We will highlight physical screenings at the top of the list for theaters and venues that have reopened, newly regrouped in our standard Crucial Viewing and Also Recommended sections, as well as all other physical screenings, and list streaming/online screenings below.
Remember to check the venues’ websites for information on safety protocols and other procedures put in place. More and more venues are now requiring proof of vaccination or a negative PCR test. We recommend verifying those protocols before every trip to the theater. And, of course, always wear a mask.
📽️ Chicago South Side Film Fest
The fifth Chicago South Side Film Fest starts Saturday and goes through December 5, with events at the IIT Tower Auditorium (10 W. 35th St.), Parkway Ballroom (4455 S. King Dr.), and Cinema Chatham (210 W. 87th St.). Below is a review of one of the films playing as part of the festival this week, with more to come in future lists. More info here.
Luchina Fisher’s MAMA GLORIA (US/Documentary)
Cinema Chatham - Sunday, 6pm
MAMA GLORIA is a deeply personal documentary that illuminates a larger history of transgender people of color in Chicago. Gloria Allen, now in her 70s, is an icon of the community, having started a charm school for transgender people at the Center on Halsted. The charm school inspired Chicago playwright Philip Dawkins’ Charm, and Gloria became known for her maternal support for and engaged work with transgender youth. The charismatic Gloria narrates her own story, which is filled with traumatic moments of violent abuse and loving acceptance from her family and friends, especially her mother. Allen begins by telling how her grandmother worked as a seamstress for drag performers in the early 20th century; she’s aware of how her personal history intertwines with a broader one, framing her story against historically significant moments and people, from the Civil Rights Movement and Emmett Till to the Stonewall Riots and Marsha P. Johnson. MAMA GLORIA emphasizes the power of Gloria sharing her story, not just directly with the film’s audience, as she recounts her personal history into the camera, but also with others, most compellingly with the queer youth she inspires. Gloria mentions, in a lovely scene where she shares a meal with her friends from high school, that she was voted “most friendly,” and the camera captures her welcoming nature. Gloria is also aware that her older age signifies survival, as she mentions losing so many friends; MAMA GLORIA notes that only 14% of transgender identifying adults in the U.S. are seniors. Gloria’s story is compelling not just in its engagement with history, but in its acknowledgement of contemporary struggles, as transgender rights are threatened and incidents of extreme violence against transwomen of color continue. MAMA GLORIA is an optimistic film that also recognizes there is still a lot of work to be done. (2020, 76 min, Digital Projection) [Megan Fariello]
📽️ BLACK HARVEST FILM FESTIVAL
The 27th Annual Black Harvest Film Festival continues through Thursday; it takes place at the Gene Siskel Film Center. Below are reviews of select films playing as part of the festival, with more to come in future lists. Furthermore, select programs are available to rent virtually. More info here.
Gordon Parks’ SHAFT (US)
Monday, 8pm
Released in 1971, SHAFT is best remembered now for introducing the first Black action hero—swaggering, leather-clad private detective John Shaft (Richard Roundtree)—but its rich New York tapestry was woven by an even bigger hero, director Gordon Parks. A poor boy who escaped the ghetto to become the first Black photojournalist for LIFE magazine, Parks crossed from skid row to Park Avenue and all points between without breaking stride, and as filmmaker Nelson George remarks in the new HBO documentary A CHOICE OF WEAPONS: INSPIRED BY GORDON PARKS, the photographer found a kindred spirit in Shaft, whose job also draws on his powers of observation and ingratiation and who moves among the police, local gangsters, mafiosi, and an array of vivid incidental characters as easily as he snakes through moving traffic in the film’s pulsing credit sequence. In the finest tradition of gumshoe noir, Shaft knows the blind newspaper vendor, the shoeshine shop proprietor, the pretzel vendor working his cart, all of whom feed him intelligence. After a Harlem gang lord (played with grand dignity by Moses Gunn) hires Shaft to rescue his college-age daughter, who’s been kidnapped by an invading mafia outfit, Shaft draws on a network that includes his stoned hippie neighbor, who agrees to turn on the lights in Shaft’s apartment; the gay bartender at the neighboring tavern, who lets Shaft wait on the clueless mafia thugs surveilling his place; and Dr. Sam, who, arriving at the apartment of Shaft’s lady friend to remove a bullet from the detective’s shoulder, looks as if he just rolled out of a Bowery dive. Parks acquits himself admirably as an action director, his shoot-outs expertly framed and cut, but the cameo portraiture is what makes this box office sensation and cultural milestone a personal work.(1971, 100 min, 35mm) [J.R. Jones]
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Spike Lee’s JUNGLE FEVER (US)
Thursday, 7pm
Spike Lee’s fifth feature may not be his best, but it may be his most characteristic in that it tries to encompass everything the writer-director was feeling at the time about art, commerce, race relations, and a host of pertinent social issues. Not for nothing did Jonathan Rosenbaum liken the movie to a living newspaper (albeit one that’s maybe 70% op-ed pieces); the movie is basically Lee’s report on what it meant for him to be alive in 1991. The central narrative concerns a successful Black architect—the wonderfully named Flipper Purify (Wesley Snipes)—who enters into an extramarital affair with his white, Italian-American coworker (Annabella Sciorra); yet the movie feels more alive when it drifts away from the lovers to consider the people around them. The most attention-grabbing subplot centers on Flipper’s crack-addicted older brother, played by Samuel L. Jackson in an extraordinary performance that won a special prize at the Cannes Film Festival. (Jackson himself had gone through rehab for drug addiction just before the movie was shot, making the performance something of a confession on the actor’s part.) The most powerful scene, however, involves Flipper’s wife, Drew (Loretta McKee), an extended rap session between several Black women on Black men and social perceptions about skin color. Lee had the actresses improvise for a few days before he structured and shot the scene—a strategy that recalls the work of British director Mike Leigh—and the results retain the spontaneity of those sessions. (For a filmmaker who’s famous for speaking his mind, Lee does an impressive job of listening here.) Indeed, the whole extended cast of JUNGLE FEVER shines; the movie is one of the most successful actors’ showcases in the director’s filmography. In addition to the players already mentioned, there are memorable turns by Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee (as Flipper’s deeply religious parents; John Turturro and Anthony Quinn (as Sciorra’s timid ex-boyfriend and his domineering father, respectively); Halle Berry (making her screen debut as Jackson’s girlfriend); and Lee himself. Another major presence is Stevie Wonder, who wrote some original songs for the movie and whose back catalog factors heavily in setting the mood. Lee often gets flak for playing music in his movies so loudly that it drowns out the dialogue, and nowhere is that quirk more egregious than in JUNGLE FEVER. But Lee is a proudly idiosyncratic filmmaker who (per Rosenbaum again) remains unique even when he makes mistakes. For some viewers, Lee made a mistake here in characterizing the central romance as “jungle fever”—that is, interracial attraction that’s based on ingrained stereotypes about race rather than genuine personal connection. The movie is so effective at fleshing out its characters that it can feel like a betrayal when Lee reduces their behavior to such petty impulses. Others will disagree, which is exactly the point—one reason why Lee is among America’s greatest political filmmakers is that he has a knack for forcing conversations off the screen and into the world at large. (1991, 132 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]
📽️ CRUCIAL VIEWING
Farah Khan’s OM SHANTI OM (India)
Chicago Film Society at the Music Box Theatre – Monday, 7pm
A sort-of SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN for modern Bollywood, OM SHANTI OM gently sends up several decades of popular Indian cinema while maintaining a reverential attitude towards the magic of moviemaking and the ritual of moviegoing. It’s easy to see why it was at one time the highest-grossing Bollywood film in history—the mood is so generous and the filmmaking so eager to please that its charms are basically irresistible. In the fashion of countless Bollywood spectacles, OM SHANTI OM offers something for everyone: slapstick, romance, intrigue, sentiment, killer musical numbers (the film’s director, Farah Khan, has been choreographing movies since the early 1990s; needless to say, the dancing here is superb) and circular camera movements that would make Brian De Palma blush. The story begins in the late 1970s, which provides a good excuse to start the movie with an upbeat disco number. Shah Rukh Khan stars as a movie extra named Om Prakash Makhija (his parents, hoping for him to have a successful film career, named him after a beloved comic actor); his two ambitions are to become a star and steal the heart of the popular actress Shantipriya (played by Deepika Padukone in her breakout performance). Much of the film takes place on movie backlots, and there are lots of affectionate in-jokes about the Indian film industry and lots of walk-on parts by Bollywood superstars. Khan and company create a winning portrait of Bollywood as a place where dreams come true, making it feel inevitable that Om will indeed win Shanti’s affection after he saves her from a burning set—a development that explicitly echoes a famous piece of Bollywood lore from the making of Mehboob Khan’s masterpiece MOTHER INDIA (1957). But this being a Bollywood spectacle, the lovers don’t find happiness that soon—in fact, there’s about two hours left of OM SHANTI OM after the burning-set sequence. It would be unfair to spoil what happens next, as the gleefully delivered plot twists are a big part of what makes the movie so entertaining. Suffice it to say, Khan and company indulge in the sorts of narrative developments one only finds in Bollywood spectacles, including a reincarnation subplot that harkens back to another late-50s Bollywood masterpiece, Bimal Roy’s MADHUMATI (1958). More of the filmic references are to ‘70s Bollywood, however; aficionados of this period of Indian cinema surely get a kick out of the costume design, music cues, and many of the celebrities who turn in cameos. But even if your knowledge of Bollywood is limited, the film is a blast—the joyful spectacle continues even into the end credits sequence, which pays tribute to everyone involved in the production and reminds you what an exciting operation it is to make popular entertainment. (2007, 169 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]
Sion Sono’s SUICIDE CLUB (Japan)
Music Box Theatre – Friday and Saturday, Midnight
Although Sion Sono had been making features for 15 years when he directed SUICIDE CLUB, it was his first film to find an international audience. Its distribution benefited from the J-horror boom of the late ‘90s and early 2000s, but seen today, it suffers a bit from striving too hard to fit in to this movement. Its first half contains some genuinely chilling scenes and imagery, but the film then dissipates some of its promise with red herrings and an overload of cartoonish gore. The opening scene shows 54 schoolgirls linking hands, lining up at the edge of the subway platform of Shinjuku station, chanting “A one, a two, and a three,” then killing themselves together by jumping into the path of an oncoming train. The police investigate the incident and other strange findings, like a chain stitched from human skin and a website predicting the suicides before they happen. Throughout the film, a bubblegum pop group of 12-year-old girls called Dessert performs every time a TV is on, with the entire nation captivated. Sono establishes a running theme: whether you’re a teenage student or middle-aged cop, you’re only a step away from being talked into suicide. Only one scene matches the power of the subway suicide, but it’s a doozy. In a few minutes, a group of high school friends races from idle speculation about the suicides to jokingly claiming they will start a suicide club to collectively leaping to their deaths from the school’s roof. Still, the film’s tone and style are all over the place. One minute, SUICIDE CLUB is a solemn police procedural; the next it’s following a bizarre subplot about a glam rock band living in an abandoned bowling alley, crushing animals to death and kidnapping women. While not fully apparent till the finale, SUICIDE CLUB is motivated by an anger at the kawaii emptiness of much Japanese pop culture, which conceals hidden layers of pain and violence. The enigmatic plot hints at a colder, nastier version of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s contemporaneous CURE (1997) and PULSE (2001). Sono made a prequel, NORIKO’S DINNER TABLE, four years after this, and planned a sequel that remains unproduced. This saga might be more satisfying as a finished trilogy; as is, it provides a window onto an intriguing body of work. (2001, 99 min, 35mm) [Steve Erickson]
Iván Zulueta’s ARREBATO (Spain)
Music Box Theatre — Wednesday, 7pm and 9:30pm and Thursday, 9:45pm
Everything’s a void, right? Touted as Pedro Almodóvar’s favorite horror film, Iván Zulueta’s second (and final) cult feature is being shown in the United States for the first time, more than 40 years after its initial release. Horror director José (Eusebio Poncela) is at a frustrating point in his career. Stuck making low-budget monster flicks that don’t inspire him, he comes into almost constant confrontation with his collaborators about his vision—a vision that's only emboldened by his addictions to cocaine and heroin. But his life is upended when his ex-girlfriend comes back into his life and he receives an odd package from an old friend, Pedro (Will More), containing a reel of Super-8 film, an audio tape, and a key. An awkward—and seemingly infantilized—reclusive filmmaker, Pedro films time lapses of his surroundings to find release, to fill a void. The title, ARREBATO, refers to the “rapture” that Pedro is often seeking, the moments when he is fully taken over by his creations. At its core, ARREBATO is a film about obsession—whether it's drugs, the artistic process, or both—and the tantalizing thorns of relapse. The relationship between José and Ana (Cecilia Roth) is a never-ending cycle of drugs and sex, establishing a toxic co-depency that serves only their addictions. Conversely, Pedro pulls José into his orbit of cinematic obsession, seemingly leading him down a path of no return. ARREBATO reflects a cultural shift in Spain. Following the death of Francisco Franco in 1975 and the subsequent dissolvement of the Francoist dictatorship, filmmakers of that era leaned into more unabashed depictions of sex, drugs, and violence. The film also contains an arresting use of color and experimental editing, which makes all the more sense given Zulueta's prolific career as a poster designer (his work includes some of Almodóvar’s earlier films). ARREBATO plays with time and illusion in confounding ways, recontextualizing what it means to make something, watch, and be watched. There’s a sense of unease that looms throughout the entire film, but it’s the final sequence that will chill you to the bone. (1979, 115 min, 35mm) [Cody Corrall]
Mohammad Reza Aslani’s CHESS OF THE WIND (Iran)
Music Box Theatre – See Venue website for showtimes
It’s the stuff of cinema legend. After screening just a few times (some sources say once, others three) in its native Iran, Mohammad Reza Aslani’s debut feature, CHESS OF THE WIND, was later banned as the Iranian Revolution began to foment, though it was lambasted even before then for its daring thematic and aesthetic aims. The film elements were lost when its production company was shut down amidst the revolution, and low-grade VHS copies of the film became prized possessions among cinephiles, a whisper network of its storied virtues reaching movie lovers far and wide. Only just recently, in 2014, Aslani’s son discovered the film’s negative in an antique shop in Tehran, and this set into motion the events that culminated with the restoration of what should be considered a masterpiece of Iran’s pre-revolution New Wave. Set in the early 20th century during the final years of the Qajar dynasty, it’s a gothic chamber drama of sorts with a Tell-Tale Heart vibe that’ll keep you on edge. The story centers on a well-to-do family whose matriarch has just died; her daughter, confined to a wheelchair, battles her evil stepfather for control of the large Tehran estate to which she believes she is the rightful heir. The stepfather has two nephews, one of whom wants to marry the heiress; the household staff, including the woman’s young handmaiden, loom as silent spectators to the dysfunctional family. The woman eventually strikes her stepfather with a heavy metal ball attached to a small, handheld staff. She, the suitor, and her handmaiden hide the body under a large glass jug, resolving to destroy it with acid. After this, the woman slowly goes mad, haunted as she is by the ghost of her stepfather (who, somehow, is still being spotted all around Tehran), just as menacing in death as in life. Elegantly subtle and frustratingly sly, the beguiling narrative still takes second fiddle to the film’s alluring aesthetic. Inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s use of natural light in BARRY LYNDON, the scenes are illuminated only by what would have existed during the time it takes place, including complex arrangements of flicking candlelight. Aslani and his cinematographer Houshang Baharlou also tinted the last two reels of the film yellow and green to evoke tactics used in silent cinema. These are techniques I hadn’t seen combined as such before and have found difficult to describe since; when I first saw the film, virtually, during the 2020 New York Film Festival (under the title THE CHESS GAME OF THE WIND), I was so enraptured by how it looked that I found it difficult to keep up with the poetic, elliptical narrative, a signature of great Iranian cinema. It’s simultaneously colorful yet muted, combining traditional Persian decor with an atmospheric overtone that sets any potential cheeriness at odds against Aslani’s prescribed gloom. The tinting isn’t just a novelty, indicating in certain sequences that all isn’t as it seems, the proverbial beating of a thought-buried heart. The look of the film was inspired by a variety of sources, including Iranian artist Mahmoud Khan, Johannes Vermeer and Georges de La Tour—filmically speaking, Aslani utilized theories deployed by such masters as Robert Bresson and Luchino Visconti with regards to how he directed the actors, most of whom came from the stage. Notable among the cast is Shohreh Aghdashloo, in a very early role, who plays the handmaiden and would later be nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG. Aslani intended for the machinations of his upper-class characters in the film to remark upon the machinations of his country’s leftist radicals to undermine one another in the face of rising conservative forces. This is worth seeing several times in order to discover all of its myriad layers, from the sublimely beautiful presentation to a slyly subversive undercurrent. (1976, 100 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
Alexandre Koberidze’s WHAT DO WE SEE WHEN WE LOOK AT THE SKY (Georgia)
Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes
Pharmacist Lisa and footballer Giorgi bump into each other one ordinary day in the ancient city of Kutaisi, Georgia. The two are instantly smitten, and after another encounter that night, they arrange to meet the next day at a café. Unfortunately, a curse befalls the would-be lovers, and by morning, their faces have changed, making them unrecognizable to one another. This is the fairytale-like premise of WHAT DO WE SEE WHEN WE LOOK AT THE SKY?, but it soon becomes obvious that any conventions of narrative are but pretext for the film’s wandering explorations of Kutaisi, its inhabitants, and the language of cinema itself. Like the football bobbing down the Rioni River at the film’s midsection, Alexandre Koberidze’s sophomore feature floats along languidly, its indulgent runtime set to the rhythms of the quotidian. Koberidze lackadaisically drops in and out of his protagonists’ lives, in no hurry to resolve what would charitably be called their “storyline,” following ambling digressions whenever he sees fit. Often he abandons his fictional narrative entirely to observe the sights and sounds of the city, from the exuberant play of schoolchildren to sidewalks, trees, football-loving stray dogs, and the hands and feet of pedestrians, captured in abstracted closeups Bresson would adore. Meanwhile, World Cup fever is gripping the city, drawing everyone’s attention like some collective dream. The other collective dream here is the cinema, alluded to in a meta-textual subplot about a filmmaker and reinforced by Koberidze’s playful, self-aware manipulations of form, including oblique compositions, zooms and dissolves, and a direct address asking spectators to participate in the film’s illusion by closing their eyes at a specific moment. Much of his aesthetic also harkens back to the era of silent film, with narration (provided by Koberidze himself), a lush, twinkling score (by his brother), and intertitles largely replacing spoken dialogue. Taken with the film’s quasi-magical realist story, the effect is simultaneously meditative, estranging, and bewitching. At a few points, Koberidze’s narrator makes intimations about the violence and other ills plaguing the modern world, and wonders if we’re all focusing on the wrong things. WHAT DO WE SEE… suggests we could do a lot worse than look to cinema and its potential to refocus us. (2021, 150 min, DCP Digital) [Jonathan Leithold-Patt]
Jane Campion’s THE POWER OF THE DOG (US/UK/Australia/New Zealand/Canada)
Music Box Theatre – See Venue website for showtimes
It’s been 12 years since Jane Campion’s last feature film, BRIGHT STAR. That movie stays with me for containing one of the rawest scenes of a character crying in grief I’ve ever witnessed; I still get chills thinking about it. THE POWER OF THE DOG is darker, but no less emotional, unhurriedly revealing the devastating and murky inner lives of its characters with astonishing skill and empathy. The film is demarcated by roman numeral chapters, each building tension by slightly shifting audience expectations. It’s clear this growing anxiety is leading to a dark, violent end, but I was constantly reconsidering what that end might be and consistently taken aback by Campion’s twisting complexity of the characterization onscreen. The story takes place in 1920s Montana, following the Burbank brothers: quiet and clean-cut George (Jesse Plemons) and rough yet charismatic Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch). For years they've run a prosperous cattle ranch, but their situation is upended when George marries sweet Rose (Kirsten Dunst), a widow who brings along with her scholarly son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee). Phil is enraged by this change, and his immediate cruelty to Rose and Peter is distressing. It’s slowly revealed his unbridled rage is complicated by his past; most notably he had a deeply meaningful relationship early in his life with a cowboy mentor who’s long since passed. Though never onscreen, Bronco Henry’s presence looms as large as the Montana mountains. And, oh, those mountains. Ari Wegner’s cinematography is breathtaking and true to the Western genre, but it also feels alien. The landscape seems both impossibly picturesque and quietly full of terrors. Shots of wide-open spaces are juxtaposed with tight quarters, driving the characters fears and desires: the camera captures scenes through windows and doors (à la THE SEARCHERS), the brothers’ cold ranch house, and Phil’s secret sanctuary in the nearby woods. We witness the characters as they navigate not only the setting, but their own troubled existence within it. They dance around each other as they grapple with overwhelming loneliness fueled by constantly needing to assess the intentions of those around them. Cumberbatch is powerfully unsettling, but the film belongs to Dunst, who masterfully portrays Rose’s emotional shifts with crushing compassion. Smit-McPhee, too, is incredible as Peter, whose motives are skillfully inscrutable until the final, quietly shocking moments. (2021, 125 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]
📽️ ALSO RECOMMENDED
Noirvember Double Feature
Music Box Theatre – Tuesday, 7pm
Raoul Walsh’s WHITE HEAT (US)
After trying to extend his dramatic range with a series of independent productions, James Cagney returned to Warner Bros. for this explosive gangster saga, which updates the genre with the Freudian ideas then percolating into the American mainstream and the tech-savvy police proceduralism then trending in movies (HE WALKED BY NIGHT) and radio (Dragnet). Cody Jarrett, ruthless commander of a little west-coast stickup gang, can barely contain his glee when he kills, but behind closed doors he seeks comfort in the lap of his hardened old mother, based on the real-life crime figure “Ma” Barker and gravely played by Margaret Wycherly. This psychodrama produces some of the film’s most notorious scenes, such as Jarrett being carried kicking and screaming out of a prison mess hall (Raoul Walsh kept his extras in the dark about the scene, and their shock is evident onscreen). Meanwhile, starchy federal agents infiltrate Jarrett’s gang with sharply observant undercover man Edmund O’Brien and use a radio-based forerunner to GPS to track the gang’s movements during a climactic payroll heist. (A veteran of the silent era, Walsh does his best to visualize this hocus pocus with revolving antennae and wall maps, but it can’t compare with the breathtaking train robbery that opens the film.) In his chuckling sadism, Cody Jarrett harks back to the feral bootlegger Cagney played 18 years earlier in THE PUBLIC ENEMY, the film that made him a star. Yet THE PUBLIC ENEMY arrived in the depths of the Depression, when Warners could get away with styling the gangster as a proletarian antihero; released amid the right-wing backlash of the postwar era, WHITE HEAT reduces him to a squalling mama’s boy, batshit crazy and destined for self-immolation. (1949, 113 min, DCP Digital) [J.R. Jones]
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Byron Haskin’s TOO LATE FOR TEARS (US)
There are many kinds of femmes fatales in classic film noir, but if I had to pick the fatale-est of them all, it would be conscience-free murderer Jane Palmer (Lizbeth Scott) in TOO LATE FOR TEARS. Adapted by author Roy Huggins from his own serialized novel, TOO LATE FOR TEARS doesn’t waste time burrowing into the psychology of its characters. Jane’s opening speech to her dullard of a husband (Arthur Kennedy) neatly sums up her envy of people with money, and her first glimpse of the 60Gs in the satchel that was thrown into their convertible by mistake is the purest avarice I’ve ever seen on a face. Scott reunited for this film with her director in I WALK ALONE (1947), Byron Haskins, a special-effects specialist who later found his niche directing science fiction films and television. Whereas Scott was a supporting actor in their first film together, this time, she is pretty much the whole show. I found the movie kind of hilarious in its constant suggestions about the proper roles of men and women, as Jane constantly behaves out of character—paying for a boat ride that the attendant clearly expected her husband to take care of, expertly driving like Steve McQueen to evade the person for whom the money was intended (Dan Duryea), only to have her husband demand to take the wheel once she has shaken the other car, and, of course, doing all the killing. Her love of money is played like a sickness, so perhaps Huggins and Haskins intended her to come off as a psycho. Leave it to Dan Duryea, one of the smartest actors in the business (and reportedly an extremely sweet guy), to counterpoint her heartless machismo with a vulnerability and humanity that form subtle critiques of the postwar drive for wealth and power. (1949, 106 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
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Cine-File contributor Scott Pfeiffer also wrote up TOO LATE FOR TEARS; read his review here. More info on the double feature here.
Toshio Matsumoto’s FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES (Japan)
Facets Cinema – Thursday, 9pm
“She loved roses, and they had to be artificial ones.” Our lives are surrounded by replicas and fakes, CGI and special effects masking our day-to-day reality. FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES questions the artifice that pervades our tumultuous society. In the opening third of the film, Eddie, a young transgender woman, walks through an art museum with a voiceover explaining the sociological concept of masks. The idea is that a person utilizes a mask or costume to hide their “true” personality. The film itself has a commendable amount of nuance, and it raises questions of what our “true” personalities might even be. The line about artificial roses ends up being the most important, as it alters our judgement on whether the masks we wear are inherently good or bad and on which of our personae is the real one. Matsumoto might not know the answers himself, which is a perfectly fine position to take, but he makes it clear that an artificial rose is just as beautiful as a real one. The film is quite explosive, and its radical form matches its radical subject matter. Equal parts funny, cool, gross, and erotic, FUNERAL PARADE OF ROSES jumps around chronologically and intercuts between fictional and documentary sequences. The nonfiction scenes feature interviews with the cast of the film; they give us insights into their lifestyles as well as their thoughts on the picture they're currently shooting. The film, frequently cited as an inspiration for Stanley Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, deserves the same recognition and notoriety that its offspring got. Luckily, unlike the story’s Oedipal trajectory, this parent film can’t be killed by its successor's fame; in fact, it's only cemented itself as a cult classic as time has passed. (1969, 105 minutes, DCP Digital) [Drew Van Weelden]
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Preceded by the inaugural Facets trivia night at 7pm, in the theater’s new cafe space. Hosted by critic, programmer and Cine-File contributor Raphael Jose Martinez and local programmer Mike Vanderbilt. More info here.
Angelo Madsen Minax’s NORTH BY CURRENT (US/Documentary)
Block Cinema (Northwestern University) – Wednesday, 7pm (Free Admission)
“If I loved you less,” begins the quotation cited after the end credits of Angelo Madsen Minax’s staggering essay film NORTH BY CURRENT, “I might be able to talk about it more.” Seeing as the filmmaker’s own mother refers to his work as vile—a statement with which I disagree but which summarizes the potential for others to view Minax’s subversive output as such—it’s ironic to see a quote from Jane Austen’s Emma; the author and her body of culturally revered opuses, though undoubtedly more radical than given credit for, are often considered the height of respectable, genteel artistry. Nevertheless, it’s a sublime epitomization of what came before this quote appears onscreen: a raw, transcendent depiction of a family, for whom communication is already an issue, tormented by immense grief. The source of that grief, at least as it’s first presented, is the sudden death of Minax’s infant niece, Kalla; a subsequent investigation looks into whether or not her parents, Minax’s younger sister Jesse and her ex-convict husband, had anything to do with it. (I’ll note here that it seems very, very unlikely that they did; if anything, Minax’s sister and brother-in-law are potentially victims of a—surprise, surprise—corrupt legal system that took the easy way out in assuming that an ex-addict and her convicted felon husband were somehow at fault. I say this to distinguish that the film is not a true-crime documentary or anything of the sort, and that the tragedy in question is more a jumping-off point from which to examine larger, more dysfunctional family dynamics.) Shot over several years starting in 2015 (two years after Kalla’s death), with interstitials delineating years 2016 through 2020, the film establishes a loose narrative arc from the aftermath of that tragedy to its conclusion in the present, over which time Minax and his family lament and evolve in equal measure. It would seem that the source of their collective anguish isn’t just the tragedy of a child’s death, but rather the collective hardship born of their individual struggles. Jesse has contended with addiction, domestic abuse, and mental health issues, all while having three kids in as many years following her first child’s death. Minax continues to deal with the reaction of his family to his coming out as a trans man. Their parents, devout Mormons who reside in rural Michigan, are inherently at odds with their kids’ respective journeys, though they appear to be supportive overall. The relationship between Minax and his sister is also complicated: the former acknowledges that he terrorized his younger sibling as a kid, and Jesse confesses she believes that to be the impetus behind her drug problem. Minax’s depiction of his family is radically empathetic; he puts forth his own shortcomings and graciously contextualizes those of others rather than use broad strokes such as good versus bad. Scenes in which Minax and his parents discuss his gender transition are among the most affecting: his parents’ feelings on the matter evolve over the course of the film, and real, honest healing is done before our very eyes. Having primarily worked in experimental film and video, Minax imbues what he considers his most accessible work to date with boundary-pushing motifs that metamorphosize the form. He mines day-to-day life for visual and sonic metaphors—a certain song ironically starts playing on the jukebox, a tree bends toward the light—that hint at a larger meaning to it all; an unidentified child narrator, who’s often in conversation with Minax’s own voice over, helps translate what’s not being said, the ways that this distressed family connects with and loves one another amid all the turmoil. This omnipresent child is the love that resonates between and through them and which they have trouble putting into words. If they loved one another less, maybe they’d be able to talk about it more. Additional short films by Minax will be available to stream from Tuesday through December 6. Director Angelo Madsen Minax will be in attendance to introduce the film and to participate in a post-screening conversation. (2021, 86 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh’s WRITING WITH FIRE (India/Documentary)
Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes
Despite having the distinction of being the world’s largest democracy, India clings to its ancient traditions and illiberal ways to a truly shocking degree. The caste system is officially outlawed, yet it continues to govern human interactions at every level—from marriage, to employment, to housing. One group, the self-described Dalits, was considered so low that they were excluded from the caste system—and it is often the outsiders who can best critique the society in which they live. WRITING WITH FIRE chronicles the lives and activities of some intrepid Dalit women in India’s powerful Uttar Pradesh region who publish Khabar Lahariya (Waves of News). As with newspapers all over the world, these journalists are pivoting to online publishing to survive and tell the stories of rape, political corruption, and worker exploitation that most of the major media outlets don’t go near. Led by Meera, the managing editor, and ace reporter Suneeta, the staff learn journalism basics and reporting for electronic publication, gain in confidence, and find the courage to speak truth to power in a country that regularly murders its journalists. Watching the positive impact of their reporting on the lives of ordinary people is nothing short of breathtaking, as is the growth of their audience into the millions and their operations expand into other regions of the country. WRITING WITH FIRE is one of the best movies of the year. (2021, 92 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Spike Lee’s INSIDE MAN (US)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Thursday, 9:30pm
Spike Lee’s signature style—integrating the rawness of urban life with elegant language and drama—is on display in this taut, nimbly constructed heist film, written by former lawyer and debut screenwriter Russell Gewirtz and originally slated to be directed by Ron Howard. Only after Howard was persuaded by Russell Crowe to take on CINDERELLA MAN did the former’s business partner, Brian Glazer, approach Lee about helming this one. The film opens on the ostensible antagonist, Dalton Russell (played brilliantly by Clive Owen, recently relegated to mindless serial action franchises), explaining the heist straightforwardly to the camera. Once the action is set in motion at a stately Manhattan bank, New York City police detectives and hostage negotiators Keith Frazier (frequent Lee collaborator Denzel Washington) and Bill Mitchell (Chiwetel Ejiofor) are called in to mitigate. Washington flexes his preternatural charisma as he handles the on-scene crew (including a surly police captain played to perfection by Willem Dafoe) and the hostages, interviews with whom, after the heist has presumably been resolved, accent the narrative at periodic intervals. Lee was drawn to the project out of admiration for Sidney Lumet’s 1975 classic DOG DAY AFTERNOON; Frazier even references the film to Owen, calling his bluff when the mysterious criminal commits the ultimate faux-paux of asking for a plane. It’s through Frazier’s deductions that viewers begin to understand what’s going down, that things aren’t as they seem, with plot twists involving the bank’s owner (Christopher Plummer) and a “fixer” (Jodie Foster, transfixing) brought in to help safeguard his secrets, locked away in a safety deposit box. This is where many critics felt the plot goes off the rails. Without spoiling too much, it implicates the bank owner as being complicit during one of history’s greatest atrocities in order to enhance his own financial standing. But, as is typical of Lee, the film eschews easy questions and instead evokes such quandaries as, can—does—time erase past wrongdoings and are there people for whom doing bad things might be okay? One indelible scene occurs when Russell brings a young male hostage into the vault with him, keeping him company as he finishes a slice of pizza. Russell questions him about what’s happening, to which the boy replies that he’s not bothered, that the thieves are just trying to get paid. This complex, dog-eats-dog, quasi-Robin Hood perspective makes the movie a thinker as well as a thriller, introducing the sorts of questions one usually comes away with after watching a Spike Lee joint. Quintessential Lee flourishes, such as unusual music choices, hyper-intentional close-ups and double dolly shots, further distinguish the film as being made by him, elevated above its genre origins, a twisty chronicle that pays off in more ways than one. (2006, 129 min, 35mm) [Kat Sachs]
Kera MacKenzie and Andrew Mausert-Mooney’s MAKE A DISTINCTION (US/Documentary)
Museum of Contemporary Photography (Ferguson Hall, 600 S. Michigan Ave.) – Wednesday, 6pm
Kera MacKenzie and Andrew Mausert-Mooney’s MAKE A DISTINCTION is a bold step into the feature form by the Chicago-based duo. Made over four (shall we say, fraught) years, the film seems to narrate the course of its own development, from exploratory survey to statement of purpose: if you’re wondering where it’s going at the start, you’ll know exactly where you stand at the end. (Spoiler alert: stolen land.) Not that things are all that vague at the jump: an electric opening montage featuring clips of Kwame Ture and Fred Hampton signals the general direction. But the following scenes, cruising the communities surrounding Kentucky’s Fort Campbell Army Base and glimpsing the travesties inflicted on the American environment by capitalism and militarism, suggest filmmakers seeking refuge in pockets of untrammeled nature—and in a familiar idiom of landscape essay film. This impression is deceptive: halfway through, the film changes course dramatically, turning its focus towards Chicago and adopting a tone of forceful and incisive analysis. Defiantly casting their 16mm camera lens on the many Dick Wolf television productions shooting around the city, the filmmakers unpack incestuous relationships linking the dramatized copaganda of shows like Chicago PD, the corrupt developers behind the Cinespace Chicago studio, and the actual CPD forces who have brutalized city residents with impunity for decades. With damning precision, MacKenzie and Mausert-Mooney lay out on-screen texts and primary documents, arguing implicitly for formal, economic, and political alternatives to the commercial film industry’s hegemony…before changing stylistic gears yet again. These shifts are abrupt, but the film’s own internal polymorphism—the confidence with which it swerves from landscape to essay film to insurrectionary botany lesson (?!)—helps us imagine what such a radical film practice might look like. The electrifying Dick Wolf sequence divides the film, much as the opening’s Fred Hampton quotation divides the people from the pigs. But MacKenzie and Mausert-Mooney don’t just ask us to pick a side, they show us how. By returning, with lucid self-awareness and burning urgency, to landscapes, figures, techniques, and themes from its first half, MAKE A DISTINCTION demonstrates how historical consciousness can orient diverse experimental tactics towards a unitary, emancipatory purpose. In other words, it’s an object lesson in political filmmaking. (2021, 62 min, Digital Projection) [Michael Metzger]
Roberto Rossellini's JOURNEY TO ITALY [VOYAGE TO ITALY] (Italian Revival)
Doc Films (University of Chicago) – Thursday, 7pm
This perplexing film, the fourth of six collaborations between Rossellini and lover Ingrid Bergman, catches a British husband and wife (Bergman and George Sanders) on a trip to Naples at the brink of their marriage's collapse. Alex (Sanders) defines cruel logic with his complete lack of sentimentality and constant cutting words while Katherine (Bergman), sympathetic only by comparison, spends much of the trip muttering discontentedly to herself on lonely tours through museums, catacombs, and volcanoes. Where other films about failed marriages let us grow attached to the characters before rending them apart, JOURNEY TO ITALY thrusts us into the dysfunction practically from the beginning, forcing us to accept the direness of the situation at face value, or be left behind. The marriage seems so thoroughly beyond hope that, for much of the film, there is a disquieting lack of drama, until the coldness and the cruelties finally reach a critical mass and the sadness and pain behind them begin to appear like the secret picture in a magic eye. Panned on its original release, the film was subsequently championed by Truffaut, Rivette, and other members of the New Wave. (1954, 86 min, DCP Digital) [Mojo Lorwin]
Pablo Larraín’s SPENCER (UK/Germany)
Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema – See Venue website for showtimes
After her husband gifts her a stunning piece of jewelry, which she knows he also gave to his mistress, Diana laments, “It’s not the pearls’ fault, is it?” SPENCER is in many ways a film about clothing, its personal and symbolic significance, how it’s used to stand out or to hide. A film about Princess Diana focusing on her wardrobe may seem frivolous, but fashion is tension. SPENCER takes her relationship to clothing seriously, and thus challenges the audience’s perception of her as a fashion icon. Director Pablo Larraín knows how to turn that tension into compelling storytelling about real life figures—his 2016 film JACKIE does the same. SPENCER shines a light on the costuming in such a way that it moves beyond the mise-en-scène; costume designer Jacqueline Durran does an amazing job transforming relatively tame early 90s fashions into disruptive, disobedient garments. Clothing is more than ornamental: for Diana it’s equal parts terror and rebellion. SPENCER follows Diana (a dizzyingly powerful Kristen Stewart) as she visits the Queen’s Sandringham Estate over Christmas during the final, unhappy days of her marriage. The film presents the estate as a haunted house, highlighted by Jonny Greenwood’s intense string score. Diana is spied upon by the staff and disturbed by the past, though generally ignored by the family. In some ways, it feels more closely aligned with female-led dramatic horrors like THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE or THE INNOCENTS than a traditional biopic, especially in regards to women’s mental states and actions constantly being questioned. But the film is also grounded in its portrayal of Diana as a woman desperate to get out of an unbearably tragic situation. This is due in no small part to Stewart’s compassionate performance. SPENCER opens with the words, “A fable from a true tragedy.” Stewart convincingly portrays Diana as a woman who’s endured these hardships for a long time—and will continue to—but with brief, shining moments of relief, defiance, and joy. So many of these revolve around the seemingly simple idea that she can make her own choices—like what she wears. (2021, 116 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]
Matías Piñeiro’s ISABELLA (Argentina/France)
Facets Cinema – Check Venue website for showtimes
Director Matías Piñeiro has sought inspiration from William Shakespeare’s plays across a number of films he has written and directed, perhaps most famously A Midsummer Night’s Dream with his 2016 feature HERMIA & HELENA. His latest film, ISABELLA, uses Measure for Measure as the backdrop for examining the creative process and, specifically, the desire of his protagonist, Mariel (María Villar), to be an actor. The film opens on an explanation of purple as a borderline color between hot and cold, setting up a rather clever ritual that involves throwing 12 stones, which represent doubts, into a body of water. If the thrower hangs onto one stone, that means their doubt is important; if all the stones end up in the drink, then the action they had doubts about is what is called for. As it happens, this ritual is the basis for an experimental play Mariel has written and is prepping for production. She also has been induced to audition for the part of Isabella in a production of Measure for Measure, with her brother’s lover, fellow actor Luciana (Agustina Muñoz), offering to act as her coach. The film skips around in time with repetitive actions and few character introductions, so piecing together the dramatis personae and the story is a real challenge. The out-of-sequence presentation and lack of character information distances one from the “real-life” story, forcing an appraisal of the artifice of what they are doing instead of how we feel about what they are doing. I was not particularly moved by the film, but its experimental inventiveness is intriguing. Those drawn to such modes might find more in it. (2020, 80 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Robert Wise’s THE SOUND OF MUSIC (Sing-A-Long Presentation) (US)
Music Box Theatre – See Venue website for showtimes
Of all the epic musicals to emerge from 1960s Hollywood, THE SOUND OF MUSIC is arguably the grandest. The much-awarded film (five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director for Robert Wise) is based on the much-awarded stage production (five Tony awards, including Best Musical) that was the last collaboration between composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein. Of the seven stage-to-screen adaptations of their works, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, shot on location in glorious 70mm Todd-AO color is the most successful transfer. Through the method Rodgers and Hammerstein invented, this film effortlessly tells the story of the real-life Von Trapp Family Singers through songs that advance the story and reveal the state of mind of its characters. The nuns foretell a different life for their lively postulant in “Maria,” Maria earns the trust of the obstinate Von Trapp children in “My Favorite Things,” and the family bids Austria good-bye in “So Long, Farewell.” In between, director Wise makes the most of Austria’s natural and built environments, a soaring opening shot of the Alps affirming the glories of the homeland lovingly proclaimed later in “Edelweiss” and snapshots of Salzburg accompanying Maria and the children as she teaches them to sing in “Do-Re-Mi.” There are wisps of another epic, GONE WITH THE WIND (1939), as Maria makes play clothes for the children out of curtains and war intrudes on a prosperous, aristocratic family. But the villains remain mostly offstage in this family film that seeks to inspire and gently provoke reflection about duty, loyalty, love, and sacrifice. (1965, 172 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
🎞️ PHYSICAL SCREENINGS/EVENTS –
Also Screening
⚫ Gene Siskel Film Center
Stephen Karam’s 2021 film THE HUMANS (108 min, DCP Digital), an A24 release, starts this week. See Venue website for showtimes. Presented by MAS Context and the Goethe-Institute Chicago, Modernism as Character: Nathan Eddy, which includes four short films by Eddy, takes place on Wednesday at 6pm. A panel discussion with Eddy, series partners and an audience Q&A will follow the screening. More info here.
⚫ Music Box Theatre
Edgar Wright’s 2021 film LAST NIGHT IN SOHO (116 min, DCP Digital) continues this week with a few remaining screenings. Paul Verhoeven’s 2021 film BENEDETTA (126 min, DCP Digital) opens on Thursday, with a showtime that day at 6:45pm. More info here.
⚫ South Side Projections
In partnership with the Bronzeville Historical Society, George King’s 1994 documentary GOIN’ TO CHICAGO (71 min, Digital Projection) screens on Saturday at 2pm, at the Parkway Ballroom (4455 S. King Dr.). Per the event description, “chronicles one of the most momentous yet least heralded sagas of American history – the great migration of African Americans from the rural South to the cities of the North and West after World War II.” There will be a discussion after the screening led by Roosevelt University professor emeritus Dr. Christopher Reed. More info here.
🎞️ LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS –
Held Over/Still Screening/Return Engagements (Selected)
Todd Chandler's BULLETPROOF (US/Documentary)
Available to rent through Facets Cinema here
BULLETPROOF doesn't reveal anything new about the problem of American school shootings and our reaction to them, but it adopts a cool distance that makes the exploitation and fear it shows all the more infuriating. In the vein of the late Harun Farocki's films, Todd Chandler approaches the institution of school systems through a deep chill. The camera almost never moves, and BULLETPROOF uses B-roll long shots of fields and playgrounds for punctuation. The film could have been more focused—while quite a short feature, it still feels padded. But it diagnoses a problem where the threat of violence is blown out of proportion—for instance, when his class is interrupted by a shooter drill, a math teacher tells his students that they're far more likely to get hit by a car walking to the cafeteria than face gun violence at school—in order to make money and exert tighter control over students. It avoids turning the subjects into characters or explaining where the film was shot, but the one person to whom it returns is a woman who grew up in a dangerous neighborhood and now manufactures bulletproof hoodies. Inspired by an incident in her neighborhood, she set out to keep her mother safe. But her business grew from sewing a few hoodies a week herself to running a factory with the help of an investment from gun manufacturers. She justifies her business by saying that she can now donate some hoodies to poor children. It's a microcosm of the large-scale problem shown in BULLETPROOF: putting a bandage over the problem of violence instead of searching for true root causes and solutions, especially if one can make money traumatizing children and profiting from a community's fears instead. (2020, 82 min) [Steve Erickson]
Radu Jude’s UPPERCASE PRINT (Romania)
Available to rent through the Gene Siskel Film Center here and through the Music Box Theatre here
UPPERCASE PRINT is an adaptation of a “documentary play” by Romanian theater director Gianina Cărbunariu, but it’s hardly filmed theater. Radu Jude, one of the most inventive filmmakers working today, doesn’t present a production of the play or even a filmic re-staging of it; rather, the movie represents a dialogue between Cărbunariu’s art and Jude’s—and, by extension, between theater and cinema. Much of the film transpires on a soundstage, where actors deliver passages from the production, which recounts an episode of Romanian history from the early 1980s. Jude intersperses these passages with archival footage of things that appeared on Romanian TV around this time, and the material alternately provides context for and ironic counterpoint to the stage show, resulting in a rich, tonally complex montage. The narrative centers on Mugur Călinescu, then a high school student in the city of Botoşani who took to the streets to express discontent about food shortages, the lack of free labor unions, and the totalitarian government’s suppression of civil liberties. Little did Călinescu know that as soon as he started writing his protest statements on public buildings, the state secret police opened a file on his activities and began an intricate manhunt to discover who he was. Much of Cărbunariu’s play derives from secret police files and official testimonies; in a Brechtian spirit (which also animated Jude’s 2018 film I DO NOT CARE IF WE GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS BARBARIANS), the material isn’t performed so much as recited, spotlighting the inherent dramatic power of political rhetoric. In this context, the TV footage takes on a rhetorical quality as well—programs that might seem innocuous otherwise (like scenes of adults singing to children) register as metaphors for the Ceaușescu regime’s efforts to distract or lull the restless population, while news reports of widespread unrest in Soviet Bloc countries seem to grow directly out of Călinescu’s protests. One reason why Jude is so valuable to contemporary cinema is that he uses filmmaking to confront dark aspects of his country’s history that many of his fellow Romanians would prefer to forget. More importantly, he recognizes that history repeats itself—his movies are ultimately warnings for the present. Late in UPPERCASE PRINT, Jude incorporates an archival news broadcast about the rise of neo-Nazi groups across western Europe. He just as easily could have included a contemporary report on the Proud Boys or any number of 21st-century blackshirt organizations. The threat of totalitarianism isn’t going away, which makes this film as necessary as it is stirring and intellectually provocative. (2020, 128 min) [Ben Sachs]
🎞️ LOCAL ONLINE SCREENINGS –
Also Screening/Streaming
⚫ Gene Siskel Film Center
Select programs from the Black Harvest Film Festival are available to rent virtually. More info here.
⚫ Media Burn Archive
As part of their “Virtual Talks with Video Activists” series, documentary filmmaker Carmen Vincent will appear virtually for a screening of her short films FOREVER A CHAMPION and a preview of a work-in-progress titled TEACHER OF PATIENCE, as well as a discussion with Thea Flaum, founder and president of the Hill Foundation, and some of the films’ subjects. The event is free; more info here.
⚫ Music Box Theatre
Check hold-over titles here.
⚫ VDB TV
To celebrate the launch of the Hans Breder archive at the Video Data Bank, five short videos by the artist and filmmaker are available to stream for free on VDB TV. More info here.
CINE-LIST: November 26 - December 2, 2021
MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs
CONTRIBUTORS // Cody Corrall, Steve Erickson, Megan Fariello, Marilyn Ferdinand, J.R. Jones, Jonathan Leithold-Patt, Mojo Lorwin, Drew Van Weelden