đȘđș THE CHICAGO EUROPEAN UNION FILM FESTIVAL AT THE GENE SISKEL FILM CENTER
The Gene Siskel Film Centerâs 26th annual showcase of new films from the European Union continues this week and runs through the end of March. Below are reviews of select films with showtimes through Thursday. More information and a complete schedule can be found here.
Rebecca Zlotwoski's OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN (France)
Friday, 6pm
The French are so goodâand so consistentâat making understated dramas about middle-class discontentment that they probably have a name for this particular subgenre. Claude Sautetâs run of masterpieces from the 1970s may be the high-water mark for whatever itâs called, though there have been excellent entries from directors as diverse as Bertrand Tavernier, AndrĂ© TĂ©chinĂ©, François Ozon, and Mia Hansen-LĂžve. (Claude Chabrol, who blended the subgenre with elements of the suspense thriller, worked in a category all his own.) It seems like a difficult type of movie to pull off: if you get too cynical or angry about middle-class hypocrisy, you may end up with trite moralizing; but if youâre too accepting of your characters and their worldview, you may end up with something soft and complacent. As such, writer-director Rebecca Zlotowski walks a fine line in OTHER PEOPLEâS CHILDREN. This semicomic movie, about a 40-ish divorcĂ©e who first realizes she wants to be a mother, doesnât really question the logic behind typical bourgeois aspirations; however, it feels realistic in its depiction of the challenges that keep the bourgeoisie from realizing their dreams. The heroine, Rachel, is a high-school teacher who falls in love with Ali, a car designer whoâs also divorced. Ali shares custody of his five-year-old daughter, Leila, and as romance develops between the two protagonists, so does Rachel fall for Leila and, in the process, discover that she longs for the âbanalâ goals of settling down and raising children. As proven by Justine Trietâs SIBYL (2019) and Paul Verhoevenâs BENDETTA (2021), Virginie Efira excels at playing headstrong women who are more than a little neurotic, and she delivers another smart and compelling performance as Rachel; she makes you reflect on what it means to be happy along with her. Zlotowski, for her part, delineates the hurdles to Rachelâs happiness in a manner thatâs neither too obvious nor obscure. One recognizes a certain self-sabotaging quality in the heroine but also the impact of things beyond her control, like the unpredictable nature of interpersonal relationships, the demands of a high-stress career, and plain old bad luck. Life gives us plenty of reasons to be dissatisfied. (2022, 104 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
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JoĂŁo Pedro Rodriguesâ WILL-Oâ-THE-WISP (Portugal)
Friday, 8:15pm
Like many of his compatriotic contemporaries, JoĂŁo Pedro Rodrigues often makes films that irreverently interpret Portugalâs past and present and radically imagine its future. His cinema stands out for its explicit queerness, not only in terms of its unorthodox narrative and formal strategies but for how it centers sexual otherness as a disruptive, transformative, and liberating historical force. WILL-Oâ-THE-WISP is Rodrigues at his most whimsically surreal as well as economical. The film focuses on Alfredo, the crown prince of Portugal who is first seen on his deathbed in the year 2069. After a brief introduction, we are whisked back to ancient 2011, when Alfredo is a curly-haired blond twink chafing against the bourgeois trappings of his noble family. Hypocrisy abounds, especially from his father, who speaks of the sanctity of the forest even as he nonchalantly tosses his lit cigar to the earth; meanwhile, being surrounded by so much wood stirs something in Alfredoâs pants. In a tableau at the dinner table staged with maximum Brechtian artifice, the young man inveighsâwith words borrowed from Greta Thunbergâagainst the indifference of world leaders to the despoliation of the environment. To fix the problem? He decides to become a firefighter, dropping him into the ranks of the working class. From there, WILL-Oâ-THE-WISP winds and shimmies through homoerotic tableaux vivant, an electric dance number, and alternately sensuous and comical scenes of Alfredoâs courtship with a black firefighter named Afonso. At just over an hour, the film feels like something of a minor lark, but itâs a strange and inventive one, fizzing with Rodriguesâs signature blend of libidinous energy, postcolonial critique, and anything-goes phantasmagoria. (2022, 67 min, DCP Digital) [Jonathan Leithold-Patt]
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Matevz Luzar's ORCHESTRA (Slovenia)
Saturday, 12pm
A traveling Slovenian brass band turns a bus trip to an Austrian music festival into a drunken debauch that threatens to have lasting consequences for all concerned. Told in a kind of RASHOMON style but where all the different vantage points add up to the same thing, the film is very much in the deadpan comic tradition of KaurismÀki and Jarmusch or, further back, the Czech New Wave. What goes on is not funny on the face of it, but Luzar's poker-faced approach makes it so. A different filmmaker could have made a tragic cautionary tale about the perils of alcoholism and political intrigue in insular communities; instead, one can't help laugh as a fat, unkempt, and blind-drunk Slovenian musician vomits in the hallway of a tidy Austrian home whose owners drew the short straw of hosting the unwelcome visitor. There are lots of moments that highlight the cultural differences between Balkan and Germanic peoples to comic effect. Most of all, what stays with me is the miracle such a pickled bunch make it home in more or less one piece. It's not a unique story but one told well by someone who knows the terrain he covers. (2021, 111 min, DCP Digital) [Dmitry Samarov]
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Emanuele Crialeseâs LâIMMENSITĂ (Italy)
Saturday, 1:30pm
If PenĂ©lope Cruz is the Sophia Loren of her generation, then this may be her TWO WOMENâthe film that lets her deliver an instantly iconic characterization of motherhood. LâIMMENSITĂ is Emanuele Crialeseâs autobiographical drama about a well-to-do family coming apart in 1970s Italy, and Cruz anchors the work as Clara, a wife and mother who withstands an abusive marriage in order to be close to her three kids, whom she loves with heroic might. Crialese honors the childrenâs perspective most of the time, so the episodes of abuse are limited to the few scenes they witness (those scenes are plenty harrowing, however). Generally, itâs one of those bittersweet celebration of childhood movies that the Italians are especially good at making, with naturalistic scenes of kids playing in groups, kids discovering physical intimacy, and kids rebounding from tragedy. Thereâs at least one good fantasy sequence too, a musical number where Cruz and the kids ham it up for the camera like all those brats in LICORICE PIZZA. The fantasy sequence specifically belongs to Adri, a preteen whoâs first starting to assert his gender identity, and one thing that makes LâIMMENSITĂ distinctive is how it acknowledges the characterâs imagination as both a talent and an escape from traumatic situations. Clara is wholly supportive of Adri in his gender affirmation and provides him not only emotional support; she downright spoils him whenever she can. Cruz plays the role like a diva, and this seems fitting, given the towering role Clara plays in Adriâs life. Indeed, the film derives so much of its power from the relationship between mother and son that it could be classified as a love story. (2022, 98 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
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Lasse Hallströmâs HILMA (Sweden)
Saturday, 3:45pm
In the past few years, the interest Scandinavian filmmakers seem to have in illuminating the lives and accomplishments of women artists has borne entertaining fruit. The formative years of Finnish artist Tove Jansson made for the lively Swedish-Finnish production TOVE (2020), and now, Swedish director Lasse Hallström and his family have made HILMA, a biopic about Swedish abstract artist Hilma af Klint that hews quite closely to her actual life story. In it, Hallströmâs wife, the remarkable Lena Olin, plays Hilma in old age, and their daughter, Tora Hallström, plays Hilma as she embarks on an unconventional art career. Hilmaâs early loss of her beloved sister, Hermina (Emmi Tjernström), leads to her embrace of the spiritist movement of the 19th century. Forming a group of women artists and fellow spiritists called The Five, Hilma channeled through sĂ©ances what she called the High Mastersâ wishes in mapping out the images the group would create. The images slightly predated the work of Wassily Kandinsky, who has long been considered the father of modern abstract art, but they were not shown publicly, partly because the art world was not ready for them and partly because Hilma believed the negative critique of her âsoul mate,â Anthroposophical Society founder Rudolf Steiner, when he visited Stockholm. Hallströmâs film tries to suggest Hilmaâs worlds-expanding mind with repetitive scenes of interactions with her sister and dizzying dreams during the first part of the film, but this strategy is confusing and largely unsuccessful. Much better are the later scenes with The Five, which capture their almost ecstatic experiences and beliefs. Olin is mesmerizing in the few scenes in which she appears. Tora Hallström is rather less convincing in putting flesh on the bones of her character, though her possibly speculative affair with one of The Five, Anna Cassel (Catherine Chalk), adds much to both of their roles. The film ends with a 2018-'19 exhibition of af Klintâs work at New Yorkâs Guggenheim Museum, a building that eerily resembles the schematic for a temple she designed to house her work. Frank Lloyd Wright began designing the museum in 1944, the year af Klint died, so one may wonder whether her spirit might have spoken to him, as so many spoke to her. (2023, 120 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
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Read contributor Raphael Jose Martinezâs sprawling interview with the filmâs stars, Lena Olin and Tora Hallström, on our blog here.
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Laurynas Bareisaâs PILGRIMS (Lithuania)
Saturday, 4:45pm and Tuesday, 6:15pm
One could summarize PILGRIMS in a couple of sentences, but to do so would fail to convey the cagey way in which writer-director Laurynas Bareisa parcels out narrative information. For instance, it takes about ten minutes for Bareisa to reveal that the principal characters are the brother and former girlfriend of a young man who was tortured and killed by a maniac four years earlier. He takes another several minutes to explain that the two have returned to their small hometown after moving away some time ago and that theyâve returned to find catharsis about their loved oneâs death. From then on, PILGRIMS steadily reveals new facts about the characters that challenge our initial impressions of them. I imagine that the film plays differently on repeat viewings (does the charactersâ behavior in the earlier scenes play differently knowing whatâs revealed about them later on?), though not everyone will want to watch the film even once to find out. Be forewarned that PILGRIMS contains graphic descriptions of torture that some will find upsetting; however, itâs worth noting that this is not an exploitation film, but rather a serious consideration of near-unthinkable brutality. Bareisa displays his seriousness in his decision to deprive the film of elements that critics often accuse filmmakers of using to manipulate the spectatorsâ emotions: music, close-ups, editing within scenes. Gabija Bargailaite and Giedrius Kiela, who play the girlfriend and brother, respectively, rise to the directorâs seriousness with sensitive performances that convey the weight of the charactersâ grief. In addition to its philosophical concerns, PILGRIMS addresses tensions between urban and rural populations in how the main characters are treated like strangers only a few years after leaving the provincial town where they grew up. These people are doubly alienated, first by tragedy and then by culture; as random acts of violence become increasingly common, their experience seems tragically universal. (2022, 91 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
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Annika Pinskeâs TALKING ABOUT THE WEATHER (Germany)
Saturday, 7pm
The concept of a narrative film taking place in media res has long interested me. Its definition in the Merriam-Webster dictionary states simply that in media res means âin or into the middle of a narrative or plotââthis implies that thereâs narrative or plot preceding the middle and to which those outside it are not privy. Is that not like life? At any given point are we not in the midst of our own plot, the details of which only we know fully, and doesnât that apply also to everyone else? Again, it can be said that this phenomenon pertains to any ongoing narrativeâin life or media (pun intended)âbut it feels especially relevant in the case of Annika Pinskeâs debut feature, which centers on a 40-something PhD candidate in Berlin. Pinskeâs subtly philosophic vraisemblance is not about what is happening but rather that everything is happeningâthe stuff of life, past and present, that propels it forward. Little about the protagonist, Clara (Anne SchĂ€fer), is explicitly contextualized; Pinske conveys details of her life through whatâs taking place, with the viewer responsible for filling in the gaps or perhaps even accepting that they wonât be given the minute details. The writer-director succeeds in painting a holistic portrait of her unsettled heroine, touching on her affair with a student, a complicated relationship with her family (which includes a teenage daughter who lives with her father), the political nuances of her upbringing in East Germany for several years when it was the German Democratic Republic, her academic studies, and the struggles she faces with institutional sexism. The title of the film evokes the banalities she rejects; she shares her dislike of these trivialities in a tense conversation with her mother during which she expresses a desire to share more than just empty platitudes. Her mother, however, is a simple woman who still lives in rural eastern Germany and whose peers express conservative viewpoints that are at odds with Claraâs; Pinske addresses the motherâs limited perspective in a way that gives equal weight to both womenâs desires, however, and she brings similar nuance to her depiction of Claraâs relationship with her mentor, a female professor who embodies everything Clara wants but still grapples with her own existential issues. (Sandra HĂŒller appears in a memorable scene as the professorâs previous mentee, who takes her to task for shortcomings that are not explored thereafter, making it a perfect example of Pinskeâs narrative flutters.) Made with resources from the German Film and Television Academy where she studied, TALKING ABOUT THE WEATHER is more than an auspicious debut. Pinske beautifully handles difficult conceptsâthe unexcogitable momentum of life, the veracity of a personâs individual philosophy in conflict with those of othersâwith a studied assuredness (likely owing to similarities in her own life) that speaks to certain inscrutable truths. (2022, 89 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
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Michal BlaĆĄkoâs VICTIM (Slovakia)
Sunday, 3:45pm
Usually the word âformulaicâ is used as a pejorative when talking about scriptwriting. But some of the best scripts have exactly this quality, feeling almost mathematically fine-tuned to whatever their purpose is. Michal BlaĆĄkoâs first feature VICTIM is one such film, setting up an ethical bind for its characters using dimensions of race, class, and gender to elicit maximum tension and social commentary. Irina (Vita Smachelyuk) is a single mother living as a Ukrainian migrant in the Czech Republic, working a dehumanizing job cleaning a single-room-occupancy apartment building populated mostly by other immigrants. When her son Igor (Gleb Kuchuk) ends up hospitalized while Irina is back in Ukraine attempting to gather paperwork, she rushes home to where it seems that her son was attacked at their apartment by three Roma teenagers. When the true cause of his injuries is revealed, however, a nationalist media frenzy has already been set in motion and Irina must decide between potential deportation if she reveals her son lied to the police, or falling in behind the increasingly racist movement of support behind Igor. While Irina is not actively racist herself, she knows that sheâll be undermining her and her sonâs precarious social position by taking any kind of official stance against the virulent hate she benefits from, especially when sheâs invited to speak at an âanti-crimeâ rally thatâs clearly drawing the interest of neo-Nazis. As Slovakiaâs submission for the foreign language Oscar at this yearâs Academy Awards, the film is timely in how it dramatizes the further-flung conflicts sprung by the war in Ukraine. The war zone exists as a phantom threat, waiting for Irina if her carefully crafted alibis fall through. This would be an easier conflict to handle for the depraved, but Irina is a good person, working to help others in situations as difficult as her own. Saving herself would actively undermine this work, and VICTIMâs moral drama rests on this: pitting the poverty and violence of war against the spiritual death of staking your life on the demonization of others. This is the stuff of the most urgent dramas of the soul, and BlaĆĄko gamely adapts the stylings of the Dardenne brothers and Asghar Faradi to the current realities of Eastern Europe. But a slightly less obvious comparison might be the US-based Safdie brothers, deft as they are at setting up house-of-cards machines of anxiety where people are forced to leverage social power for their own survival. Regardless of the lineage, viewers should look forward to more precise critique from BlaĆĄko in the future. (2022, 91 min, DCP Digital) [Maxwell Courtright]
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George Chiper and Monica Stanâs IMMACULATE (Romania)
Monday, 8:15pm
From the opening sequence in an isolation chamber-like intake interview, where a squirming young woman is interrogated about how she got hooked on heroin, the camera of IMMACULATE rarely strays more than a few feet away from her side. Daria (Ana Dumitrascu) is like a fearful bird, her big eyes darting about, unable to gauge whether the hands and faces that often invade her personal space are friend or foe. Unlike so many dramatic portrayals of addiction and rehab, George Chiper and Monica Stanâs debut feature confines itself strictly to their heroineâs visceral experiences. Like Laszlo Nemecâs SON OF SAUL (2015) and Laura Wendelâs PLAYGROUND (2021), the result of this up-close, almost solipsistic focus is an unsettling and claustrophobic sensation for the viewer. I felt as if I was locked up in rehab with Daria. Not only is there rarely anything visible outside the walls of the facility, but thereâs no full picture of the dimensions of the rooms in the facility. This effectively communicates how all-consuming addiction and the process spent ridding oneself of it can be. The bland beige tones of the walls, the patientsâ pajamas, and diffuse lighting add up to an atmosphere of muted, narcotized boredom. Whether Daria and her fellow addicts are abusing one another or truly making friends or entering into romantic relationships, the overall goal is to break up the tedium of their days. Itâs not a pleasant or especially enlightening experience, and I was left wondering whether Dariaâs weeks of confinement did any therapeutic good. I doubt it was the filmmakersâ intent to make either Daria or the viewers feel better in the end but to simply lock us inside. They certainly succeed in that. (2022, 114 min, DCP Digital) [Dmitry Samarov]
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LĂĄszlĂł Csuja and Anna Nemesâ GENTLE (Hungary)
Wednesday, 8:30pm
Iâve been a fan of body-building since before Arnold Schwartzenegger gracefully flung his massive arms through a port de bras at the ballet barre in the 1977 documentary PUMPING IRON. While Schwartzenegger certainly took the world by storm, the esoteric art in which he competed did not. Looked on as something freakish, especially when women take it up, body-building doesnât garner massive fan bases, billion-dollar media deals, multimillion-dollar salaries, and all the other perks that other sports enjoy. Perhaps the most understandable reason for people to compete in body-building at an elite level is voiced by ĂdĂĄm (György TurĂłs), a former Mr. Olympia and the trainer and boyfriend of GENTLEâs central character, Edina (Eszter Csonka): being âthe best in the world at something.â When we first meet Edina, she is panting with fright at having to compete in a qualifying event for Ms. Olympia. ĂdĂĄm calms her down and leads her toward the stage, where her poses bring cheers from the audience and a decisive win. From that point on, her life will be spent in heavy aerobic and anaerobic training, denying herself food she wants, and trying to find the money to pay for the expensive drugs and supplements she uses to stay bulked up. While ĂdĂĄm fails to land a side gig as an exotic dancer to earn the money they need and quickly falls out of the narrative when he is not with Edina, Edina pursues a similar approach as a sex worker (no penetration) who fulfills the fantasies of men who like bodies like hers. Surprisingly, GENTLE is just thatâa delicate film that carries a heavy message. Edina and ĂdĂĄm have a genuinely loving relationship, but we feel that she may have become a bodybuilder to please him and help him relive his former glory days. Her favorite client prefers to interact with her as his mother and playmate, beginning their arrangement with a game of hide-and-seek in a forested area. This kink seems to appeal to the maternal nature she reveals when she visits her family. Edina is a people pleaser, which can cause problems for anyone; in her case, it is actually life-threatening because of what she is doing to her body. All of the performances in GENTLE are excellent (TurĂłs is an actor who was a competitive bodybuilder and is a trainer in the sport), but special kudos go to Csonka, a first-time actor who lends veracity to her portrayal not only because she is a real bodybuilder, but also because her understated emotional life comes through to us and gains our affection and concern. Her quiet humanity is the very antithesis of what most people think when they think of women bodybuilders. Highly recommended. (2022, 91 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
đœïž CRUCIAL VIEWING
Deborah Stratman's LAST THINGS (US/Experimental)
Onion City Experimental Film Festival (for Conversations at the Edge) at the Gene Siskel Film Center â Thursday, 6pm
Chicago-based filmmaker Deborah Stratman is one of the most accomplished and diverse experimental filmmakers of the 21st century. Her new film LAST THINGS exists at the edges of possibility, an essay-doc that mostly removes humans from the equation to consider a geological record-sized narrative. The film collects images of chondrules, some of the oldest known geological formations that scientists use to measure the age of the universe itself. Theyâre primitive objects that havenât changed since the early solar nebula days. Stratman pairs these rocks with a voiceover that draws from texts by Clarice Lispector and J. H. Rosny as well as nature writing from Eliot Weinberger; they all work together in a speculative sci-fi swirl. The words contextualize the rocks as a link to the past and as maps to other worlds. If other Stratman films have explored the distorting effects of surveillance (IN ORDER NOT TO BE HERE) and the archive (VEVER), this takes passing interest in our systems of observing and categorizing. The full extent of these complicated forms is only conceivable through advanced imaging, augmented technology, and more rudimentary forms of videotaping and drawing. Our relationship to the rocks is always mediated by our present optical and technological means of knowing them. Stratman revels in information, in using these unique and extensive classifications to invent former and future selves. Like the voiceoverâs vintage sci-fi narration, the images encourage us to fill in the blanks with our own fictions, expanding our minds regarding what constitutes life, what the core materials that make up our world could do in parallel-world permutations. Itâs beautiful work that never gets boring to look at thanks to Stratmanâs spoils of colorful and geometrically complicated images. She links diagrams and enhanced microscope footage with more natural settings, including shore lines and homes constructed out of rocks. The beauty exists on a spectrum, it seems, a fluid combination of what we can see and what we can theorize. Stratmanâs work is all the richer for these jumping-off points, inviting intellectual flights over the imagery that take the mind in more directions than possible in more straight-ahead narrative work. Though itâs rigorous, itâs likely to be among the most compelling sci-fi this year, period. Followed by a discussion with Stratman. (2023, 50 min, 16mm) [Maxwell Courtright]
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This is the official opening night screening of the Onion City Experimental Film Festival, which runs from Thursday through to Wednesday, April 5. We will have more expansive coverage of the festival on next weekâs list. More information and a complete schedule can be found here.
Rex Ingramâs THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE (US/Silent)
Chicago Film Society at the Music Box Theatre â Sunday, 5pm
One advantage that TV series have over feature films is that the extended, episodic format is better suited to approximate that of the novel, particularly lengthy ones from the mid-19th to early early 20th century. The series seems more amenable to narrative digressions that add to oneâs appreciation of the characters and their environment without necessarily forwarding the plot, and itâs digressions like these that give a work its distinctly novelistic air. There also are examples in cinema, of course; to list the first that come to mind, thereâs von Stroheimâs GREED (1924), Viscontiâs THE LEOPARD (1963), Lindsay Andersonâs O LUCKY MAN! (1973), Yangâs YI YI (2000), and almost anything by Arnaud Desplechin. THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE may not be as celebrated today as any of those films, but it delivers the immersive satisfaction one gets from this special class of literary epics. Adapted from a best-selling 1916 novel by Spanish expatriate Vicente Blasco Ibåñez, it tells a story that spans multiple generations, dramatizing how families impact history through the values they pass from one era to another (or, in some cases, through how one generation rebels against the values of the last); it also takes time to dramatize major and minor characters alike through low-stakes, though still appealing, vignettes. Anticipating Michael Ciminoâs THE DEER HUNTER (1978) by more than half a century, FOUR HORSEMEN spends more than an hour introducing characters and interpersonal dynamics before turning into a war movieâor to be more precise, one of the first anti-war films about WWI. The transition is effective, because by this time the film has earned its right to operate on a large scale. Audiences of the day certainly seemed to think so: not only was FOUR HORSEMEN the highest grossing film of 1921, it made a star out of Rudolph Valentino and set off a nationwide tango craze. This success cemented the career of producer-screenwriter June Mathis, who in 1919 became one of the first female movie executives. It was Mathis who managed to adapt Ibåñezâs purportedly unadaptable novel; she also picked Rex Ingram to direct it and the relatively unknown Valentino to star (she would go on to shape Valentinoâs career by writing several of his subsequent films). Rather than play a game of âWhoâs the auteur?,â letâs celebrate the collusion of so many talents that help give FOUR HORSEMEN its novelistic density. With live musical accompaniment by Maxx McGathey. (1921, 157 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]
Maya Cozierâs SHE PARADISE (Trinidad/Tobago)
Film Studies Center (at the Logan Center for the Arts, 915 E. 60th St., University of Chicago) â Friday, 7pm [Free Admission]
Coming-of-age stories are common enough, but Maya Cozierâs first feature film, SHE PARADISE, is set in a unique and unfamiliar community to most moviegoersâan Afro-Trinidadian neighborhood of Port of Spain. It is there where her central character, 17-year-old Sparkle (Onessa Nestor), lives with her jeweler grandfather (Michael Cherrie, the only professional actor in the film). Their dire financial circumstances are evident from the first scene, during which Sparkle goes to the open-air market to buy food, but canât afford a pumpkin she wants. When she sees a small boy throw some peppers on the ground, she scoops them up when nobody is looking. On her way home, she watches four young women who are dancing in the street to the islandâs rap-reggae-inflected soca music and decides to try out for the crew to make some money. The innocent Sparkle is rejected at first because she has no idea how to sex up her dancing, but she catches the eye of a popular soca singer (Kern Mollineau, a dead ringer for Bob Marley) who wants her in his next video. From that point on, Sparkle will be immersed in the party-hearty ways of the dance crew and the timeless experiences of rebellion, thrill-seeking, aspiration, and disillusionment. The Trinidadian Creole English the characters speak is a language unto itself, a colorful patois in which the word âsheâ substitutes for âher.â To look at this world as Sparkleâs paradise would be to ignore the poverty of her circumstances and the sexual exploitation she and her crew endure to claw their way out of it. Cozier, a dancer, artist, and former Miss World contestant, explores her own story and those of the dancers she interviewed for the short film that formed the basis for SHE PARADISE. Introduced by Assistant Professor of Music Jessica Baker as part of ÂĄMira! Look, Nuh! Gade! A Caribbean Film Series. (2020, 74 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Peter Greenaway's THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE & HER LOVER (UK)
Music Box Theatre â Tuesday 7pm
The film opens with dogs fighting in the gutter over rotting flesh. Following them, rogues and thieves arrive for yet another night of fine dining at the posh restaurant, La Hollandais. A man owes money to renowned London gangster, Albert Spica. As a penalty for not paying up, Spicaâs cronies force-feed and cover the man with dog feces. Albert and his wife Georgina dine at La Hollandais every night. Michael, a bookshop owner and another regular at the establishment, catches Georgina's eye, and they begin an affair in the restaurant bathroom. Albert uncovers his wife's extramarital activities, then hunts down Michael at home and murders him by stuffing pages from books into the bibliophileâs mouth. Furious at her husband, Georgina plots a revenge on par with Shakespeareâs Titus Andronicus. THE COOK was one of a group of films that forced the MPAA to reconsider its evaluation system. Harvey Weinstein wanted Miramax to distribute the film in the United States but knew it would receive an X rating if seen by the MPAA (the film had just escaped an X in the United Kingdom). Miramax went ahead and distributed the film with no rating. This initiated other independent distributors to follow suit, causing leadership at MPAA to reconsider their structure, leading to the creation of the NC-17 rating. Helen Mirren and Michael Gambon were already regarded as heavyweight actors in England, but the whole ensemble is stunning, including a young, vibrant Tim Roth and Ciaran Hinds. Peter Greenaway has painted his entire life. He places the utmost emphasis on color for each shot: a shade of green for the kitchen, red for the restaurant, stark white for the scenes in the bathroom. Between the intense gambit of color-coded sets and the visceral violence, the audience walks out of the theater, as Mirren stated in one interview, feeling "like theyâve been mugged." COOK takes major influence from Flemish painters such as Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck. Greenaway places Frans Halsâ The Banquet of the Officers of the St George Militia Company in 1616 in the background of Spicaâs table. The filmâs visual style is not the only aspect inspired by the Baroque period. Michael Nymanâs score cranks through the film like a squeezebox borrowed from the likes of Kurt Weill or Dmitri Shostakovich, taking the melody of Henry Purcellâs âWhat Powâr Art Thou?â from his 17th century opera King Arthur for the main theme. Itâs reasonable to ask why Greenaway insisted on using 17th century art to influence his film released in 1989. There are two possible answers. First, its placing emphasis on the stark contrast between cultured, high-echelon delights and the brutish, dark souls who enjoy them exclusively. The second possibility requires a bit more historical context. With the rise of large industrial trading companies in the mid 17th century, Englandâs Parliament enacted the Tenures of Abolition Act 1660 into law. This event is considered the first baby steps toward modern capitalism and the contemporary notion of private property. When the legislative ink was still fresh on the page, the new ideas surrounding ownership made their way across Europe, informing art and philosophy. At the time of its release, many saw COOK as a condemnation of societyâs obsession with materialism, Thatcher, and her financial reform that favored the powerful. Greenaway has exhibited political awareness since his career began. He started as an editor of propaganda for the Central Office of Information from the early 1960s and continued all the way through the counterculture revolution. Moreover, COOK's theatrical presentation and parable of rewarded thieves echoes Brechtâs Threepenny Opera. Like Brecht, Greenaway chooses to identify characters by their occupations or function in society; the cook cooks, the thief thieves, and the wife obeys. Thereâs no given psychological explanation to their actions; they are fulfilling their role subscribed by society, cogs in a machine. Michael, although a bookstore owner in occupation, disrupts the status quo as a lover and is punished for it. Although the thief faces consequences for his actions, the audience finds no relief. Even Roger Ebert believed Albert was let off the hook too easy for his crimes of the flesh. Screening as part of the ââClean Plate Club: A Food and Film Series. The partner restaurant for this event is Bumbu Roux Food Truck, which will be serving food before the screening. (1989, 124 min, 35mm) [Ray Ebarb]
Fred Halsted's L.A. PLAYS ITSELF (US/Adult)
Music Box Theatre â Saturday, Midnight
Fred Halsted, in his first film, seems to offer conflicting and mutually contradictory representations of intimacy and sexual relations, suspending indefinitely any comfortable escape into mere pleasure or lustful joy. The first scene depicts a pastoral encounter in the undeveloped outskirts of Los Angeles between a wanderer and a cherubic nude he discovers nestled deep into the visual scheme of the natural world. The two coyly flirt with one another, suck each other off, lovingly fuck, and bathe and play in the streams and fields. It is an episode dripping with clichĂ© in its narrative structure, but any predictability or staleness that the situation might risk is neutralized. Utterly without irony or condescension, Halsted films their sex as wholly fulfilling, utopian, and lovingly precious. The flowers, the trees, the dripping, running water are shot stylistically identically to the grappling, pneumatic bodies of the men engaged in their lovemaking, and Halsted's editorial rhythms make clear that rather than two individuals meeting, this is instead only one moment out of an infinite continuum of life, a gloriously pleasurable outpouring of lust not simply for another's flesh but for the dissolving away of any distinction between one's self and one's partner, or even the world itself. A brutal, terrible transition follows: the space of nature and transparent, instant connection is literally bulldozed away, revealing in its stead a disorienting, nightmarishly impersonal Los Angeles proper. Shot in large part through moving windshields and featuring repetitive, non-diegetic dialogue in voiceover, this segment plays a double narrative, simultaneously meandering through an anonymous sea of desperate corner hustlers, run-down storefronts, and grubby streets and aurally following two new characters as an experienced older man is seducing, picking up, or perhaps just playing with a naĂŻve Texan transplant to the city. In the third and surely the most extraordinary scene, the two unseen partners now take the stage. In staccato, upsetting fits and starts, the film undermines and destroys any sense of linear chronology in the sex between these men. Jumping unpredictably from one position and setting to another, Halsted builds the reverse and violent counterpart to the sweet and affirming sex of the first scene as the older man, played by Halsted himself (a man with a ferocious and compelling screen presenceâwitness his work in Joe Gage's otherwise lackluster EL PASO WRECKING CORP.) repeatedly beats, strangles, imprisons, binds, and fucks the younger one. Finally, after one of the film's exceptionally rare moments of ejaculation, Halsted lubricates his fist with his own semen and energetically fists his partner. But to describe the scene as such is to do the scene a disservice, for it is both a bruising, horrible vision and one of genuine purging, genuine connection on a level that the men in the nature scene could never have approached. Through sex, the film is saying, the inherent loneliness and isolation that characterized the human condition can be combated, and that it is then an act not of pleasure but of shared, reciprocal dwelling, something that could turn two worthlessly alienated and separate people into, at least for a time, a living, shimmering, wholly engaged zone of total contact. The tactility of arousal, the physicality of desire, and the transformations of those arousals and desires within a multiplicity of spacesâthese have nowhere else been more beautifully shot or more starkly explored. Programmed and co-presented by Henry Hanson and The Front Row. (1972, 55 min, DCP Digital) [Kian Bergstrom]
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Screening with another 1972 Halsted production, THE SEX GARAGE (35 min, DCP Digital).
Francis Ford Coppola's THE GODFATHER (US)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Friday, 7pm and Sunday, 4pm
It's tough (or impossible) to summarize the impact THE GODFATHER has had. So, instead, only three points. Gordon Willis's brilliant cinematographyâRembrandt by way of Manhattanâmade it acceptable for studio-made color films to be as shadowy and moody as the black & white noirs had been earlier. Where would classic paranoiac thrillers be without that added palette? Its flowing, epic structure, courtesy of Mario Puzo's screenplay and Coppola's subtle, no-nonsense direction, remains a model of classic storytelling. And finally, because of its amazing critical and commercial success, gangster movies have been continuously in vogue ever since. Utterly disgraceful then that, according to a New York Times article, the original negatives "were so torn up and dirty that they could no longer be run through standard film laboratory printing equipment, and so the only option became a digital, rather than a photochemical, restoration." Luckily Robert A. Harris, working with Willis and Coppola, stepped in to save the day. Screening as part of Docâs Friday series, âSight & Sound: The Greatest?â (1972, 175 min, 35mm) [Rob Christopher]
Sofia Coppola's THE BLING RING (US)
Music Box Theatre â Saturday and Sunday, 11:30am
Paris Hilton's real house is prominently featured in Sofia Coppola's THE BLING RING, with no question as to whose it could be. The decor is distinctly personal, her face appearing on everything from the pictures on the wall to the pillows on her bed. It's hard to tell whether or not Hilton is in on the jokeâshe agreed to let her house be used and even appears in a cameoâbut it's no secret that the film is a somewhat mocking representation of a vainglorious celebrity culture so rampant as to inspire theft in an already privileged group of teenagers. If Hilton isn't in on it, then the late Harris Savides must have been. The renowned cinematographer shows a world so beautiful as to seem unreal, even fake, producing the cinematic equivalent of luxury brand magazine ads and some of the classier network reality shows. (That's not to criticize Savides' work, but to recognize his impressive ability to duplicate and even expand upon a familiar aesthetic.) Both Hilton's involvement and Savides' portrayal represent the complexity of a film that appears as vapid as the lifestyle it's infiltrating, with only the subtlest of indicators suggesting any depth beyond its glossy surface. The lack of any outward ugliness in relation to the film's debauched premise is a nuance that has caused many a critic and moviegoer to wonder if the film isn't more endorsement than depiction. That's not to say people believe Coppola is condoning her characters' actions, but the film's portrayal of tantalizingly beautiful stuff lends itself to an uncomfortable understanding from the audience as to why someone might want to steal it. Ironically, the thieves in question were not admiring from afar but instead lurking in the fringes of entitlementâthe film is based on true events during which a group of affluent LA teenagers (later dubbed the "Bling Ring") robbed the houses of several celebrities whom they proclaimed to admire. Coppola makes no attempt to mask the glamor or denounce an appreciation for beautiful things, instead forcing viewers to reconcile that acknowledgement with their disdain for the criminal actions rooted in society's envy of the rich and famous. Hers is an uncomfortable truth, one in which very little effort is made to add depth where it does not belong; the stuff is beautiful and the people are shallow, but there is no need for them to be anything more than that. As the teenage robbers admire Hilton's vast collection of clothes, shoes and accessories, one cannot help but to wonder if them admiring the beautiful things is the same as us admiring Savides' beautiful images. Any semblance of depth exists not within the narrative, but in what it reflects back upon and says about the viewer. Screening as part of the Sofia Coppola March Matinees. (2013, 90 min, 35mm) [Kat Sachs]
Chantal Akerman's JEANNE DIELMAN, 23, QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES (Belgium)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Wednesday, 7pm
I used to think that Chantal Akermanâs films had more in common with YasujirĆ Ozuâs than even those of his most devout disciples. Her use of still, waist-level medium shots (similar to Ozuâs signature âtatami shots,â said to mimic the perspective of someone kneeling on a tatami mat), stylized settings hyper-respective to her cultural background, and a seemingly detached tone that cloaks rich subtext all recall Ozuâs invariant oeuvre. After rewatching her seminal 1975 film JEANNE DIELMAN, 23, QUAI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXELLES, which she made when she was just 25 years old, I still believe that her work exhibits these aspects, but to antithetical effect. Where Ozu reveals the calm within chaos, Akerman inveigles chaos out of the calm, and thereâs perhaps no better example of this than her 201-minute tour de force that depicts three days in the life of its title character, a middle-aged mother played to perfection by the solemn, red-haired Delphine Seyrig. Most of the film is comprised of superlative long takes in which Jeanne does her daily chores, intercut by brief expositional conversations with her 16-year-old son and oblique references to her âjobâ as a rather apathetic prostitute. Though it evokes experimental cinema in how it ingeniously uses a simple concept to confront the illusion of that simplicity, itâs also a brilliant depiction of real life as narrative; in a 2009 interview with the New York Times, Akerman observed that â[i]n most movies you have crashes or accidents or things out of the ordinary, so the viewer is distracted from his own lifeâŠ[T]his film is about his own life.â A friend once remarked to me that their standard response when asked by a filmmaker to provide feedback about a film they didnât like was to say that it gave them space to think about that very subject. Ironically, the same is true about the masterwork that is JEANNE DIELMAN. The long takes are simultaneously hypnotic and freeing, producing a sensation thatâs almost as mindless as the tasks themselves. Akermanâs depiction of these chores, which are certainly banal even if rendered extraordinary by Babette Mangolteâs lens, is often regarded as a feminist interpretation, a label that Akerman rejects. Indeed, sheâs said in several interviews that the seemingly monotonous routines were lovingly inspired by both childhood memories of her mother and Jewish ritual; in the aforementioned interview, she also said that âJeanne has to organize her life, to not have any space, any time, so she wonât be depressed or anxiousâŠ[s]he didnât want to have one free hour because she didnât know how to fill that hour,â which speaks less to the mundanity of the tasks at hand and more to Jeanneâs general discontent. At the risk of spoiling the film for anyone still unfamiliar with its abrupt ending, the duration doesnât so much emphasize the monotony as it provides context around the downturn of both character and tone. It doesnât show three days in a life, but rather the day before the day that cracks start to appear in the foundation, and then the day that it finally crumbles to the ground, out of which something altogether new and different is formed. (On a tangential note, the ending reminds me of these lines from Sylvia Plathâs Holocaust-adjacent poem âLady Lazarusâ: âOut of the ash/I rise with my red hair/And I eat men like air.â In 1986, Akerman directed an adaptation of Rose Leiman Goldembergâs off-Broadway play Letters Home, based on Plathâs letters to her mother. So much to unpack there.) Only the late filmmakerâs second feature, JEANNE DIELMAN is almost daunting in its command of the mediumâperhaps the only label that can rightfully be attached to it is âmasterpiece.â Screening as part of Docâs Wednesday series, âDelphine Seyrig, More Than a Muse.â (1975, 201 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
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Alex Heller's THE YEAR BETWEEN (US)
Music Box Theatre â Thursday, 7pm
Who knew a missing tube of shortcake-scented Chapstick could be the straw that breaks the camelâs back? Clemence (writer-director Alex Heller, in a bone-dry comic turn) accuses her entirely innocent college roommate of pilfering said item from her disaster area of a living space. College isnât working out for Clemence. In the next scene, her weary but warmhearted mother, Sherri (J.Smith Cameron), is driving her daughter back to their small-town Illinois home. A kind elderly psychiatrist diagnoses Clemence with bipolar disorder and puts her on a regimen of meds to try to regulate her erratic behavior. Itâs clear that neither her parents nor her two younger, ânormalâ siblingsâstill in high school and living at homeâknow quite how to deal with Clemence, who wonders aloud to a therapist whether she just has a bad personality. It would be hard to argue with her, considering the trail of destruction she leaves in her wake everywhere she goes. She's a powerful person who passes her days in a rage because she's unable to channel that power. But when her family must for once grapple with a crisis that has nothing to do with Clemence, she surprises everyone by rising to the occasion rather than falling back into the caustic misery which is her resting state. This is a surprisingly funny movie in view of the very serious mental health issues at play. Heller either knows the conditions she pokes fun at firsthand or has remarkable insight. No matter how selfish and bullying Clemenceâs behavior becomes, sheâs never a caricature. Her friends and family hate her and love her because sheâs impossible, but they donât give up on her, and that makes the moment she gets her head above water that much more moving. Co-Presented by NAMI Chicago. Followed by a post-screening Q&A with Heller and some cast and crew. (2022, 94 min, DCP Digital) [Dmitry Samarov]
Jenny Perlinâs BUNKER (US/Documentary)
Gene Siskel Film Center â Wednesday, 6pm
Itâs a meme nowadays for people to exclaim that, should the unthinkable happenânuclear warfare, an asteroid hitting earth, zombie apocalypse, et ceteraâtheyâd rather just die than survive, the relative comfort of the former outweighing the hardships of the latter. This certainly makes sense; the glut of media centered on people desperately trying to survive after a catastrophe doesnât make it look fun. But apparently there is a community of people who not only hope to survive, but will attempt to do so at any cost, going to the extreme of purchasing and, in some cases, even living in shelters fashioned from decommissioned military bunkers and nuclear missile silos. Jenny Perlinâs illuminating and unsettling documentary explores the lives of several men doing just this. Divided into sections, Perlinâs inquiry features men who run the socio-economic and ideological gamut and have invested more than just their money in these spaces. The opening segmentâtaking place in Murchison, Texas, at the Rising S Companyâis eerily observational, isolating pieces of the larger, conjectural puzzle to disconcerting effect. Rising S manufactures steel bunkers and bomb shelters spanning various levels of luxury, from smaller, barebones âeconomyâ models to million-dollar behemoths complete with a sauna. (Itâs the end of the world as we know it... so why not sweat it out?) The film then details Perlinâs travels across Middle America, locating and investigating other bunker-related activity. Milton of Vivos, reads playfully scrawled text on an introductory title card. Vivos xPoint in South Dakota boasts of being the largest survival community on the planet. Milton resides in one of the companyâs 575 steel bunkers on a former US Army base, the structures looking almost exactly like one might expect. Heâs a friendly guy, if a little eccentric. His bunker is essentially a storage space, with none of the comforts or even utilities respective to a home. His reason for living in the bunker, despite apparently having a daughter, is also hazy; he mentions the possibility of Yellowstone erupting and something about two suns. Despite his erratic character, heâs the only one of the survivalist interviewees who questions his will to survive in a doomsday scenario. For the most part, the other men are overly confident, even smug, about their reasons for and commitment to survival at all costs. Itâs tempting to detail each person and the nuances of their respective bunkers, but thatâs the joy, so to speak, of watching the filmâto see how each manâs ideology manifests in this space. Itâs an enthralling study into this subset of contemporary American culture. Surprisingly, thereâs little in the way of political posturing. Perlinâs genuine curiosity (she even stays in one manâs bunker, revealed in a somewhat tense scene) and her observational approach allows for the images and subjects to speak for themselves. One gets a glimpse into another world that exists, almost literally, beneath our own, representative of the extreme ideas that often boil underneath the facade of stability. Director in person. (2021, 95 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
Hayao Miyazakiâs PONYO (Japan/Animation)
Gene Siskel Film Center â Saturday and Sunday, 11am
Like its understood predecessor, MY NEIGHBOR TOTOROâreleased 20 years priorâPONYO is a film about the magic and uncertainties of childhood, with the protagonistsâ real-world experiences shaped by mythological creatures of nature. Director Hayao Miyazakiâs take on the tale of the Little Mermaid, PONYO stands out for its soft pastel watercolor visuals, which perfectly represent the life within and around the ocean. Its characters, too, are striking in their depictions, as Miyazaki weaves in themes not just of childhood, but aging and parental responsibility. Young but dependable SĆsuke lives in a house on a cliff by the ocean with his gregarious mother, Lisaâhis father, a sailor, is often away at sea. While playing at the waterâs edge, he discovers a goldfish stuck in a bottle and, naming her Ponyo, decides to keep her. Ponyo is not, however, an ordinary goldfish. She is the rebellious daughter of a wizard and longs to escape the confines of her fatherâs underwater lair. She uses her connection to SĆsuke and her fatherâs magic to turn herself into a human, and this sets off an imbalance in nature that results in dangerous winds, rain, and the moon falling from the sky. Most significantly, the ocean begins to rise, engulfing SĆsukeâs hometown. SĆsukeâs dedication to caring for Ponyo is ultimately put to the test to restore balance to the natural world. PONYOâs depictions of the ocean are pure wonder; this is evident from the filmâs opening moments, and Ponyoâs journeys out of the ocean, but is particularly astonishing in the aftermath of the tsunami when the water has risen to SĆsukeâs doorstep and ancient ocean creatures swim above city streets. PONYO is often dialogue-less, which allows a focus on the dazzling imagery. The filmâs magic doesnât just reside in its enchanting visuals, but in the moments of ordinary childhood; the scene in which Ponyo sleeps over at SĆsukeâs is full of small moments of play and excitement as the two excitedly eat dinner and get ready for bed. Despite being one of the Studio Ghibli films that is most decidedly geared towards a young child audience, PONYO provides some complex themes. Key set pieces at both a school and senior living center, reflecting multiple stages of life and the childlike wonder to be found at all of them. The adults often act like childrenâespecially Lisa, who throws a tantrum when she realizes her husband isnât coming home when promised. These scenes arenât a judgment of the film, but rather an exploration of the intersections between selflessness and childishnessâPONYO gracefully argues these two things arenât always too far apart. Screening as part of the Kid Flix series and preceded by a short media-literacy introduction by Film Center staff. (2008, 101 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]
Alfonso CuarĂłnâs CHILDREN OF MEN (US/UK)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Thursday, 7pm
Rarely is a movie at once upsetting and invigorating, yet Alfonso CuarĂłnâs CHILDREN OF MEN manages to embrace that paradox for pretty much its entire running time. The film imagines a dystopian near-future where no children have been born for 18 years. Humanity is in its death throes, and late capitalism has entered a hideous extreme state, with pockets of extreme wealth surrounded by abject misery all over the world. The planet on display is all the more horrifying for looking so similar to the one we already inhabit, wth the filmmakers exaggerating, but only just so, present-day images of inequality, environmental devastation, and social unrest. (Slavoj Zizek has provocatively described the movie as a sequel to CuarĂłnâs Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN in its skeptical portrait of class relations.) Itâs a fully realized world, designed in such remarkable detail that one gets a sense of what life is like for people across different social classes and in most areas of experience. The innovation doesnât stop there. Throughout CHILDREN OF MEN CuarĂłn and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki execute extraordinary mobile long-takes that cover multiple complicated actions and narrative developments; the music selections are thoughtful and jarring; and Michael Caine delivers one of his best latter-day performances as a dope-smoking political cartoonist who serves as one of the movieâs few figures of sanity. All told, itâs one of the supreme achievements of studio filmmaking in the first decade of the 21st century. Screening as part of Docâs Thursday I series, âThe Three Amigos.â (2006, 109 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]
Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING (US)
Music Box Theatre â Friday and Saturday, Midnight
Though it had been made famous already by ROCKY, it wasn't until THE SHINING that the Steadicam yielded an aesthetic breakthrough in movies. Garrett Brown's innovationâa gyroscope mounted to the bottom of a camera, which allowed cinematographers to create hand-held tracking shots that didn't record their own movementâbecame in Kubrick's hands a supernatural presence. The film's justly celebrated Steadicam shots evoke a cruel, judgmental eye that does not belong to any human being, a perspective that's harrowing in its implications. (GOODFELLAS, SATANTANGO, and Gus Van Sant's ELEPHANT, to name just three examples, are inconceivable without the film's influence.) In this regard, the horror of THE SHINING makes manifest one subtext running through all of Kubrick's work: that humanity, for all its technical sophistication, will never fully understand its own consciousness. Why else would Kubrick devote nearly 150 takes to the same scene, as he did several times in the film's epic shooting schedule? With the only exceptions being other movies directed by Stanley Kubrick, no one moves or speaks in a film the way they do in THE SHINING. Everything has been rehearsed past the point of technical perfection; the behavior on screen seems the end-point of human evolution. What keeps it all going? (To invoke another great horror film of the era: the devil, probably.) The demons of the Overlook Hotel may very well be a manifestation of the evil within Jack Torrance, a recovering alcoholic who once nearly beat his four-year-old son to death. They could be, like those Steadicam shots, an alien consciousness here to judge the vulnerabilities of mankind. Kubrick never proffers an explanation, which is why THE SHINING is one of the few horror films that actually remains scary on repeated viewings. Nearly every effect here prompts some indelible dread: the unnatural symmetry of Kubrick's compositions; Shelly Duvall's tragic performance (which suggests that horrible victimization is always just around the corner); and the atonal symphonic music by Bartok, Lygeti, and Penderecki that make up the soundtrack. Presented by the Losers' Club: A Stephen King Podcast. (1980, 142 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]
Alex Garland's ANNIHILATION (US/UK)
Gene Siskel Film Center â Tuesday, 6pm
In an Alex Garland movie, youâre never entirely in reality. Even his portrayals of supposedly "real-world" events carry a sort of coldness, indicative of the artificial sandbox heâs constructed for himself. This feeling permeates ANNIHILATION from the opening, sending our hero hurtling towards the void. When Johns Hopkins biology professor Lena (Natalie Portman) receives a visit from her presumed-dead soldier husband Kane (Oscar Isaac), her relief quickly turns to fear as she realizes that something is deeply wrong with him. Theyâre quickly intercepted by government agents, brought to a secure bunker and interrogated. As it turns out, Kaneâs secret mission was to infiltrate "The Shimmer," a sort-of energy field caused by an asteroid of unknown origin swallowing all thatâs entered it. After repeated attempts to go in and study it, the only thing to come back out has been Kane, who now has multiple organ failure and no memory of what happened inside. Undeterred, Lena joins an all-women squadron that enters the Shimmer to find an increasingly alien world inside, with time and space seeming to warp more the closer they get to the lighthouse at its center. While STALKER (1979) and its "Zone" seem to be the primary point of reference, ANNIHILATION arguably draws even more from John Carpenterâs Apocalypse trilogy. Whatever the Shimmer is doing, it doesnât just want to destroy our world, it wants to be it. Alex Garland, along with Denis Villeneuve, is one of only a few genuine auteurs working in sci-fi right now. Between the intellectual nature of the genre and the current momentâs need to make "respectable" any sort of genre filmmaking, Garlandâs gotten a bit of a reputation as a dullard. MEN (2022), which many found to be a tragic mix of pretentious and stupid, certainly hasnât helped his cause. On its face, ANNIHILATION might seem similar, as itâs got all the hallmarks of what one would call "A24-core": a rudimentary interest in trauma as a form of character development, handsome cinematography (pejorative), big BWOMP sounds on the score. But if anything actualizes the promise of the "elevated" horror/sci-fi subgenres, itâs this: a film that can ground its spectacle in elegant style while still being spectacular. Yes, the science is in turns contradictory and confusing, and the filmâs attempts to flesh out its ensemble feel whittled-down from its literary source material. But few films from recent years can claim to have this filmâs visual splendor, with Garlandâs FX team working overtime to create a gorgeously compelling alien world. With its perpetually-mutating flora and fauna, as well as periodic dips into full-on psychedelic abstraction, each frame of the film is packed with interesting production design that sells the Shimmer as a place whose beauty is part of its terror. After all, whatâs scarier than the thought that aliens may actually have a better plan for Earth than we do? The film only feels more prescient now that AI-generated imagery has started to flood media feeds, gradually becoming less distinguishable from whatâs real. Like these robotic systems, the alien consciousness that spawned the Shimmer is a mimic, aiming to replicate whatâs already there but generating something new and terrifying in the process. ANNIHILATION the film exists in similar territory: too heady and viscerally upsetting to be a popcorn flick, yet more stoner-friendly and star-power-driven than what youâre likely to find at the art house. In short, itâs exactly the kind of bombastic whatsit that deserves to be seen on a big screen. Screening as part of SAIC professor Daniel R. Quilesâ Gore Capitalism lecture series. (2018, 115 min, DCP Digital) [Maxwell Courtright]
Molly Hewitt's HOLY TRINITY (US)
FACETS Cinema â Thursday, 9pm
A movie about gaining the ability to speak to the dead after huffing Yoruba Orisha cleansing spray from a paper bag. Are you in or are you out? What if there also were casual hi-glam and drag elements? What if the film was the spiritual coming-of-age story of a queer femme dominatrix? What if someone made a film that somehow landed dead center in the Venn diagram intersection of John Watersâ and Bruce LaBruceâs films, the Ramonesâ song lyrics, and Cindy Shermanâs and David LaChappelleâs photography? So⊠are you in or are you out? HOLY TRINITY is a film made exactly for the type of people who are going to love HOLY TRINITY. Director, and star, Molly Hewitt has created a world that is casually, yet still somehow aggressively, queerânothing is particularly queer in the filmâs world because everything is queer. Itâs an amazing accomplishment. The casually absurd is just casual, the fringe is front and center. Yet, for a movie centered on huffing, Hewitt has made a lovely story about the spiritual dynamics of power and how it affects the filmâs protagonist, Trinity. After looking for a quick high and huffing her roommateâs spiritual room cleansing spray (think a can of Lysol, but from the corner botanica) she discovers she can communicate with the dead. This new talent becomes both a gift (she now has an edge on her submissive clients) and a curse (she becomes internet famous to the detriment of her personal love life). With her new gift, Trinity has to learn to re-calibrate the power dynamics of her life, and the world around her. The entire movie is filled with these ideas. She has to re-question consent with her clients and the capitalist structure that surrounds that, her lifelong relationship with Catholicism, the personal relationship with her partner, Baby. Itâs almost as if huffing just may have unintended consequencesâones both hilarious and serious. Youâd think the story would get convoluted with all the concerted ridiculousness, but it doesn't. You can feel the sex-positivity, body-positivity, queer-positivity, radiating from this movie. HOLY TRINITY is absolutely shameless in the best way possibleâin a literal way. No one feels any shame for what they do, or how they act, because thereâs no need toâthatâs just the way life is. Queer folks just living their outrageous lives, on their own fantastic terms. So⊠are you in, or are you out? (2019, 91 min, DCP Digital) [Raphael Jose Martinez]
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Preceded by Facets Trivia at 7pm, hosted by critic, programmer and Cine-File contributor Raphael Jose Martinez and local programmer Mike Vanderbilt. More info here.
Mel Stuart's WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (US)
Music Box Theatre â Monday, 7pm
Even though the lackluster Peter Ostrum (who played Charlie and thankfully retired from the acting business to become a veterinarian) covers the film in a slimy, sentimental goo, Mel Stuart's exceptional but uneven WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY still remains a visual and rather perverse delight. Get past the interminable "Cheer up Charlie" song and the flimsy ending and you're left with some gorgeous color cinematography and the pleasure of watching half a dozen pre-pubescent miscreants get their comeuppances while Gene Wilder acts bewildered. Most of the musical numbers are quite good too, and the classroom scenes with David Battley as an inept grade school teacher are worth the price of admission alone. Screening as part of the ââClean Plate Club: A Food and Film Series. The partner restaurant for this event is Steingoldâs Deli. (1971, 100 min, 35mm) [Julian Antos]
David Cronenberg's VIDEODROME (Canada)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Thursday, 9:30pm
Since his first feature, 1975's SHIVERS, David Cronenberg has focused on the concept of "body horror"âthe idea that the human body is not a self-sustaining entity, but rather a portal capable of being penetrated by both physical and metaphorical "diseases" that reduce the human to his basic animalistic desires for sex and power. VIDEODROME is the culmination of the theme of sexual frenzy interlaced with violence that Cronenberg had explored in both SHIVERS and his subsequent film, RABID (1977). While both of those earlier works deal with "real" events (disease epidemics), VIDEODROME takes a more metaphorical and overtly intellectual approach. James Woods stars as Max Renn, the owner of a sleazy cable station that specializes in hypersexual and violent programming. Renn has discovered a low-fi broadcast feed of a show called "Videodrome," in which women are tortured and killed by cloaked men. Renn decides that "Videodrome" is exactly what his audience craves and sets out to find the producer. Although warned by his assistant that "Videodrome" is much more sinister than it seems, Max continues his search and becomes obsessed with watching the show. Soon the world of "Videodrome" starts to become all too real, and Max's body begins to undergo a series of changes, including developing a VCR in his stomach. The film was released a year before the home video craze swept North America, but it serves as a haunting prediction of how video would revolutionize home entertainment and, more importantly, the way in which people would become increasingly dependent on audio/video technology. Video became the first organic technology; it allowed for personalized "controlled viewing" (stop, pause, rewind) and thus the perfect device for Cronenberg to exploit. The same video could be watched in completely different ways by different people, making it a wholly different experience for each viewer. The video itself would become a literal extension of the viewer's interests. Cronenberg's use of this concept in VIDEODROME is both obvious (Max literally becomes the VCR) and subversive: Cronenberg's criticism doesn't lie with a general dislike or fear of how video can impact the sense of the individual; rather that the connection that is able to be forged between man and machine disconnects him from the conscious linear world. The technologies in his films (such as the teleport machine in THE FLY, the video game system in eXistenz, and the videotape in VIDEODROME) all represent a late 20th century obsession with excess and escapism; his horrors are the dangers that come from living in a "reality" that is a product of technological obsession. Renn's transformation into a piece of technology, whose only purpose is to execute commands programmed into him by the insertion of a videotape, is a modern-day cautionary tale; the audience is forced to reflect on Renn's failure to distinguish between "Videodrome" as a product and "Videodrome" as life. Cronenberg cleverly confuses those two opposites to the point that they become fused. The hope is that the audience can again separate them. Screening as part of Docâs Thursday II series, âSkin Under Skin: A Retrospective of David Cronenberg.â (1983, 89 min, DCP Digital) [Joe Rubin]
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert's EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (US)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Tuesday, 7pm
Nobodyâs life is perfect, but the Wang familyâs is more or less in meltdown. The coin-op laundry they run is failing and being audited by the IRS, Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh) and her daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu), are battling all of the time, Evelynâs sickly father (James Hong) has one foot in eternity, and Evelynâs husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), is filing for divorce in hopes of getting Evelyn to face their problems and work things out. The title of Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newleyâs 1961 musical, Stop the World, I Want to Get Off, might come to mind, as it did when screenwriter-directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert inserted a snippet of the play in their wacky cinematic fantasia, EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE. In their fertile imaginations, the term âmultiverseâ escapes the banalities of comic book movies and plops into an infinitely more entertaining wuxia setting, with the queen of wuxia, Michelle Yeoh, learning how to save the multiverse from the threat ofâher daughter. The imagination that went into creating the various universes in which Evelyn plays various rolesâamong them a movie star, a Chinese opera star, a tabletop grill chef, a lesbian with sausage fingers who uses her feet for most thingsâis mind-boggling. The mechanics of operating across universes are logical, simple, and incredibly funny. And the cast, including an almost-unrecognizable Jamie Lee Curtis as tax auditor Deirdre Beaubeirdre, all perform their fast-changing identities with perfect comic timing and grace. The lessons of the movie are really quite simpleâvalue and honor family ties, most things are manageable if you put them in perspective, people will surprise you if given half the chance. The quick edits and the quick wits of Kwan, Scheinert, and company elevate this to a thoroughly joyful ride. Co-presented with the Society of Women in Physics. All proceeds to go to Girls 4 Science, a nonprofit organization dedicated to exposing girls in Chicago, ages 10â18 years old, to STEM. (2022, 139 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Todd Fieldâs TĂR (US)
FACETS Cinema â See Venue website for showtimes
Writer-director Todd Field (IN THE BEDROOM, LITTLE CHILDREN) returns to the screen after a 14-year absence with this towering drama about a lionized classical music composer-conductor (Cate Blanchett, in a role written for her) whose brutal control of the people in her professional orbit comes back to haunt and finally destroy her. Lydia TĂĄr is a former protĂ©gĂ© of Leonard Bernstein, and like her mentor she has won popular stardom through her talent for precisely articulating the emotional force of music; her own emotional life is one of praise and privilege, and her power as an international celebrity and longtime conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic extends to her domestic partnership with one of its players (Nina Hoss) and their school-age daughter. When TĂĄr stands at the podium, trying to get her arms around the violence of Mahlerâs Fifth, Field shoots Blanchett from a low angle so extreme you feel as if youâre craning up a cliff. But like so many celebrities intoxicated by adoration, TĂĄr has developed an appetite for it, and her romantic attraction to young women in her orchestra pulls her along a trajectory that many men have traveled before her. Her 21st-century fall from grace is terrifying in its speed and steepness, yet as the final scene reveals, TĂĄr must always submit to the musicâs power, just as so many others have submitted to hers. (2022, 158 min, DCP Digital) [J.R. Jones]
đïž PHYSICAL SCREENINGS/EVENTS â
ALSO SCREENING
â« Asian Pop-Up Cinema
The extensive Asian Pop-Up Cinema series continues its sixteenth season. Their in-person and virtual offerings are too many to list. Visit here for more information.
â« Chicago Film Archives
The Chicago Transit Authority, in partnership with the Chicago Film Archives (CFA), presents a new, one-of-a-kind temporary art installation now playing at the Cicero Green Line station (4800 W. Lake St.). The installation, known as we love, is a filmic exhibition of home movies and amateur films selected from collections housed and preserved at CFA. The video, which has a runtime of approximately 48 min, will be projected onto a wall in the mezzanine area of the station. The video will run day and night through mid-March next year. More info here.
â« Community Film Workshop of Chicago
A Women's History Month Short Film Screening, featuring films produced by women filmmakers from the South Side, takes place Saturday, 2pm, at Harris Park (6200 S. Drexel Ave., 2nd Floor). A Q&A with the filmmakers will follow the screening. More info here.
â« Doc Films
Marie Kreutzerâs 2022 film CORSAGE (114 min, DCP Digital) screens Saturday, 4pm and 8pm, as part of the DĂłc: New Releases series.
Charles Sheeler and Paul Strandâs 1921 short film MANHATTA (10 min, Digital Projection) and Ralph Steiner and Willard Van Dykeâs 1939 documentary THE CITY (43 min, Digital Projection) screen Sunday, 8pm, as part of the Decisive Moment: Photographers Turned Filmmakers series. More info on all screenings here.
â« Gene Siskel Film Center
Jacquelyn Millsâs 2022 Canadian film GEOGRAPHIES OF SOLITUDE (103 min, DCP Digital) continues. See Venue website for showtimes.
Richard Donnerâs 1978 film SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE (143 min, 35mm) screens Saturday, 6pm, and John Badhamâs 1979 film DRACULA (109 min, 35mm) screens Sunday, 6pm, as part of the Scored by John Williams series.
The Midwest Film Festival: Emerging Filmmaker Night takes place Monday, with a pre-reception starting at 6:30pm, the screening at 7:30pm, and an afterparty at Emerald Loop Bar & Grill. This special event will showcase 10 films created by emerging filmmakers who are in the first decade of their careers, also known as "10 under 10." More info on all screenings and events here.
â« Music Box Theatre
Vasilis Katsoupisâ 2023 film INSIDE (105 min, DCP Digital) and Lola Quivoronâs 2023 French film RODEO (107 min, DCP Digital) continue. See Venue website for showtimes.
Javon Batesâ 2022 film DARK ETHER (78 min, DCP Digital) screens Friday at 9:30pm. Programmed and presented by Tomahawk Entertainment Group.
A new HD remaster of Fabrice du Welzâs 2004 horror film CALVAIRE (88 min, DCP Digital) screens Friday at midnight.
The 2023 HUMP! Film Festival takes place Saturday with screenings at 7pm and 9:30pm.
Mark Jenkinâs 2023 horror film ENYS MEN (96 min, DCP Digital) screens Wednesday at 9:30pm and Thursday at 9:45pm. More info on all screenings and events here.
â« Sweet Void Cinema
Find information on this Humboldt Park microcinema, including its screening and workshop schedule, here.
CINE-LIST: March 24 - March 30, 2023
MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs
CONTRIBUTORS // Julian Antos, Kian Bergstrom, Rob Christopher, Maxwell Courtright, Ray Ebarb, Megan Fariello, Marilyn Ferdinand, J.R. Jones, Jonathan Leithold-Patt, Raphael Jose Martinez, Joe Rubin, Dmitry Samarov