Portillo Padua’s camera. BIRDERS is a short and rapid Cook’s tour through this special region, but it manages to inform and amaze all the same. (2019, 37 min) MF
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The film is part of a series titled “Chicago Cinema Exchange: Mexico City,” presented by Full Spectrum Features, and includes a feature also starting July 7; another program is currently continuing, through July 5. More information here.
Ulrich Köhler’s BUNGALOW (Germany)
Available to rent through Facets Cinematheque here
The first feature by acclaimed German filmmaker Ulrich Köhler (SLEEPING SICKNESS) is a dry comedy about arrested adolescence, sexual frustration, and not giving a shit. It begins when Paul, a young man engaged in mandatory military service, abandons his troop during a period of leave. He hitchhikes his way back to his family home in an unspecified suburb, where he takes advantage of his parents being gone to loll about and evade requests by the German military to return to base. Shortly after Paul arrives, he discovers that his older brother Max is also crashing at the family bungalow with his girlfriend Lene, a Danish actress who becomes the object of Paul’s infatuation. The AWOL soldier’s obsession gradually becomes the focus of the film, and Köhler generates more suspense from the question of whether Paul will convince Lene to sleep with him than whether he’ll go back to the army. Actually, suspense may be too strong a word—so much of BUNGALOW concerns the antihero passively wasting time that the film occasionally suggests an anti-drama in the tradition of early Fassbinder. Yet there’s more than meets the eye in this impressively subtle film, which hints at longstanding familial tensions through its depiction of how the characters interact over a few days. Gradually it becomes clear that Max’s resentment of Paul reflects years of disappointment with his younger brother and that Paul’s seemingly random decision to go AWOL is in keeping with his chronic tendency to disappoint people. Köhler shares with his wife Maren Ade a talent for suggesting complicated personal histories through forward-moving narratives, though his poker-faced aesthetic, rooted in longish takes and inquisitive tracking shots, feels more aligned with contemporaneous German directors Christian Petzold and Angela Schanelec. In any case, BUNGALOW feels distinctive in its understated humor and rich characterizations, and thanks to this new restoration, more viewers will be able to recognize its place in the German cinematic renaissance of the early 21st century. (2002, 86 min) BS
Jose Luis Benavides’ LULU EN EL JARDÍN (US/Mexico/Documentary)
Available for free via Full Spectrum Features from 6/7-6/12 here
Chicago-based filmmaker, writer, and educator Jose Luis Benavides combines several years’ worth of research and reflection into a feature-length documentary about his mother, Lourdes Benavides, an incredible Latina woman who, as a teenager in the 1970s, was institutionalized after experiencing mental health issues and disclosing her same-sex attraction, then verboten in her community. This happened several years after she and her family returned from Mexico, adding another layer to Benavides’ staggering portrait of individual and generational trauma. As the director explores issues of race, migration and sexuality, so too does he expose an era of mental health care at the Chicago-Read Mental Health Center that was nothing short of appalling. Benavides interrogates these issues through a weaving of modes that effectively centers each issue and posits them in connection with the others; appearing throughout are ephemera surrounding the center and now-outdated mental health practices, which illuminate the environment in which his mother and others were being treated. One section is a reenactment (by an all Latina cast) of the transcript of the Knapp Commission on Mental Health Meeting, held at Chicago-Read Mental Health Center on February 15, 1972; this involved a female journalist going undercover at the facility to expose accusations of physical and sexual abuse. Other parts are more opaque, utilizing written texts and film clips with a poetic overtone. One throughline is nature—flowers and trees, flora abundant—likewise signifying Lourdes’ womanhood and sexuality, as well as emphasizing the ways that idyllic locales, like that which surrounds the institution, mask internal struggles to the outside world. This dual representation evokes beauty and pain—an appropriate metaphor for the filmmaker's extraordinary subject. (2018, 55 min) KS
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The film is part of a series titled “Chicago Cinema Exchange: Mexico City,” presented by Full Spectrum Features, and includes a short also starting July 7; another program is currently continuing, through July 5. More information here.
Bill Gallagher’s RUNNER (US/Documentary)
Available to rent through Facets Cinematheque here
The American poet e.e. cummings once wrote a short essay about a certain well-read pocket periodical’s formula for success. No matter what the circumstances—a biblical flood, a catastrophic earthquake, runaway wildfires—if the writer reports with the following tenets in mind—eight to eighty, anyone can do it, makes you feel good—he or she will earn the approbation of readers, editors, publishers and darn near the whole world. This publication would never do a follow-up that might contradict its feel-good conclusion, but sometimes the story goes sour. To break from the formula is a risk, but it’s a more honest approach to reporting that adults should be allowed to hear. Bill Gallagher’s documentary, RUNNER, considers a genuine underdog and his up-and-down battle to make a life for himself. Guor Marial (now Guor Mading Maker) grew up in war-torn Sudan. At the age of 8, he was kidnapped by a warring faction and destined for life as a slave, but he managed to escape. He was brought as a refugee to New Hampshire, where he learned English, developed into an award-winning runner on his high school and college track teams, and with little experience, qualified for the 2012 Olympics. At the same time, Sudan was splitting in two, and Guor’s native region became the world’s youngest country, South Sudan. Guor’s Olympic dream was almost over before it began when he was initially denied entry because South Sudan did not have an Olympic committee and he refused to run for Sudan. The IOC allowed him to run under their flag, and he did surprisingly well in the London games. If RUNNER had ended there, we would have had our magical uplift, but the cameras kept rolling. Among some of the triumphs—establishing a South Sudan Olympic Committee, starting a running camp, visiting his parents for the first time in 20 years—Guor’s race results started to decline, his country fell into a civil war, and we all know what has happened to his dream of competing in the now-postponed 2020 Olympics. Gallagher glosses over some aspects of Guor’s life that really need an explanation, like why he changed his name and why he left his parents again after a seemingly brief visit. Perhaps the answers would have irretrievably tarnished the hero story Gallagher seemed determined to make, but I, for one, was more moved by the broken-axle reality of Guor’s life. His is still an inspiring and interesting story, even moreso for knowing the damage that continues to haunt his life. (2019, 88 min) MF
LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS – Held Over/Still Screening/Return Engagements (Selected)
Christopher Munch’s THE 11TH GREEN (US)
Available for rent through Facets Cinematheque here
When does a conspiracy theory become historic truth? Does it even matter? THE 11TH GREEN takes us through the backrooms of The Deep State from Eisenhower to Obama, with the secrets about extraterrestrials and their technology finally coming out. We follow an investigative reporter who is writing the story about his recently deceased father, a former security liaison of Eisenhower’s. What he didn’t know, though, was that his father and friends were there for some close encounters of the wait, what the hell am I watching now? kind. During his investigation it’s revealed to him that, yes, UFOs are real, and, yes, aliens have contacted our government, and, yes, we have it on film. THE 11TH GREEN uses this fantastical scenario to discuss the ethics of nuclear warfare, humanity, and international governments. The film describes itself with opening text as “a likely factual scenario of extraordinary events.” Now, I don’t know if Obama being visited by both an ageless alien and the spirit of Dwight D. Eisenhower is either “likely factual” or even “extraordinary,” but it’s definitely weird in a way that few films these days seem to go for. It’s hard to tell if director/screenwriter Christopher Munch believes in the “facts” of the story he’s telling, or just believes that it’s a fun story to tell. To be fair, it doesn’t matter either way. Intentions be damned, THE 11TH GREEN is entertainingly bonkers. It feels like a movie out of time: a mix of hand-made xeroxed fanzine screeds, the experimental conspiracy films from Craig Baldwin, Church of the Sub-Genius pranksterism, X-Files fanfiction, and legit Cointelpro psyops. You know, the fringe ends of the 80s and 90s. Now, I’m not one to say whether or not any movie watching experience can actually be enhanced by someone ingesting weed, but I will say that THE 11TH GREEN feels like that friend of yours that definitely did, and now they want to tell you about how they connected all the dots, man. So maybe you’d like to get on their level. Or not. Either way, it’s still a wild trip. (2020, 108 min) RJM
Bora Kim’s HOUSE OF HUMMINGBIRD (South Korea)
Available for rent through the Music Box Theatre here
At one point in the luminous South Korean drama HOUSE OF HUMMINGBIRD, I was reminded of Bong Joon Ho’s phenomenally successful PARASITE (2019). The family on which HUMMINGBIRD focuses owns a rice cake store, and we see them work together to create and roll out long logs of rice dough and lay them side by side for further processing and packaging. The scene echoes in some ways in PARASITE’s opening scene of the Ki family folding pizza boxes to make ends meet, but there is a significant difference between the families and how they handle their lot in life. It may be more pleasing to audiences to root for the Kis as an underclass family whose larcenous designs on a fabulously wealthy family allow us a vicarious class reckoning. With HUMMINGBIRD, her directorial debut, Bora Kim offers us no clear us vs. them argument. What she does is provide a backdrop of economic pressure on middle- and working-class South Koreans by alluding to the land grabs and economic hegemony of foreign and upper-class elites as she bores intensely into the experiences of Eunhee (Jihu Park), the 14-year-old youngest child. The action takes place during the momentous year of 1994, when North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Il-Sung died and the Seongsu Bridge over the Han River in Seoul collapsed, killing 32 people. Eunhee’s family life is fraught—her father (Ingi Jeong) is having an affair and is harsh with Eunhee and her delinquent sister, Suhee (Bak Suyeon). Eunhee’s brother, Daehoon (Son Sangyeon), beats her and is not likely to fulfill his father’s dream of becoming a university graduate. Eunhee, starved for love, is willing to entertain any shows of affection, from a boyfriend to a lesbian classmate to her Chinese-language teacher (Saebyuk Kim). It’s likely that Bora Kim has channeled some of her adolescent experiences into the character of Eunhee, whose interactions are so personal and moving. It’s interesting that the women and girls in this film are much stronger and more stoic than the men, who break into tears at the potential loss of their loved ones. In creating her wholly believable female characters and imbuing them with full personalities and ways of relating, Kim has created a robust feminine landscape that is both edifying and deeply affecting. I particularly liked her fixation on hands and food as imagery that reinforce the feminine projects of nourishment and service. Indeed, her images are rich, well-chosen, and deeply engaged with her subjects. There was not a single moment in which I did not care what was happening to Eunhee and those around her. (2018, 138 min) MF
Bill Duke’s THE KILLING FLOOR (American Revival)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
A rare American labor union drama centered on Black experience, THE KILLING FLOOR is a minor miracle of narrative history, succeeding as drama, as pedagogy, and as a model of independent, inclusive, collaborative, local, unionized filmmaking. Shot in Chicago in 1983 for PBS’s American Playhouse series—an indispensable platform for some of the best independent filmmaking of the era, and a haven for voices and stories far outside the Reagan-era mainstream—THE KILLING FLOOR tells the story of Frank Custer (Damien Leake), a Black sharecropper who travels north to work in a stockyard during World War I. Eager to improve his wages and to reunite his family in the “Promised Land” of Chicago’s flourishing south side, Custer defies the ridicule of fellow Black workers to join a scrappy, mostly-white labor union. When the war ends and white veterans begin returning to the workforce (and to zealously segregated neighborhoods), racial tensions inside the union and out boil over, resulting in the violent 1919 riot that left dozens dead and displaced thousands of mostly Black residents. Producer and co-writer Elsa Rassbach, with a perspicacity uncommon today (let alone in the 1980s), found her way into this frayed historical knot through a footnote in William Tuttle’s book on the riot—a reference to a court record of a labor dispute between Custer and “Heavy” Williams (portrayed in the film by Moses Gunn), a Black stockyard worker whose vocal distrust of white unionists helped the packing company disrupt union organizing across racial lines. Thanks largely to director Bill Duke’s handling, what could have been a binary conflict between Williams’ pessimism and Custer’s idealism becomes remarkably nuanced—after all, Custer has justifiable misgivings of his own, and the film’s central dramatic question is whether his belief in the union can withstand the corrosive racism of its membership. Duke weighs Custer’s ambivalence through performance and point of view, as demonstrated in Frank’s first visit to the Union hall. Taking in the hectic air of jubilation and multilingual speechifying, Leake’s darting eyes register the white faces and powderkeg atmosphere with both wariness and enticement, his voiceover comparing the gathering to a Southern prayer meeting. In this sequence and throughout, THE KILLING FLOOR draws on familiar tropes and narrative conventions, but lends them a charge by introducing an alienated Black gaze to typically white spaces, pointedly validating the cultural knowledge that Black southerners bring as spectators to both the union hall and the historical drama. Celebrated dramatist Leslie Lee’s screenplay further makes virtues of archetypes and blunt expository dialogue; such immediacy is critical to the film’s educational economy, which captures the riot’s myriad underlying causes—the Great Migration, the First World War, the growth of organized labor, the European diasporas, and the centuries of exploitation and disenfranchisement of African Americans—in broad yet affecting strokes. But the film is also rich in detail and atmosphere, a quality starkly revealed in this new digital restoration by the UCLA Film and Television Archive, making its international debut just in time for the 100th anniversary of the 1919 Chicago riots. The renewed digital clarity also exposes some rough edges, of course—that’s to be expected from an ambitious historical drama funded largely by labor unions and populated with volunteer extras (including many from the Harold Washington mayoral campaign). Seen today, that roughness reminds us that THE KILLING FLOOR wasn’t so much a product of its time as a renegade in it—and a treasure in ours. (1985, 118 min) MM
Shola Amoo’s THE LAST TREE (UK)
Available for rent through Facets Cinematheque here
At a time where Black representation is more crucial than ever, it’s wonderful to see a film that is a character study of a young Black man in England that is simple, straightforward, and unafraid to leave heavy-handed dramatics by the wayside. THE LAST TREE follows Femi, from his childhood as the Black foster child of white parents in the English countryside through his young adulthood in London after he returns to live with his single, African immigrant mother. Reversing the all too common trope of the POC who leaves the big city for the country and has culture shock, here we have Femi having to learn to navigate what it means to be a Black man in the city and for the first time Femi has primarily Black friends. But what makes THE LAST TREE truly great is how the subtleties of intra-racial politics are explored. There’s a wonderful moment where Femi puts his headphones on and drowns out the world by falling deeply into the pop perfection of The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven,” only to be jarred out of it by a friend asking what he’s listening to. “Tupac,” he replies. He also has a crush on a girl, but his friends constantly make fun of her for having even darker skin than they do. We truly see Femi learn what it means to be himself, and Black, and an adult via small moments such as these. And there are plenty sprinkled throughout. Director/screenwriter Shola Amoo’s approach to his character is one of genuine care, a guiding hand, and we get the pleasure of seeing how just because someone stumbles on their path doesn’t mean they fall off it. The film shows aspects of culture that many of us here in Chicago, and the United States, are likely unfamiliar with. There are no broad strokes here, nor too fine of points; just a rich, full, lived-in story of life. (2019, 98 min) RJM
Peter Sellers’ MR. TOPAZE (UK)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here
Albert Topaze (Peter Sellers) is a humble, scrupulously honest teacher in a second-rate private school for boys in provincial France. He is a patsy for the attractive daughter (Billy Whitelaw) of the school’s owner (Leo McKern) who cajoles him into correcting homework for her as he implores his fellow teacher and friend (Michael Gough) to help him win her hand in marriage. Unfortunately, Topaze sticks to his principles when a baroness (Martita Hunt) wants him to change her grandson’s report card and ends up unemployed. It is then that he is recruited into running a shell company for the corrupt lover (Herbert Lom) of a stage performer (Nadia Gray). What will become of Topaze and his high moral principles? Based on a play by Marcel Pagnol, the first filmmaker elected to the Académie française, MR. TOPAZE borrows from Pagnol’s own experiences as a student in a provincial town, a schoolteacher, and the husband of an actress. Pierre Rouve’s adapted screenplay is beautifully literate, giving Sellers the opportunity to imbue his high-minded character with the intelligence that will serve him well in the latter stages of the film. In his only outing as a director, Sellers employs an exaggerated mise-en-scène to reveal character that is sheer eye candy, but largely directs his cast—including himself—to underplay their roles. Only McKern is flat-out hilarious, but Sellers indulges briefly in some of the bumbling pratfalls that will reach their height in the Pink Panther movies and Hunt’s performance of the song “I Like Money” is a sparkling highlight. This comic gem digitally restored from the only surviving 35mm print is, in its way, a coming-of-age story that has a tinge of sadness about it. Highly recommended. (1961, 97 min) MF
LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS – Also Screening/Streaming
Gallery 400 (UIC)
James T. Green’s 2017 video A SURVEILLANCE MEDITATION (4 min) is available online through July 12 here.
Chicago Filmmakers
Visit here to find out about virtual screenings offered via Chicago Filmmakers.
Facets Cinémathèque
All of the films available for streaming via Facets this week are reviewed above, as new reviews or hold-overs.
Gene Siskel Film Center
Zhang Yimou’s 1995 French/Chinese film SHANGHAI TRIAD (108 min) is available for streaming beginning this week. Check the Siskel website for hold-over titles.
Music Box Theatre
Sue Williams’ 2020 documentary DENISE HO: BECOMING THE SONG (83 min) is available for streaming beginning this week; and Kelly Reichardt's 2020 film FIRST COW (122 min) has a special online screening on Thursday at 7pm (more info here). Check the Music Box website for hold-over titles.
Chicago International Film Festival
Check here for titles currently available for rental from CIFF’s Virtual Cinema.
Chicago Latino Film Festival
CLFF is offering a selection of features and shorts for rental. Information here.
ADDITIONAL ONLINE RECOMMENDATIONS
Jeffrey Kimball’s BIRDERS: THE CENTRAL PARK EFFECT (US/Documentary)
Streams free on Kanopy through participating libraries with your library card
On May 25, 2020, Christian Cooper gained worldwide attention as the African-American man who filmed a woman in Central Park while she called the NYPD and made a false accusation against him simply because he asked her to obey the law and leash her dog. Before he became a symbol and media star, however, he was just Chris Cooper, doing what he does every spring and fall—birding. Cooper is one of the featured birders in Jeffrey Kimball’s informative and entertaining BIRDERS: THE CENTRAL PARK EFFECT. Although it doesn’t appear so, Central Park is a created landscape that has become a magnet for migratory birds because there is no other place in the New York area where they can stop to rest and feed as they travel to and from their breeding grounds. That’s gold for city birders like Cooper and, for 30 years, the modest livelihood of bird guide Starr Saphir, who says she had to raise her rates from $6 to $8—a incredible bargain for this ace birder’s expertise. Author Jonathan Franzen, who appears in the film, is an atypical birder in that he begrudges his attraction to it. As a long-time birder myself, I found very familiar every aspect of this film, from the nature photographers with telephoto lenses to the way everyone’s binoculars shoot up the minute someone sees a movement, and believe it will give nonbirders a great feel for the activity and why we do it. But then again, that should be obvious from the many lovely and majestic birds—scarlet tanagers, chestnut-sided warblers, black-crowned night herons, great horned owls, and many more—that make an appearance on screen and in the closing credits as the vital objects of our adoration and important bellwethers of our planet’s health. Cooper demonstrates amply that he is a skilled birder and one of the very nice people I have found almost all birders I have known to be, and that, I hope, will be what people will remember him for. (2012, 61 min) MF
Damon Packard’s FATAL PULSE (US)
Available to stream for free on Tubi
Six works by underground comic filmmaker Damon Packard recently turned up on the free streaming service Tubi, and I can’t think of a better place to encounter his movies. Of all the streaming services out there, Tubi comes closest to approximating what it was like to browse a neighborhood video store in the mid-1990s. There are only a handful of sections, which are organized according to the most basic distinctions (comedy, drama, foreign-language, etc.), and one must sift through all sorts of undesirable junk (exercise videos, Z-grade knockoffs of popular blockbusters, direct-to-video sex comedies, brainless kiddie entertainment) before landing on anything of value. Anyone familiar with Packard knows he thrives on cultural detritus; his convoluted narratives exhibit the influence of forgettable genre cinema, nonsensical conspiracy theories, commercials, and other forms of bad TV. His absurd video-freak humor predates both Tim and Eric and Everything Is Terrible!, and one could argue that he goes further than either with regards to intimating an entire cultural landscape. Packard’s recent feature FATAL PULSE is one of his funniest and most expansive films, a send-up of early-90s America that features some gut-busting idea in every scene. Set during the first Bush administration, it centers on Trent Dupont, an L.A. yuppie who controls the entire U.S. government from his suburban home. Trent may be the most powerful man in America, but he can’t confront his loser brother-in-law, who’s been crashing at his place for four years, eating all the snacks, and watching nothing but TV ads. This conflict ties into Packard’s spoof of “yuppie anxiety” thrillers of the era (if you’re not familiar with this risible subgenre, an Andy Rooney soundalike explains what it is in the opening minutes), but the filmmaker has more on his mind than parodying other films. Ultimately FATAL PULSE is about the corporatization and dumbing-down of American culture, which a William Friedkin impersonator (whom Packard presents as the film’s voice of reason) rails against in one of the film’s less cheeky moments. In characteristic Packard fashion, “Friedkin” later rails against the fact that people aren’t seeing his new film THE GUARDIAN because the L.A. riots have driven down local movie theater attendance. It’s a great joke about Hollywood’s blindness to what’s going on in the world, not to mention the arrogance and corruptibility of American elites. (2018, 115 min) BS
Sergei Parajanov Triptych (Armenia/Georgia/USSR)
Available for rent here
Armenian-Georgian filmmaker Sergei Parajanov had a spectacular, deep, and celebrated career; but even with all his successes, his life and work were still cut maddeningly short. Making films in Soviet republics, he often ran afoul of those in power which led to abandoned projects and frequent prison time. Despite it all, he created a film language all his own that deeply resonated and still retains all its mystery and power. This program of pristine new copies of three of his short films includes one magical and stunning masterpiece, one fragment that fills in an important gap in his career, and one charming and lively late work. HAKOB HOVNATANYAN (1967) is the masterpiece of the program. Along with Parajanov's THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES it mostly purely represents his singular style of vibrant staged tableaux, hinting at and poetically skirting around narrative. Stories and performances abound but in a nontraditional way that welcomes engaged hearts and eyes. He creates a lively world where the line between art and life blur to a warmly irrelevant point. In these dense ten minutes he explores the life, work, and impact of the titular 19th century artist on Armenian-Georgian culture. It's intensely structured but bursting with a swirling energy. For most of its length it's a tuneful and rhythmic iteration of themes. Everyday items are casually and purposefully tossed around, imbued with grace through the controlled choices of framing and light. Cracked paint. Empty picture frames and empty chairs and empty window frames sit around like in a fairy tale, asking for things to fill them. We pull back very slightly for some gentle and humane details of the paintings—hands and wrists. Music and the most basic animation begin. Don't think animated fluid motion—think more the awkward, perfect simplicity of Méliès' moon getting a rocket in its eye. Here I wish I knew more about the artist's work. Does he have a muse, or is he just-ok at painting ladies and they all kind of look the same? The muse ages. Pale mannered militaristic male faces are cataloged with pale mannered militaristic drum-beats. The structure shifts from cataloging to rhyming. Children/motherly baubles. Flowers/architecture. Things speed up and imagery and poetry become more complex. Echoes of the painter's world are seen in current-day life. In the final few spirals the real world is framed like the paintings and then there is a final dissolving into the plain poetry of the day-to-day reality with modern life fully back in control. The whole trip shook us from nostalgic control of national hero-worship to beautiful chaos of a bunch of little boys in tighty-whities swinging centuries-old gates. Next up is KIEV FRESCOES (1966), which is the remaining footage of a confiscated and officially-shut-down project celebrating Kiev's post-war 20 years. It marked a stylistic shift from Parajanov's art-house hit SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS, with its international style and forceful moving camera, to his more characteristic plain and sly framings and edits. This beautifully well-researched article tells the full story of the film and this fragment which was completed by Parajanov as camera tests and a proof-of-concept for his new way of working. It's curious and ravishing and makes your heart break for the film that would have been. Like the first film in the program, ARABESQUES ON THE PIROSMANI THEME (1986), focuses on the titular outsider, untrained folk-hero artist and brings his work to life with fetching tableaux. But this one is a lot more fun and traditional. The Parajanov compositions are all there, but the performers goof off and the pictures are shown in full. It's not a compromise, but more of a full embrace of the folksy charm of the artist and his work. The film breaks tradition and ends with a full-blown slow-motion celebration of the painter's resonance to and effect on modern Georgian life and culture. Parajanov deserves the Parajanov treatment. He created shattering masterpieces celebrating the long-lasting effects of great and sensitive artists, and he similarly deserves a grand memorialization to his beauty and profundity. In the meantime, we have his own films to provide that much-deserved celebration. (1966-1986, 48 min total) JBM
Youssef Chahine’s RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON (Egypt)
Available to stream on Netflix (Subscription required)
One of this season’s most welcome surprises has been the appearance on Netflix of twelve films by Youssef Chahine (1926-2008), the Egyptian writer-director-actor who’s widely considered the most influential Arab filmmaker. All of these films come highly recommended, though RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON is worth spotlighting in that it’s reportedly one of Chahine’s most political works. The film speaks to sharp divisions within Egyptian society—between the urban and rural populations, the educated and uneducated, and the rich and poor—suggesting a culture on the brink of implosion. Yet it’s not a message movie; Chahine was too much of a melodramatist to view his characters in purely political terms. PRODIGAL SON works smashingly as a romance, a family saga, and a coming-of-age drama, and it contains some decent musical numbers to boot. It begins with some jovial business about a young man’s last day of high school. Ibrahim, the scion of his village’s richest family, dreams of going to college in Europe and then helping western scientists study the moon, but his hotheaded father (who runs two of the family’s businesses, a printing press and a movie theater) wants Ibrahim to stay close to home and become a veterinarian. These two live in a large house presided over by Ibrahim’s genial grandfather and calculating grandmother, alongside a servant family, whose daughter, Tafida, has been in love with Ibrahim since both were small. They also live with Fatma, the younger sister of Ibrahim’s late mother. Fatma has dreamed of marrying Ibrahim’s uncle Ali ever since he left the village 12 years ago to become a building contractor in Cairo; in the time since, she’s situated herself as part of the Madboly family, which takes on epic, novelistic proportions as the movie progresses. Ali comes home about halfway into PRODIGAL SON, and his arrival precipitates seismic change within his family and the community at large. As Ali had become a legend in his absence, everyone—from his family members to the downtrodden villagers who work for them—expects him to fix their problems upon his return. It’s best for you to discover the truth about Ali for yourself, but its revelation brings the film crashingly into the realm of tragedy. Chahine covers so much ground here in terms of genre and emotional content, unifying the various narrative strands with an elegant visual style that sometimes recalls that of Vincente Minnelli. His use of color here is breathtaking as well. (1976, 124 min) BS
Andrew Patterson’s THE VAST OF NIGHT (New American)
Available to stream on Amazon Prime with subscription
In the spirit of The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Orson Welles’ The War of the Worlds, and all manner of resourceful low-budget independent science fiction, THE VAST OF NIGHT casts a lingering, otherworldly spell, and not just because of its talk of UFOs. More than a genre nostalgia trip, the film—a formidable debut by Andrew Patterson—is a tribute to the mysteries and extra-human capacities of technology, one that regards the mechanical apparatuses of tape recorders, televisions, and the cinema itself as mediums for supernatural encounters. Appropriately, then, the film opens with a slow, suggestive crawl into an old cathode-ray tube, flickering with a fictitious, Rod Serling-esque program called Paradox Theater. The episode? The movie we’re about to watch. The square TV expands into widescreen, and we’re transported to small-town 1950s New Mexico, following a seemingly normal night in the lives of two high school students: radio DJ Everett (Jake Horowitz) and switchboard operator Fay (Sierra McCormick). Due to the paranoia-signaling location, time period, and framing device, however, we can expect this night to be anything but typical. Even before the inciting event, Patterson and cinematographer M. I. Littin-Menz evoke a thickly eerie atmosphere via a winding, low-angle camera, which tracks the characters from afar as if it were its own skulking consciousness. Then, in a moment of protracted stillness while Fay is working the switchboard, something out of the ordinary happens: an unidentifiable, untraceable sound disrupts the signal. It’s around this point that Patterson and his DP pull off a dazzling formal coup, a sinuous, digitally-assisted tracking shot that rushes across town, through a basketball game at the school gymnasium, and into Everett’s studio. It’s a showy, even showboating maneuver, but it also resonates with how the film explores the relationship between space and telecommunication, depicting transmission as something both physical and disembodied, capable of collapsing vast distances. As Everett and Fay dig deeper into the mystery of the sound—and find unexpected witnesses who might be able to help uncover the truth—THE VAST OF NIGHT builds a disquieting verisimilitude. Whether you believe in extraterrestrial life or not is beside the point; the film is interested less in this possibility than in how such ideas are given form, validity, and endurance through mimetic technologies. In one of the film’s most memorable gestures, the screen fades to black during long stretches of a radio interview. The experience of radio listening supplants the visual mode of cinematic spectatorship. The voice is all we have, but in its sonorous timbre, in its palpable, documented presence, it testifies to something real, somewhere beyond here. (2019, 90 min) JL
SUPPORT LOCAL THEATERS AND SERIES
As we wait for conditions to improve to allow theaters to reopen, consider various ways that you can help support independent film exhibitors in Chicago weather this difficult time. Memberships, gift cards, and/or merchandise are available from the Gene Siskel Film Center, the Music Box Theatre, and Facets. Donations can be made to non-profit venues and organizations like Chicago Filmmakers, the Chicago Film Society, South Side Projections, and many of the film festivals. Online streaming partnerships with distributors are making films available through the Gene Siskel Film Center, the Music Box Theatre, and Facets; and Facets also has a subscription-based streaming service, FacetsEdge, that includes many exclusive titles.
COVID-19 UPDATES
All independent, alternative, arthouse, grassroots, DIY, and university-based venues and several festivals have suspended operations, closed, or cancelled/postponed events until further notice. Below is the most recent information we have, which we will update as new information becomes available.
Note that venues/series marked with an asterisk (*) are currently presenting or plan to do regular or occasional “virtual” online screenings.
OPEN:
Music Box Theatre – The Music Box reopens on July 3, presenting physical, in-theater screenings and also continues to present online-only screenings*
CLOSED/POSTPONED/HIATUS:
Asian Pop-Up Cinema – See above for online offering; otherwise, spring series postponed till the fall*
Beverly Arts Center – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice
Block Cinema (Northwestern University) – Events cancelled/postponed until furtuer notice*
Chicago Film Archives – The CFA’s annual “Media Mixer” event, previously scheduled for May, has been rescheduled for September 16
Chicago Film Society – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice
Chicago Filmmakers – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice*
Comfort Film (at Comfort Station) – Programming cancelled with no set start date
Conversations at the Edge (at the Gene Siskel Film Center) – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Screenings cancelled until further notice
Facets Cinémathèque – Closed until further notice (see above for “virtual” online screenings)
Film Studies Center (University of Chicago) – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice
filmfront – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice
Gallery 400 *
Gene Siskel Film Center – Closed until further notice (see above for “virtual” online screenings)
The Nightingale – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice
The Park Ridge Classic Film Series (at the Park Ridge Public Library) – Events cancelled/postponed until further notice
Festivals:
The Cinepocalypse film festival (June) – Postponed with plans to reschedule at a future time
The Chicago Latino Film Festival (April 16-30) – Postponed with plans to reschedule at a future time
The Windy City Horrorama festival (April 24-26) – Cancelled; will possibly be rescheduled or reconfigured at a future date
The Chicago Critics Film Festival (May 1-7) – Postponed until further notice
The Chicago Underground Film Festival (June 10-14) – Postponed (tentatively in September)
CINE-LIST: July 3 - July 9, 2020
MANAGING EDITOR // Patrick Friel
ASSOCIATE EDITORS // Ben Sachs, Kathleen Sachs, Kyle A. Westphal
CONTRIBUTORS // Marilyn Ferdinand, Jonathan Leithold-Patt, JB Mabe, Raphael Jose Martinez, Michael Metzger