đœïž Crucial Viewing
Willard Huyck & Gloria Katzâs MESSIAH OF EVIL (US)
Chicago Film Society at the Music Box Theatre â Monday, 7pm
Filmmaking team Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz gained notoriety in Hollywood for their economical screenplays written for the likes of Stanley Donen, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg, but their first directorial effort, MESSIAH OF EVIL, eschews traditional Hollywood filmmaking techniques as much as possible. Sitting somewhere between giallo, American independent horror, and European arthouse fare, Huyck and Katzâs undead thriller lulls us into its intoxicating spell, with red glowing moonlight and rampant terror hiding around every corner. Roger Ebertâs famous edict "Itâs not what a movie is about, itâs how it is about it" is taken to the nth degree here in an eerie display that's less concerned with narrative tautness than with enshrining the audience in a ninety-minute aura of dread and disorientation. There is a creeping artistry throughout, with characters and locations emerging from the darkness as if by ephemeral sources. Marianna Hillâs plaintive narration guides us deeper into the isolated world of Point Dune, where her character wanders in search of her reclusive artist father who has gone missing. She spends much of the film in her fatherâs abandoned home, a shell of larger-than-life artistic collages, paintings and sketches of figures and scenery threatening to swallow the frame up entirely. She finds herself further entangled with the sexually promiscuous Michael Greer, a man caught between investigating the seemingly supernatural happenings of this town and courting any woman who crosses his path. Itâs not too long before the curse hovering over this town starts to descend, and one by one, characters meet their untimely bloody deaths at the hands of an ever-growing mob of Point Dune residents. The mystery behind the cursed town is revealed in due time, but unlocking these narrative secrets holds no candle to the morbid joys of watching men eat rats, figures fully engulfed in flames, and hordes of undead souls, bleeding from the eyes, sitting in a movie theater auditorium, staring right back at you. As Hill tells us in the filmâs opening moments, "They say that nightmares are dreams perverted," and Huyck and Katz perverted the dream of American filmmaking into a remarkably vivid nightmare. Preceded by Peter Tscherkassky's 1999 short OUTER SPACE (10 min, 35mm). (1974, 89 mins, 35mm) [Ben Kaye]
Giovanni Pastroneâs TIGRE REALE (Italy/Silent)
Film Studies Center (at the University of Chicago) â Saturday, 7pm
TIGRE REALE is a significant silent film because of its leading lady, but also its explicit sexuality, depictions of violence, and exciting filmmaking from director Giovanni Pastroneâin terms of both early narrative storytelling and striking visuals. At a party in Paris, young diplomat Giorgio La Ferlita (Alberto Nepoti) falls in love with the regal and flirtatious Russian Countess Natka (Pina Menichelli). It is well known in society that she was responsible for the death of a former lover. Their mutual attraction is clear, but Natka is conflicted by the idea of love. Her erratic attention is due to a previous tragic affair with a Polish revolutionary, a story which she relays to La Ferlita through a scenic snowscape-set flashback. Despite confessing her past, Natka remains conflicted, and her passionate love story ends in literal flames. This is the role that solidified Pina Menichelli as an iconic diva of Italian silent cinema, and itâs easy to see why; her powerful presence is so great that when sheâs not on screen you find yourself wondering when sheâs coming back. Her remarkable melodramatic physicality is undeniable, particularly in her lamenting falls to furniture and deliberate rolling of her wide, haunting eyes. This melodrama is mixed with a sumptuous eroticism, notably seen in how Menichelli caresses her fine clothing and jewelry. While TIGRE REALE is worth watching just for Menichelli, Pastrone also skillfully highlights her strengths through his camera, building an impressive and audacious narrative. With live accompaniment by Italian musicians Stefano Maccagno and Furio Di Castri. (1916, 80 min, 35mm) [Megan Fariello]
George Shermanâs HELL BENT FOR LEATHER (US)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Monday, 7pm
Though superficially a Western, HELL BENT FOR LEATHER feels more like something out of Kafka or The Twilight Zone. It concerns a traveling horse trader who gets mistaken for a serial murderer in late-19th century Utah after a series of circumstances place him near the home of the killerâs last victims with the killerâs shotgun in his hand. Some townspeople discover the trader and put him under citizensâ arrest until the sheriff whoâd been trailing the real killer for four months comes back. When the sheriff arrives, heâs gone mad from having failed to capture his mark; he decides heâd rather let the townspeople go on believing the trader is the killer than admit his defeat. Just as he starts to stir the fury of a lynch mob, our hero escapes, taking a young woman from town as his hostage; the remainder of the movie concerns their harrowing journey across desert and mountains, violent mob not far behind them. As in the more celebrated Westerns of Anthony Mann, the settings here are both physically and metaphysically imposing, suggesting the manifestations of an uncaring world. George Sherman may not be a visual innovator like Mannâthe widescreen mise-en-scĂšne gets the thematic work done without ever being truly stunningâbut his plainspoken direction does well by Christopher Knopfâs screenplay in other ways. In setting the scene so matter-of-factly, Sherman creates an atmosphere in which anyone could be mistaken for a criminal and violence is always near. (The film opens with a shot of a menacing stranger walking straight at the camera, as if to suggest that the following events could happen even to someone in the audience.) The director also keeps the action moving at a brisk pace, which gives this the streamlined terror of a nightmare. Stephen McNallyâs frightening performance as the sheriff adds to the impactâthere are times in the film when even he seems unsure of what heâll do next. And critically, HELL BENT FOR LEATHER shares a title with one of Judas Priestâs best albums (or the American release version, anyway), making the movie a must-see for metal trivia nerds. Screening as part of the Brief Intro to George Sherman series. (1960, 82 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]
So Yun Umâs LIQUOR STORE DREAMS (US/Documentary)
Block Cinema (at Northwestern University) â Thursday, 7pm
The American immigrant story is the pervasive Ur-myth of our country. Every aspect of American culture is shaped by it. We allow it to exist in a perma-state that gives anyone permission to have that "American Dream." The Wild West was a concept that allowed people who had been here for generations to reclaim immigrant status and experience. The Silicon Valley startup is an extension of this. Everyone in America is a metaphorical immigrant when it suits them. The underdog, the rags-to-riches, the Protestant work ethic-ness of it all is a story we all love. We often prefer this metaphor and myth to the real thing. So Yun Um's LIQUOR STORE DREAMS shows us the immigrant cultural experience of the tail end of America's last Immigrant Century. Not only that, but it shows the giant generational/cultural gap that immigrants (especially working class ones) have with their children born in the US. This film focuses on the personal story of So's parents, her father in particular, and the liquor store they owned for 20 years in Los Angeles. So parallels her family's story with that of a friend's, whose family owns a corner market in LA's Skid Row. We see them try to get past the pervasive negativity and psychic drain of running a small store in a bad neighborhood and look for a way to change what the store gives them as well as its community. All this is explored through the phenomena of "liquor store babies"âthe children of immigrant liquor store owners. This is a deeply personal story being used as a larger example for the Korean immigrant experience. So looks at the history of Korean chain immigration and its place in Los Angeles, specifically the liquor industry. Again, we see the finer point made broader where the recognition that Koreans took over the liquor stores after the Japanese immigrant enclave moved on, who took over after the Jewish one did, contextualizes this American story. We also see the uniquely Korean Angelino experience, that of the 1992 LA Riots and how the killing of Latasha Harding by a Korean woman in her liquor store forever scarred and traumatized the community and affected its relationship with the Black community. There is a very innocent, politically progressive angle to the whole story. It's a film made through the eyes of a child who has just fully realized that their parents are people unto themselves, with lives and dreams that existed before they were born. We watch So record her father watching the George Floyd protests and getting angry at the destruction of property. We watch her Millennial/Gen Z outlook clash with her older father who only remembers the destruction and loss from 1992. We hear her admonish her father for failing to see that the protests are good, that property loss really isn't that big of deal compared to the loss of life. We see him telling her that she has no idea what it is like to lose everything you've ever had because protests turned destructive. It's a tense and incredibly awkward moment to be privy to. The kind of family tiff where both people are right and both people are wrong. This is the kind of generational conversation LIQUOR STORE DREAMS has that makes it stand above so many other immigrant tales. As a child of two immigrant parents who fled their countries with nothing due to political revolutions, I deeply identify with that scene. I'm not Korean, but I'm an artist child of two people who worked too hard to make sure I didn't have to live with the instability I have chosen to live withâbut who also recognize that their hard work was to give me the opportunity to do what I want to do, not what I have to do. That onscreen tension is universal to the 1st/2nd generation American immigrant experience. LIQUOR STORE BABIES is at its best when it's not about So, her father, or her friend's family, but when it's about the space between them. That space is the actual space where the American immigrant story exists. Without myth, without metaphor. This is an impressive film by a young filmmaker and I eagerly look forward to seeing what other stories they have to tell. Screening as part of the Looking Carefully: New Observational Documentary series, presented as an âopen classroomâ screening for the Art of the Real: A History of Documentary class taught by Michael Metzger, Block Museum Curator of Cinema and Media Arts. (2022, 82 min, DCP Digital) [Raphael Jose Martinez]
Rene Lichtman, Stewart Bird, and Peter Gessnerâs FINALLY GOT THE NEWS (US/Documentary)
WRB Labor Film Series at Chicago Jobs With Justice (333 S. Ashland Ave.) â Thursday, 6:30pm
The backstory of FINALLY GOT THE NEWS is part of 1960s counterculture legend: white filmmakers at the radical Newsreel collective sent a team to Detroit to make a film about the League of Revolutionary Black Workersâ wildcat protests at Detroitâs automotive plants in 1968. This nascent Detroit Newsreel fell apart, and the League commandeered the filmmaking equipment, arguing that if Newsreel was unable to make a film that represented the Leagueâs actions as they wanted them represented, they had lost the right to the equipment. Talk about seizing the means of production! The League invited former Newsreel members to stick around and help make the film, and Stewart Bird, Rene Lichtman and Peter Gessner agreed. (They're usually credited as the directors of the film, but that seems a bit mendacious given what actually happened.) What we see is what the League wanted us to see, sometimes over the objections of the "professionals," assisted by Newsreel members who knew how to operate the cameras. Itâs a unique film in that itâs the only radical film of the period that was made by revolutionary Black workers, but its historical value is far from the only reason to see it. It sets itself apart as something different from its opening scene, a wordless photo montage that connects the history of slavery in the United States to the then-current lack of Black workers in the UAW. From there, the film loosely follows the lead-up to and aftermath of a union election at a Dodge plant, interspersed with interviews with League members who address the camera directly, explaining what emerges as a concrete strategy for revolutionary action. It also touches on efforts to build interracial alliances among workers, police brutality, and community organizing, but the real strength of the film is in those first-person interviews, the most literal outcome of the Leagueâs decision to seize the cameras and make the film they felt needed to be made. The League never made another film, and is long gone itself, but this unique film allows its message to live on. Followed by a post-screening discussion and Q&A with UAW Local 551 members and UAW member and filmmaker Floyd Webb. Pizza, soft drinks, and snacks will be provided. (1970, 55 min, Digital Projection) [Michael W. Phillips Jr.]
Gordon Parks Jr.'s SUPER FLY (US)
Music Box Theatre â Tuesday, 7pm
SUPER FLY is a sexy movie. As one of the most prominent Blaxploitation films, it had its share of criticism. Even Curtis Mayfield was said to shake his head at the success of the movie because it coincided with the rise of drug abuse among Black Americans post-Vietnam. And while the movie does glorify a counterproductive image of progress, it still feels much different than other films of the genre. Following the success of SHAFT, director Gordon Parks' son, Gordon Parks Jr., started production on SUPER FLY immediately following his fatherâs box office hit. With a small budget, Parks and writer Phillip Fenty used friends and collaborators to make the film, often shooting guerilla style on the streets of New York. Along with great stylized editing choices, the fun of this film is definitely in admiring the fantastic wardrobe of suits, turtlenecks, furs, gigantic collars and some incredible fedoras, most of which were provided by the cast and crew. The story follows Ron OâNeal as Priest, a Harlem drug dealer who wants to retire from the game to have a better life with his lady; he organizes one final drop, but complications ensue when he gets mixed up with a corrupt cop (played by the movie's producer). Shakespearean actor turned sexy drug pusher, OâNealâs gorgeous 'fits and fierce stoicism drive the spirit of the film, as he recites monologues declaring the adversarial need to get out of a corrupt system. Priest is such a commanding character, and yet what I think is most endearing is his relationship with his girlfriend, who sees the sensitive person he really is beneath his rugged exterior. His lines and inflections are also wonderfully awkward. Aside from Ron OâNeal's handsome looks and cool demeanor, you canât talk about SUPER FLY without Curtis Mayfield. A Chicago native and civil rights advocate, up until this point he'd been known for progressive and uplifting songs such as "Move On Up." After receiving the script and loving it, Mayfield wrote the soundtrack and handed it off to be mixed in the film. With tracks like "Freddieâs Dead," "Eddie You Should Know Better" and of course "Pusher Man," Mayfield painted a dark picture of inner-city life that struck a chord with audiences. How can you not help but swoon to the silky falsettos and tantalizing bongos of the album? The sheer joy Mayfield exudes when bobbing and singing is downright infectious. I think the message of his songs was lost on most viewers because, like the shots of Priest's Cadillac Eldorado careening through the streets of Harlem, SUPER FLY might have been too sexy. With an introduction by Odie Henderson, Boston Globe film critic and author of Black Caesars and Foxy Cleopatras: A History of Blaxploitation Cinema and followed by a post-screening conversation between Henderson and film critic Brian Tallerico. (1972, 91 min, 35mm) [Nic Denelle]
đœïž ALSO RECOMMENDED
John Woo's HARD TARGET (US)
Music Box Theatre â Friday and Saturday, Midnight
The current popularity of '90s and early '00s blockbuster action films in repertory programming is nothing but a joy for someone like me. When I was in my teens and 20s the cool movies to check out were all from the '70s. Blaxploitation, kung-fu, gialli (well, I guess those are hipper than ever, but still...), all films that in the '90s made you say "Man, they don't make them like that anymore!" It makes sense that 20 years on the 20-somethings are saying the same stuff about the movies from 20 years ago. The difference is that they actually don't, and can't really, make them like this anymore. Lawyers and insurance companies have put their stranglehold on filmmakers and safety has become paramountâânot that that's a bad thing. Couple that with the exponentially decreasing cost of quality CGI and you have a new action film normal. When Cristopher Nolan drove an airplane into a building in TENET (2020), even if it was at a speed that could be measured in geologic time, people lost their minds. Long ago are the days of Michael Bay blowing up a whole $40m mansion for a single shot in BAD BOYS 2 (2003) just cause big boom is fun. So, to me a movie like HARD TARGET is nostalgic, but also a great example of a film style since passed. But then again HARD TARGET is even unique in its "they don't make them like that anymore"-ness. It's John Woo's first American movie. And it's definitely a whole lot of movie. After almost single-handedly changing the course of the action film in his native Hong Kong in the '80s and early '90s with his "heroic bloodshed" and "gun-fu" films like A BETTER TOMORROW 1 and 2 (1986, 1987), BULLET IN THE HEAD (1990), and HARD BOILED (1992), he was finally brought to the US to make his first film. And it was an immediate shitshow. The studio didn't think he could handle it, so they hired Sam Raimi to be on set everyday as a babysitter-cum-understudy, ready to replace him at a moment's notice. Woo couldn't really speak English yet, so you can't totally blame them. Then you had the film's starââwho, let's admit, can't really speak English eitherââJean-Claude Van Damme directing from in front of the camera the whole time. Worried that it would be his only US film, Woo crammed every idea and trick he'd ever had into this single film. The sense of duty. The nobility of violence. Brotherhood. Gorgeous slow motion. Highly choreographed multi-camera action sequences. Double fisted, quadruple gunned, set piece shootouts. Warehouse explosions. Birds, everywhere! All of this shoehorned into yet another version of Richard Connell's infamous short story "The Most Dangerous Game." Here we have a mulleted ex-Marine Van Damme in New Orleans (set there to explain his accent, of course) trying to hunt down the evil Lance Henrickson, who hires the homeless as game to the 1%. The take on the story is not particularly unique and it's all a bit of a messââbut it's a gorgeous mess. More importantly, it's a fun one. Woo knows how to engage the audience, how to wow us, how to draw us in. In 1972 Pauline Kael said that "we are gradually being conditioned to accept violence as a sensual pleasure." She thought of this in the pejorative. Woo and HARD TARGET see this in the positive. Violence as a pleasure, that in combination with other elements, can elevate. So, despite the tonal and narrative weirdness (mostly due to Van Damme literally re-editing the film to make it more about him and less about, well, the plot of the movie) HARD TARGET shows a brilliant director finally getting his hands on the Hollywood machine. And just to stick it to Kael again... This is auteur filmmaking at its finest. It's a work for hire, in the last vestiges of the action star system, where the director's style shines through despite everything that should, by design, anonymize them. To paraphrase Lance Henrickson, "This isn't a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, it's a John Woo movie." But it's the combination of those two that makes this a perfect midnight movie. So be like my momma and take a chance on this. (1993, 97 min, DCP Digital) [Raphael Jose Martinez]
Ulli Lommelâs OLIVIA (UK)
Music Box Theatre â Friday, Midnight
A frequent Fassbinder collaborator and one-time denizen of Andy Warholâs Factory, German actor and filmmaker Ulli Lommel found his own associate in American actress Suzanna Love, who would star in many of his films and with whom heâd go on to co-write several screenplays. The two also entered into a romantic relationship and would eventually marry. Most notably Love starred in Lommelâs 1980 cult horror classic THE BOOGEY MAN; she didnât co-write that or OLIVIA, but she certainly makes her mark in the latter as a Madeleine/Marnie figure in Lommelâs Hitchcockianâbut sexier and sleazierâpsychological thriller. The filmâs distributor, the invaluable Vinegar Syndrome, describes it as âthe most offbeat film in the fascinating career of [this] German actor turned exploitation auteur.â Itâs certainly unusual in a hazy, languorous way that keeps the film in a continuously liminal space, never quite grasping any one qualifier. The sense of torpor is complemented right away by the first in various musical motifs by composer Joel Goldsmith, this one sounding like a boatâs foghorn but stretched out into a prolonged crescendo and then tonal decrescendo. It begins with young Olivia witnessing her sex-worker mother being killed by a john; the perspective is shot from that of her looking through the keyhole, suggesting a perversely voyeuristic intent. Olivia carries the guilt of not having intervened in her motherâs murder into adulthood, when at 20 years old sheâs already been married for four years to a churlish metal worker who views her solely as an object for sexual and domestic exploitation. She finds herself drawn to the sex workers who linger underneath the London Bridge, which, incidentally, Michael (Robert Walker Jr.) has come to England from America to assess for restoration. By the time they meet and fall in love, Olivia has murdered a client during her one-time foray into her motherâs profession. Eventually, her husband is accidentally thrown off the bridge into the River Thames by Michael after he discovers their affair, and she disappears into the night. The film picks up a year later, randomly enough, in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, to which parts of the original London Bridge were sent. (This really happened in 1971; itâs also called London Bridge. Lommel was said to have been inspired by this duality.) Michael now lives there, and heâs soon entranced by a local tourism worker who looks suspiciously like (and actually is) Olivia. What at first may seem like a romantic reunion, perhaps karmic comeuppance for all that the titular antihero has been through, soon begins to align more with the mandates of the genre. Thereâs a lot going on here: voyeurism, tourism, guilt, patriarchy, misogyny, bridges from which to fall and rivers into which to be dumped. None of it stands out as being particularly meaningful, but Lommelâs darkly lulling direction and Loveâs almost childlike affectation impinge an ambience that renders any senseless plot point moot in contrast to its heady potency. Programmed and presented by the Front Row and Olivia Hunter Willke. (1983, 85 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
Leilah Weinraub's SHAKEDOWN (US/Documentary)
Gene Siskel Film Center â Saturday, 8:45pm
The title of Leilah Weinraubâs superb 2018 documentary refers to a series of legendary underground strip-club shows held in a variety of locations in Los Angeles in the 1990s and early 2000s. The performers at these shows, the âShakedown Angels,â were exclusively lesbians of color who catered to audiences comprised largely of the same demographic. Like Jennie Livingston did with New York Cityâs drag-ball scene in the landmark PARIS IS BURNING, Weinraub provides an invaluable and eye-opening social history of a subculture too-long marginalized, and many of the pleasures her film offers arise from a similarly skilled manner of documentary portraiture: The subjects come across as compelling, vividly drawn charactersâfrom Ronnie-Ron, Shakedownâs charismatic âstudâ impresario, to angels Mahogany (who gives a fascinating description of the difference between performing for women vs. men), Egypt (a formerly homophobic high-school cheerleader who discovered her sexual identity after being introduced to gay club-life by a friend) and the enigmatic Slim Goodie (whose clever costumes and aggressive, mesmerizing dance numbers rival the best of what came out of MGMâs famed Arthur Freed unit in the 1950s). Fittingly, men are almost nowhere to be seen, and the only appearance of white men pointedly occurs when undercover cops show up to arrest nude dancers for âsoliciting,â precipitating the closure of Shakedownâs main venue in 2004 amidst a new era of gentrification in L.A. But Weinraub also knows that the most effective way to challenge the dominant ideology of American culture (i.e., patriarchy and heteronormativity) in cinema is not only through content but form, and so she rebels against the conventions of mainstream documentary filmmaking as well. What ultimately makes SHAKEDOWN a landmark work of radical queer art in its own right is its experimental edge: In little more than an hour, Weinraub confronts viewers with an exhilarating montage of footage (culled from 400+ hours she shot herself on standard-definition video in low-light conditions) that frequently takes on a rude, hallucinatory beauty, punctuated by a wealth of still photographs and promotional flyers characterized by a cheesy-but-amazing early-2000s Photoshop aesthetic. Screening as part of the Hot & Heavy series. (2018, 66 min, DCP Digital) [Michael Glover Smith]
Kasi Lemmons' EVE'S BAYOU (US)
Music Box Theatre â Saturday, 2pm
As far as Hollywood accolades are concerned, this writer couldnât care less; however, when Roger Ebert exclaimed, âIf it is not nominated for Academy Awards, then the academy is not paying attentionâ at the end of his review for EVEâS BAYOU, he raised an interesting pointâthis is a film whose quality resides in the blindspot of many. Kasi Lemmonsâ directorial debut is heavily concerned with memory and race. Set in 1962, the story revolves around Eve Batiste (Jurnee Smollett) and her Creole-American family in an affluent Louisiana community. On the surface, her family is idyllic, they live in a mansion, her father (Samuel L. Jackson) is a doctor, and they come from a lineage of French nobles. One day, Eve witnesses her father cheating on her mother, and the familyâs picturesque facade starts to show cracks. Eveâs sister, who has a very close relationship with her father, informs Eve that what she thought she saw was misunderstood and the idea of memory being flawed is raised and remains as the filmâs central theme. The filmâs narrative unfolds as a series of memories whose reliability is left questionable; shades of RASHOMON are felt as stories are recounted by multiple characters. Eve must navigate her coming of age while coming to terms with her familyâs shortcomings. The cinematography is warm and bright, yet harbors nefarious undertones with its dark shadows, furthering the filmâs desire for the audience to determine what is respectable or not. EVEâS BAYOU relies on its charactersâ perspectives to tell a story that is dreamlike and open to multiple interpretations. Screening as part of the Melanin, Roots, and Culture series. (1997, 109 min, DCP Digital) [Kyle Cubr]
Hayao Miyazaki's PRINCESS MONONOKE (Japan/Animation)
Gene Siskel Film Center â Tuesday, 6pm
As morally complicated as it is visually complex, PRINCESS MONONOKE was Hayao Miyazakiâs darkest, most contemplative film prior to THE WIND RISES. Like WIND, MONONOKE advances a skeptical view of war and technological progress. It adopts a Medieval setting to portray, in the directorâs words, âthe very beginnings of the seemingly insoluble conflict between the natural world and modern industrial civilization.â What makes the film intellectually challenging, however, is that Miyazaki refuses to demonize industrial civilization in delineating the storyâs conflict. MONONOKE takes place in a mythological feudal Japan where humans interact freely with gods and demons. Much of the second half concerns the persecution of forest spirits by the denizens of Irontown, a refinery/village thatâs producing the first iron Japanâs ever seen and which it wants to destroy parts of the surrounding forest in order to expand. In a simpler film, Irontown would be a land of dumb brutes, yet Miyazaki presents the village as progressive, even enlightened. The townâs leader, Lady Eboshi, radically refuses to acknowledge the Emperorâs authority, putting her centuries ahead of her time; she also employs former sex workers, lepers, and other social outcasts in the townâs operations. (Miyazaki claims to have taken inspiration from John Fordâs westerns in his depiction of a diverse small community.) One canât help but admire the resolute spirit of Irontowners even as they aspire to commit genocide against the godsâMiyazakiâs humanism is so profound that he sees good even in characters that perform evil deeds. Similarly, the filmâs hero, Ashitaka, often seems callow and insecure when doing good. Ashitaka is attacked by a demon at the start of the film and spends the rest of the picture slowly dying from a curse thatâs placed on him. The young manâs fate parallels that of the forest spirits: heâs doomed to die, but heâs determined to use whatever strength he has left to fight for the protection of the natural world. And as depicted by Miyazaki and the Studio Ghibli team, the natural world seems magisterial enough to die for. Screening as part of Shawn Michelle Smith and Oliver Sannâs Cli-Fi lecture series. (1997, 134 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
Anna Billerâs THE LOVE WITCH (US)
FACETS Cinema â Thursday, 9pm
THE LOVE WITCH is a remarkably dense pastiche, recreating elements of American melodramas, sexploitation comedies, and low-budget horror films from the 60s and early 70s with loving care and deadpan assurance. Writer-director Anna Biller (who also designed the sets and costumes) invokes Radley Metzger, Elizabeth Taylor vehicles like BUTTERFIELD 8, Stephanie Rothmanâs THE VELVET VAMPIRE, George Romeroâs SEASON OF THE WITCH, and likely many other cult films and filmmakers. The mise-en-scene is striking and loud, at times verging on Kenneth Anger levels of expressiveness; the sex is lurid and silly, the politics blunt and sincere; and Biller demonstrates such command over tone that even the odd pauses in the dialogue feel carefully considered. The heroine, Elaine, is a California witch living a life of leisure and looking for a man to love. While she manages to lure a number of men to her bedâemploying a combination of sexual allure, magic spells, and burlesque dancingâshe never lands on a lasting relationship. Part of the problem is that Elaineâs magic turns her lovers into pathetic devotees; another is that Elaineâs lovers keep dying on her. The loversâ demises represent grotesque exaggerations of the ways in which women can feel disappointed by men; these scenes communicate a certain raw honesty that used to exist commonly in disreputable genres when filmmakers were given a high degree of creative freedom. THE LOVE WITCH is a tribute to that era and a provocation for ours, calling into question the expectations that women have of men, and vice-versa. Presented in partnership with Sideshow Gallery. Preceded by Danny Plotnickâs short film SKATE WITCHES (2 min, Digital Projection). Followed by a pre-recorded video interview with Biller, conducted by Nicola McCafferty, a PhD candidate in the department of Radio/Television/Film at Northwestern University. (2016, 120 min, Blu-Ray Projection) [Ben Sachs]
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Preceded at 7pm by FACETS Film Trivia, hosted by critic, programmer and Cine-File contributor Raphael Jose Martinez.
Giacomo Abbruzzeseâs DISCO BOY (International)
Gene Siskel Film Center â See Venue website for showtimes
Franz Rogowski has exploded in the last year or so due to his sexually fluid turn in Ira Sachsâ PASSAGES. Unlike most actors, whose careers might ebb and flow, this is just one of several âexplosionsâ for the German actor, each one bigger than the last. Previously I may have thought that he had really gone big following Christian Petzoldâs TRANSIT in 2018, one of the best films of the past decade and one that undoubtedly helped to expose Rogowski to a larger audience. It would seem that for Rogowski thereâs no end in sight for how high his star will rise, and itâs evident that heâs at the point where his name is a draw for the smaller productions in which he stars, like Italian filmmaker Giacomo Abbruzzeseâs feature debut DISCO BOY. Rogowski stars as Aleksei, a Belarusian migrant who sneaks into Poland and from there travels to France, along with a companion who dies during the journey, looking to join the French Foreign Legion in hopes of acquiring citizenship. Heâs accepted and finds himself in Nigeria, where his unit is sent to rescue French visitors who were kidnapped by a rebel group called MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta), whose mission is to debilitate oil production in the region. He also forges an unlikely connection with a rebel fighter named Jomo (Morr Ndiaye), shown earlier in the film declaring that if heâd been able to do so, he would be a dancer in a club, a disco boy. As the two fight for their lives against one another, something inexplicable happens when Jomo is killed and Aleksei buries his body (which he hadnât been able to do for his friend); on returning to France, Aleksei begins experiencing unusual sensations that suggest Jomoâs spirit has merged with his, culminating in a dance that Jomo had shared with his sister in Nigeria, whoâs now performing at a club in Paris. Ultimately Abbruzzese seeks to liken the two men, their respective experiences vastly different yet connected by displacement and the inevitability of violence. Itâs an effective concept in theory that doesnât translate as well as it may have. Nevertheless Rogowski and Ndiayeâs understated physicality service the aphonic conveyance of the filmâs central themes; the dance aspect made me think of Claire Denisâ BEAU TRAVAIL in how the movement of the body expresses a revolt against the rigidity demandedâof oneâs body, oneâs emotions, and ultimately oneâs obedienceâby an unjust world. In an interview with Denis Lavant, the actor said that he viewed the dancing at the conclusion of BEAU TRAVAIL as âa projection of who [his character] might wish to be,â which applies to the protagonists of Abbruzzeseâs film also. Both Aleksei and Jomo aspire to a freedom not available to them but which they are at least be able to find through movement. (2023, 92 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
Tran Anh Hungâs THE TASTE OF THINGS (France/Belgium)
Gene Siskel Film Center and Various Other Cinemas â See Venue websites for showtimes
Tran Anh Hungâs seventh feature, THE TASTE OF THINGS, has a lot in common with his first, THE SCENT OF GREEN PAPAYA (1993), despite the fact that the newer film takes place in late 19th-century France and the earlier one took place in 1950s Vietnam. Both are hermetic movies (sometimes even comfortingly so), with most of the action restricted to the main characterâs home/workplace; this walled-in quality makes the drama feel insulated from any larger historical forces that exist beyond the frame. In GREEN PAPAYA, the Vietnam War provides an obvious structuring absence (the film ends just a few years before the United States started sending âmilitary advisorsâ to the country), while in TASTE the looming threat seems to be the entire range of political, social, and industrial upheavals that came with the dawn of the 20th century. In neither film, however, does the exterior threat eclipse the onscreen narrative, as Tranâs exquisite mise-en-scĂšne (which was already superb in GREEN PAPAYA and has gotten lovelier over time) lures you further and further inward. Though these are quiet films, theyâre rarely still; when there isnât movement within the frame, Tran creates it through subtle pans and tracking shots. His style is most rapturous when heâs depicting domestic rituals, particularly cooking, as he presents seemingly routine activities as whirlpools of little events. Most of the first act of TASTE OF THINGS concerns the creation of a gourmet meal, and Tran renders the process so enveloping that you may wish the entire movie was about the characters preparing food. Yet these early scenesâwhich, like those of GREEN PAPAYA, feature a tween girl as an audience identification figureâexhibit a progressively rich sense of character; through cooking rituals, stray lines of dialogue, and impeccable body language, the principal characters come into focus. Dodin (BenoĂźt Magimel) is a renowned restaurateur, and EugĂ©nie (Juliette Binoche) is his head chef of 20 years. Their relationship is warm and mutually supportive, but it is chiefly professional. Only when the film leaves the kitchen does Tran slowly reveal that Dodin has pined for EugĂ©nie for years and wishes for her to marry him⊠but to frame things that way runs the risk of making TASTE OF THINGS sound like a genteel love story when it definitely is not. Often Tran seems less interested in telling a story than in achieving a Zen-like state through recreating the atmosphere around a gourmandâs kitchen 140 years ago. However soothing it is to watch the film, thereâs something a little unnerving about how Tran deploys movie magic to resurrect a dead way of life; but then, the filmmaker acknowledges this, lets it shadow the movieâs sense of mystery throughout. The final passages are no less elusive than the opening ones, presenting the characters as they go through multiple changes of heart while severely downplaying (if not completely eliding) the internal developments that make these changes possible. Tranâs faith in images over explanations points to why heâs a great filmmaker, and TASTE OF THINGS finds him at the height of his powers. (2023, 135 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
Wim Wenders' PERFECT DAYS (Japan/Germany)
Music Box Theatre â See Venue website for showtimes
There is peace to be found in routine. Thatâs what Hirayamaâand perhaps director Wim Wendersâwould have you believe. Exquisitely brought to life by Koji Yakusho, Hirayama, an employee of the "Tokyo Toilet," guides us day by day through Wendersâ latest fiction endeavor, a leisurely diary of a film. The world of PERFECT DAYS follows its own internalized rhythms, lulling the audience into a network of patterns in navigating Hirayamaâs days, perfect or otherwise, that unwind before us. The sun will always rise in a purple-orange sky, a can of coffee will always pop out of the vending machine, the plants will always get their morning mists of water, the leaves will always be brushed to the side, the public toilets spread throughout Tokyo will always receive Hirayamaâs careful and rigorous cleaning, and the day will always end with dreams. Hirayamaâs dreamsâat least as Wenders shares them with usâare always in black-and-white, layered fragments of the day, coated in leaves and shadows, an abstracted reset of the filmâs internal clock. Days blend into each other in a way that feels intricate yet inevitable, with the most glaring piece of conflict arising more than halfway through the runtime, Hirayamaâs niece having run away from a life of affluence and loneliness. She prefers her uncle's life, which she sees as simple and noble. But unbeknown to most around him, Hirayamaâs life is an iceberg, the solid routine of the day hiding depths of passion and loneliness underneath. There is constant reflection on his past, especially upon the mass of cassette tapes he has collected over the years and refuses to part with, there is the yearning towards the future with his voracious consumption of literature. But where does that leave the Hirayama of the present? In one moment of conversation (one of the few times Hirayama feigns to utter dialogue in the entire film), he offers up that "the world is made up of many worlds. Some are connected, some are not." In a moment of potent vulnerability near the filmâs end, Yakusho offers up a rare moment of the bottom of the iceberg peeking out, the tough exterior of Hirayama breaking apart ever so briefly, as the sun rises on yet another day. Just like every other day, and still brand new. (2023, 123 mins, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]
2024 Oscar Nominated Live Action Shorts
Music Box Theatre and Gene Siskel Film Center â See Venue websites for showtimes
In this yearâs theatrical package of Academy Award-nominated shorts, itâs perhaps disappointing (or unsurprising, depending on your vantage point) that the most exciting film in the bunch is the one helmed by an already established director. That would be Wes Andersonâs stunning cinematic adaptation of Roald Dahlâs THE WONDERFUL STORY OF HENRY SUGAR (37 min), a triumph of visual splendor, pathos, and boundary-pushing experimentation. Anderson retells the cheeky tale of a selfish gambling addict who attains transcendental powers that allow him to cheat at poker before steering his life towards altruism and charity, bringing it all to life through his now-signature style of theatrically realized artifice and storybook-like production design and presentation. Dahlâs text is read almost entirely verbatim to the camera, as if the actors (a star-studded bunch including Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel, Richard Ayoade, and Sir Ben Kingsley) were in the room with us, telling us this story first-hand. Itâs perhaps the most presentational work in Andersonâs filmography, but no less emotionally rich, plumbing the depths of the lives of men striving to achieve greatness, yet wondering what their true legacies will be once theyâre gone. Consider Andersonâs short (no doubt more wondrous on the big screen than trapped within the confines of Netflix) a forty-ish-minute confection waiting for you at the end of this carousel of miniature movies, most of them more concerned with thematic messaging than with creating fully realized cinematic realms. There are works on either side of the emotional spectrum exploring grief; with THE AFTER (18 min), a father (David Oyelowo) grapples with how to keep living in the aftermath of losing his wife and daughter in a vicious act of violence. For those seeking a film carrying similar themes but perhaps with a bit more levity, KNIGHT OF FORTUNE (25 min) is a welcome jolt of dark comedy, finding a man mourning the death of his wife somehow entangled with a fellow widower traveling the labyrinth of a local morgue. There are also films centering political urgency like RED, WHITE AND BLUE (23 min), where a mother (Brittany Snow) travels with her young daughter across state lines to an abortion center, the horrors of contemporary American life roaring to the forefront in a work that often sacrifices character and atmosphere for more didactic goals. The struggles of youth spring to life in INVINCIBLE (30 min), one of the more artful shorts on display, inspired by a true story of a young boyâs too-short life within the walls of a juvenile detention center, yearning to be heard in a world of adults refusing to listen. Director Vincent RenĂ©-Lortieâs poetic imagery (an early match cut involving a character diving into water practically made my jaw drop) leaves a charming and memorable impression in a short practically begging to be expanded to feature length; it's one of the only shorts on display that trusts the audience to wrestle with artful visual language. In the realm of short-form filmmaking, these five films proveâin one way or anotherâthat less is certainly more. [Ben Kaye]
2024 Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts
Music Box Theatre and Gene Siskel Film Center â See Venue websites for showtimes
More than the other shorts categories, the Academy-Award nominated animated shorts are often where you find the greatest variety of storytelling, in content and especially in form. Make no mistake; each work in this quintet of nominees is each its own singular world, waiting to be explored intensely and allowing their visual vocabularies to explore themes vast and unknowable, intimate and familiar. Yet the unintended connective tissue between films is always intriguing to seek out. War is certainly on the mind of a lot of artists, no more evident than in Dave Mullinsâ WAR IS OVER! INSPIRED BY THE MUSIC OF JOHN AND YOKO (11 min), taking the Lennon/Ono song and crafting a narrative around two enemy combatants in the throes of war who are unknowingly playing chess against each other with the aid of a carrier pigeon. The short is perhaps the most âtraditionallyâ animated of the bunchâin contemporary terms, at leastâwith CGI realism shaping the aesthetic, albeit with slight squiggle lines around characters to connote the illusion of pencil lines, all the better to convey its simple but meaningful âWar is Badâ message. A more impressionistic response to the atrocities of war comes in LETTER TO A PIG (17 min), Tal Kantorâs exploration of grief, revenge, and memory told through the eyes of a Holocaust survivor sharing the story of how a pig saved him from being captured by Nazis. Kantorâs short exists in ink strokes, with characters' faces and arms extending from negative space, their empathy towards others the only thing to aid them in extending further and further as they begin to question how their concept of revenge might strip them of their own humanity. A young girl questions the systems around her in OUR UNIFORM (7 min), which brilliantly crafts a conceit around the characters and narrative taking place on and around various items of clothing. The topography of shirts and dresses and hijabs provides the architecture of scenes, the shape of characters and motion, the emotional barriers for a young girl who wants nothing more than the freedom to express herself and her personality in the ways she sees fit. The intimate PACHYDERME (11 min), another slice-of-life story of a young girl, finds the protagonist staying with her grandparents and learning to face her fears during her visit, from the utterly mundane (noises that go bump in the night) to the deathly existential (the loss of a loved one). Itâs a slight short, filled with lush storybook-esque two-dimensional images that take on an uncanny nature when set in motion, but it finds beauty in small, still moments. For a more humorous and lush take on the inevitability of death, look no further than the incisive NINETY-FIVE SENSE (13 min) a wonderfully adventurous short directed by Jared Hess and Jerusha Hess of NAPOLEON DYNAMITE (2004) fame. Here, an elderly man (voiced by Tim Blake Nelson) on death row examines each of his five senses, and how they guided the choices he made through life. Each sense is animated by a different team, providing singular textures for each segment; sight morphs from shape to shape, drooping down absorbing new environments. Hearing feels like a newspaper comic come to life, flat colorful shapes enveloping the frame as the camera zooms further inwards, examining how his senses let him down at a crossroad in life where he needed them the most. Of the five Oscar-nominated entries on display, itâs perhaps the one that finds the best marriage between story and expression, displaying what it is about the animated arts that can be so breathtaking when stretching a story past the confines of reality. Also included in this presentation are two short films that were âhighly recommendedâ from the Oscars shortlist: WILD SUMMONS (14 min), which examines the life of salmon through a humanizing twist, and the short but charming IâM HIP (4 min), directed and animated by veteran Disney animation director John Musker. Itâs a perfect cap to this eclectic collection of animated films, filling the screen with noise and color and vibrancy, a testament to the power of what animation can do with such limited time. [Ben Kaye]
Jean-Pierre Jeunet's AMĂLIE (France)
Alamo Drafthouse (3519 N. Clark St., Suite C301) â See Venue website for showtimes
I'm not quite sure why there's a theatrical re-release of AMĂLIE this year for Valentine's Day, but I'm thrilled nonetheless. This joyous romp of magical realism really should be screened more often as a date night reparatory programmer because if you can't tap into its wellspring of happiness then, I'm afraid to say, you have no heart and are dead inside and most definitely deserve to be alone. Originally released in Europe in 2001, and Stateside in early 2002, this film was a massive sleeper hit. I could present to you the fact that it's still the biggest French-language/French-produced box office success in the history of the US box office, but to contextualize that, a quick anecdote. I was actually working at the theatre in Chicago that premiered this. And that weekend gave me the scariest moment I've ever had at a job: I had to hand deliver the weekend box office take on foot to the local bankâa half-mile walk with a bag filled with about $20,000 cash. The vast majority being AMĂLIE money. So, yeah, it was massive. Its five Oscar nominations didn't hurt either. With all the magical CGI, Audrey Tatou's instantly iconic (and replicated) hairstyle, its unrelenting demand for a universe of beauty, wonder, love, and whimsy, it's easy to judge the film as being too sentimental and, well, cheesy. But I'll also say that 20 years on it seems low-hanging fruit to accuse the film of being saccharine or too cute by half. Oh, it's twee as hell, no doubt about that. But contextually, this film pre-dated the oversaturation of that aestheticâarguably helping codify it alongside the other twee barnstormer of 2001, THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS. But what people tend to forget is that this film was specifically made to be an escapist balm. AMĂLIE is a strange film in that it's a period piece set only four years in the pastâspecifically, it's set on the date of the death of Princess Diana. The film is pointedly born of tragedy. When the titular character learns of Lady Di's death she drops a perfume cap in shock, only for it to reveal a loose bathroom tile covering the hidden toys of a boy's youth. This set's off AmĂ©lie's mission to anonymously return the toys to their now-adult owner and spread mysterious joy around the city as both anonymous Cyrano matchmaker and champion of the downtrodden worker, as well as allowing herself to finally find love. Not unlike some of Tarantino's recent films, AMĂLIE seems to have been made specifically to alleviate, and comment on, a collective sociocultural tragedy that people had to endure. When it was being made, and originally released in Europe, AMĂLIE was to be a salve to the tragic loss of The People's Princess. It was a way to reframe this tragedy and give it a much needed, if admittedly fictional, additional positivity. Little did the filmmakers know that by the time this movie landed in America in February of 2002 that it was exactly what the US needed. In the immediate shadow of the 9/11 WTC attacks people in the US were still afraid that it might be inappropriate to laugh, yet alone love. It was an entire culture and country utterly terrified, heartbroken and wondering if things would ever be the same again (they weren't) and if they could ever feel happiness again (they eventually did)âand to a certain extent AMĂLIE allowed for that. The reassurance of hope I saw on the faces of people leaving the theater in 2002 is impossible to put into words. So if a film could help mend the broken soul of America post-9/11 just a tiny bit, then its joy can definitely shoulder a world whose social fabric seems to be fraying evermore each passing dayâif only for 2 hours. Still bewitchingly lovely, AMĂLIE holds up much better than some people would like you to think; her radiant charms will have you leaving the theater in pure, wholesome delight. (2001, 122 min, DCP Digital) [Raphael Jose Martinez]
Daisy von Scherler Mayer's PARTY GIRL (US)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Friday, 9:30pm
PARTY GIRL is the mid-'90s incarnate. The first person on screen is legendary New York City drag queen, Lady Bunny, seen as the camera wobbles up the stairs in a point of view shot to the entrance of a rave; itâs an immediate demonstration of the sincere homage to the downtown queer club scene in NYC in the 90s. Daisy von Scherler Mayerâs independent classic is also known for being the first ever film to make its premiere on the internet. Its costume design, too, is a bold exemplification of '90s aesthetic, all layered outfits of tights and jackets, with clashing colors and metallics. These fashions, never settling between grounded and whimsical, work so well because of Parker Poseyâs iconic turn as carefree Mary, who spends her time clubbing and throwing house parties. When sheâs thrown in jail for helping to organize an underground rave, Mary reaches out to her godmother, Judy (Sasha von Scherler), a librarian. Judy gets Mary a job as a clerk in exchange for posting her bail. At first, Mary is annoyed by the work, but slowly starts to dedicate herself to the Dewey Decimal System. The eventual clash of her two worlds, however, threatens her place in both and Mary needs to decide which path to take. Filled with engaging side characters, von Scherler Mayer spends enough time with each to build out a lived-in and complex world surrounding Mary and her journey. PARTY GIRL, with humor and sincerity, ingeniously celebrates career club goers and librarians alike. Screening as part of the Computer Vision: Experiments in Digital Cinema series. (1995, 94 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]
Jonathan Demme's STOP MAKING SENSE (US/Documentary)
Music Box Theatre â Saturday, Midnight
In nearly every shot, STOP MAKING SENSE makes the case that Jonathan Demme was the greatest director of musical performance in American cinema. It isn't difficult to convey the joy of making music, but Demme's attention to the interplay between musicians (and, in some inspired moments, between the musicians and their crew) conveys the imagination, hard work, and camaraderie behind any good song. And, needless to say, the songs here are very, very good. By this point (the performances are culled from three concerts from 1983), Talking Heads were the headiest American band to achieve their degree of success, and they made the most of it, doubling their line-up to include back-up singers and a few instrumentalists from the golden years of George Clinton's Funkadelic. It's never openly acknowledged that the five new members are Black and the Heads are white; the sheer creativity of the music, which fuses everything from soul to traditional African rhythms to then-advanced electronic effects, is fully utopian in its spirit. (1984, 88 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
Wim Wenders' ANSELM (Germany/Documentary)
Music Box Theatre â Sunday, 11:15am
Of the auteurs who have ventured into the realm of 3D filmmaking, Wim Wenders is surely among the most astute in utilizing the formatâs unique aesthetic properties. This should perhaps come as no surprise considering the august German directorâs proven, decades-long mastery of fluid camerawork and dynamic mise-en-scĂšne. Like PINA (2011), Wendersâs first 3D film and another documentary about a German artist, ANSELM features immersive images that donât so much showcase the art as produce a specifically cinematic experience of and around it. The subject is Anselm Kiefer, a painter, sculptor, and photographer best known for creating monumental structures and mixed-media paintings incorporating such materials as straw and lead. Born toward the end of World War II and raised in the bombed-out city of Donaueschingen, Kiefer often grapples in his work with the legacy of Nazism and national memory as he confronts viewers with devastated landscapes, fascist visual motifs, Judeo-Christian symbols, and various signifiers of decay. Wenders and cinematographer Franz Lustig use 3D to emphasize the sheer scale of Kieferâs work, as in an ingenious establishing shot in which the magnitude of one of his hangar-sized studios suddenly becomes clear when Kiefer enters the bottom of the frame the size of an ant. At other times, Wenders takes advantage of 3Dâs dioramic rendering of depth by layering the screen with multiple planes, whether through cross-dissolves, superimpositions, or foreground/background juxtapositions. The material diversity and tactility he evokesâespecially in his prismatic use of water, glass, smoke, and light beams from projectorsâforms a continuity with the work of Kiefer. As weâre taken through the artistâs increasingly elephantine studios and exhibition spaces, culminating with a tour of his 200-acre compound in Barjac, France, the line between art, the environment, and our lived spaces dissolves; so too does the one between Kieferâs and Wendersâ work. ANSELM may be skimpy to a fault on biographical detail, but itâs an entrancing sensory experience born from the cinematic alchemy of these two singular artists. (2023, 93 min, 3D DCP Digital) [Jonathan Leithold-Patt]
Denzel Washingtonâs FENCES (US)
Alamo Drafthouse (3519 N. Clark St., Suite C301) â Saturday, 2:30pm
Among American playwrights, August Wilson is unquestionably the greatest chronicler of the Black experience our country has yet produced. Between 1973 and 2005, Wilson wrote 18 plays, most famously the Pittsburgh (Century) Cycle, an ambitious series of ten playsâone for each decade of the 20th century. All but one is set in Pittsburghâs Hill District, where Wilson grew up, and all deal with aspects of Black life as he saw it, imagined it, and lived it. Despite the fact that the cycle in its entirety has been performed by several companies, (the first being Chicagoâs Goodman Theatre over a 21-year period), getting a chance to see even part of this monumental work of power and poetry on the boards is rare. Thus, when Denzel Washington announced plans to bring every play in the cycle to the silver screen to make these great works widely accessible, all I could say was âAmen.â First out of the blocks was Wilsonâs 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Fences, which Wilson adapted for the screen himself. Washington, who gave a Tony Award-winning performance in the playâs 2010 Broadway revival, cast most of the principals from that production for the filmâfellow Tony Award winner Viola Davis, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Russell Hornsby, and Mykelti Williamson. FENCES opens on the streets of Pittsburgh as Troy (Washington) and his friend and workmate Bono (Henderson) dump garbage into the back of the municipal garbage truck on which they labor. Troy complains that itâs unfair that only white men get to drive the trucks, a situation he intends to change with the help of his union rep. The pair end the day at Troyâs home, where Rose (Davis), Troyâs wife, collects his weekâs pay and readies dinner. The men hang out in the backyard to drink their customary pint of gin while Troy regales a quiet and appreciative Bono with tall tales of his youth. Lyons (Hornsby), Troyâs grown son from a previous relationship, shows up to borrow money, prompting Troy to complain that he only comes around on payday. Rose and Troyâs son Cory (Jovan Adepo), a high school football player who is being recruited for a collegiate team, is either at practice or working his part-time job at the A&P, his industry a contrast to Lyonsâ idleness as a would-be musician, at least in Troyâs eyes. The family dynamic is both tense and loving, particularly between Rose and Troy, but even their obvious affection will not inoculate them from the curdling feelings inside Troy because FENCES is all about Troyâhis failed promise as a baseball player, his devotion to providing for his family despite the unsavory meaninglessness of his work, and most of all, his sense of entitlement because of how he feels life has cheated him. Washingtonâs Troy sucks the air out of every room with his boasting, anger, and fearsome authority. Yet heâs also a great storyteller and genial company when he is catered to by the likes of his wife and Bono, a salt-of-the-earth companion who became his loyal sidekick and confidant during the years when they were incarcerated. Davis brings strong emotion to Rose, nakedly displaying her love for Troy and the stabbing hurt he inflicts on her when his entirely expected infidelity is revealed. Hornsby, a great actor, unfortunately doesnât have much to do, but Adepo surprises in his strength, as Cory stands up to Troy in a great burst of his own authority. Despite its theatrical origins, FENCES feels expansive not only in the very cinematic shooting of cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen, but also in the generous and complex performances of the top-flight cast. In the final analysis, the character of Troy is both a very relatable human being and a figure out of folklore, swinging at the baseball he hung from a tree like a latter-day Casey and falling down dead with a grin on his face, experiencing, perhaps, a final moment of remembered glory before striking out for good. If FENCES sounds like Arthur Millerâs Death of a Salesman, another canonical work of the American stage, well, the resemblance is a reminder that family, an urgent concern of playwrights from Aeschylus and Euripides to OâNeill and Wilson, is the vital marker of what it means to be human. (2016, 139 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
David Lynch's TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME (US)
Alamo Drafthouse (3519 N. Clark St., Suite C301) â Friday, 10pm
I once knew a survivor of childhood sexual abuse who told me that David Lynch's TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME is the only film that ever really got it right. The way incest deranges you, the unprocessable betrayal, the PTSD. Describing her abuse, she said she'd had her own personal Freddie Krueger, and Lynch portrays Laura Palmer's final days as a horror movieâscarier than most, and truer. Critics missed the thrust of this baffler, calling it the worst thing Lynch ever did, if not one of the worst films ever made. Today, it looks like a flawed masterpiece, exhausting and exhilarating. It's a singular portrayal of "garmonbozia" (pain and sorrow), the cream corn of evilâwith all the Lynchian disjunctures that sentence implies. It's abrasive at every level, from Lynch's screaming, whooping sound design to the punishing immersion into Laura's hell. But its extremism is the source of its hypnotic power, and Lynch's corybantic surrealism fits the theme. Sheryl Lee is astonishing as doomed, anguished Laura; Ray Wise is terrifying (and, in deranging moments, loving) as her molester father. Then there's that first 35 minutes, which play like a savage parody of the TV show, with Chris Isaak and Keifer Sutherland investigating a murder in Deer Meadow, a negative image of our favorite Pacific Northwest town. Here, the coffee's two days old, the diner is seedy, the small-town cops are jerks, and the dead woman is not exactly the homecoming queen. (One suspects that the cherry pie would be damn poor.) The "Lil the Dancer" scene is a delightful thumbnail illustration of semiotics, and Harry Dean Stanton is on hand as Carl, manager of the Fat Trout trailer park. Angelo Badalamenti's score is creamy and dreamy, mournful and menacing. Actually, I suspect that if you're not already well-versed in the lore of Bob, Mike, the One Armed Man, The Arm a.k.a. The Man From Another Place, Mrs. Tremond and her grandson, and the Owl Cave ring, then you might have stumbled upon this site by accident. I'd guess our readers share my excitement that the stars, and the passage of 25 years, have aligned so that we are actually poised to reenter the Black Lodge. If you haven't boned up on this prequel, then hie to this revival. (Or even if you have: you'll see something new every time.) (1992, 135 min, DCP Digital) [Scott Pfeiffer]
Hayao Miyazakiâs THE BOY AND THE HERON (Japan/Animation)
Gene Siskel Film Center â Saturday, 8:30pm
The anticipation of seeing a new film directed by Hayao Miyazaki is two-fold: there is a set expectation of whimsy, magic, and complex thematic exploration inherent in his work, but this is tied to the mystery of not knowing how specifically these traits will play themselves out. So it is with his (seemingly) final film, THE BOY AND THE HERON, a film rooted in familiar themes that Miyazaki has been dwelling on for decades of artistry. As with many of his works, Miyazaki provides another story of a youthful protagonist; here, the teenage Mahitoâburied within heavy emotional armor to navigate the grief of losing his mother in a hospital fire the year beforeâfinds himself navigating an unknown mystical world that sits somewhere between the afterlife and his own subconscious, after he's lured there by a deliriously antagonistic gray heron. The fantastical elements of Miyazaki immediately float to the surface, from new imaginative creatures like the Warawaraâadorable floating balls that ascend to the heavens to be born as humansâto the bizarre amass of pelicans and parakeets that threaten to swallow up any frame they inhabit. Mahitoâs quest to find closure for his motherâs death results in a journey, ever joyous and sumptuous to watch, that ponders the nature of a world built upon loss, destruction, and chaos. Without spoiling too much, the film leaves us on something of an abrupt note, left to ponder the work of an undisputed master of cinema who was unafraid to bare his mortality before us, letting us sit in the knowledge that to live with the chaos of grief is still a beautiful life in and of itself; to know that there is no escaping pain, and there is something beautiful to carry on towards. Maybe a book your mother left behind for you, maybe a new, unknown journey waiting on the other side of a doorway. (2023, 124 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]
Christopher Nolan's OPPENHEIMER (US)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Thursday, 6:30pm
Christopher Nolanâs mid-career masterpiece OPPENHEIMER embodies not just a welcome return to form but new possibilities for the filmmaker. After an unceremonious divorce from Warner Bros., Nolan's first picture with Universal Studios leapfrogs through various settings in 20th-century history as he traces the life and legacy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of Los Alamos Laboratory and chief scientist of the Manhattan Project. Frequent Nolan collaborators Cillian Murphy, Kenneth Branagh, and Gary Oldman (in a surprise appearance) return with an entourage of A-list talent too long to list (but standouts include Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Matt Damon, and Robert Downey, Jr.). Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, fresh off Jordan Peeleâs NOPE (2022), returns for his fourth Nolan collaboration and finds himself at home among grand vistas of the American Southwest, the idyllic campuses of Princeton and Berkeley, and claustrophobic Washington Senate hearings. Ludwig Göransson recorded the filmâs score in a mere and frankly unbelievable five days. If thereâs one reason to see OPPENHEIMER in 70mm, the score is reason enough. Nolan, for his part, turns in a career-best film that leans heavily on the style that has made him such a prominent contemporary filmmaker. To say heâs has always been obsessed with time and nonlinear narrative would be to understate the matter; even in OPPENHEIMER, based on Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwinâs exhaustive biography, Nolan manages to shed the trappings of linear narrative in favor of an achronological structure that maintains tension throughout the filmâs three-hour runtime. And tense it is. We all know what happens when the Trinity test goes off, but itâs this scene thatâs perhaps the filmâs most nerve-racking. Nolan follows Oppenheimer from young adulthood to his twilight years, highlighting some of the more well-known events of his life as well as events that have gone under the radar in pop culture. You know the âdestroyer of worldsâ line had to be in the film, but youâll be hard-pressed to guess where it makes its first appearance, and you might even have a chuckle. As miasmic as the film is, itâs lit up with moments of levity, sometimes unexpected, which often come as a welcome respiteâthe film rarely leaves the chance to breathe or catch up until the credits roll. Nolan brings justice to the story of âthe most important man who ever lived,â in his own words. The only question now is, where does he go from here? Presented in collaboration with the Society of Physics Students. (2023, 180 min, DCP Digital) [George Iskander]
Jonathan Glazerâs THE ZONE OF INTEREST (UK/US/Poland)
Various Cinemas â See Venue websites for showtimes
The term âthe zone of interest,â the designation the Nazis applied to the Auschwitz extermination camp and adjacent areas, might as well apply to the robust activity surrounding this ultimate human evil by artists and the larger cultural community. The late British writer Martin Amis used the term for his 2014 novel, and now we have director/screenwriter Jonathan Glazerâs very loose adaptation of Amisâ book as a major motion picture. Whereas Amis focused on personal relationships between pseudonymous and fictional versions of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss, his wife Hedwig, and an SS officer, Glazer chose an observational approach to the historical Höss family, imagining what living in a villa directly abutting Auschwitz might have been like for them and those who worked for them. Filmed at Auschwitz primarily in an accurate reconstruction of the villa the Höss family occupied, Glazer and cinematographer Ćukasz Ć»al eschewed conventional shooting techniques. They instead operated static, hidden cameras that could be manipulated remotely, and used natural light whenever possible. They also had no interest in giving us the usual horror show. Instead, Glazer leaned on Johnnie Burnâs sound design of gunfire, screams, and dogs, and only what camp structures could be seen from the Höss villa, to evoke the Holocaust. For example, the Höss family is hosting a childrenâs party in the vast garden of which Hedwig is so proud. As the children play, a cloud of steam moves in a line across the top of the camp wallâyet another train transporting victims to the slaughter. What Glazer concentrated on what he thought mattered to Rudolf (Christian Friedel) and Hedwig (Sandra HĂŒller)âcareer success and the good lifeâand if they had to live near and work in a human abattoir, well, that was the price of admission. Höss was reportedly a cold-blooded, hands-on killer early in his career, but Christian Friedel didnât play this side of his character. Here, Rudolf seems like a loving father who reads to his daughters at night, is a good companion to his wife, and is well regarded by his fellow SS officers. His deeper depravity comes though chillingly during a late-night phone call with Hedwig. He eagerly shares his excitement that the deportation of up to 700,000 Hungarian Jews for extermination and slave selection will bear the name Operation Höss. Sandra HĂŒller as Hedwig projects a prosaic personality motivated by greed and social position. She seems like a Mother Courage pushing heedlessly through every circumstance to get what she wants, and is convinced that their living arrangement is doing nothing to harm her âstrong, healthy, happyâ children, despite the filmâs ample evidence to the contrary. Little is known about the real Hedwig Höss, so this depiction seems like another example of demonizing mothers for fun and profit and the only questionable choice in an almost flawless movie. The remarkable score by Mica Levi is a haunting mĂ©lange of electronic and choral music. Glazer uses her score sparingly, however, in attempts to foreground the murdered at moments when we may be lulled by the mundane screen action. (I highly recommend you watch through the credits to listen to her audaciously beautiful score in its fullness.) In the end, a final, puzzling scene takes place largely in the present. Iâll leave its meaning to your own interpretation, but the familiar bourgeois lives Glazer has shown offers us a chance to reflect on our own unknowing callousness in the face of the suffering others endure for our convenience. (2023, 105 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
đïž ALSO SCREENING
â« Block Cinema (at Northwestern University)
Kamal Aljafariâs 2020 archival documentary AN UNUSUAL SUMMER (80 min, Digital Projection) screens Wednesday at 7pm. Screening as part of the Looking Carefully: New Observational Documentary series, presented as an âopen classroomâ screening for the Art of the Real: A History of Documentary class taught by Michael Metzger, Block Museum Curator of Cinema and Media Arts. More info here.
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 at the Cicero Green Line station (4800 W. Lake St.). The installation, called we love, is a filmic exhibition of home movies and amateur films selected from collections housed and preserved at CFA. The video will be projected onto a wall in the mezzanine area of the station and will run day and night through mid-March. More info here.
â« Chicago Public Library
View all screenings taking place at Chicago Public Library branches here.
â« Doc Films (at the University of Chicago)
Nicolas Winding Refnâs 2013 film ONLY GOD FORGIVES (90 min, DCP Digital) screens Friday, 7pm, as part of the Mommy Issues: Freudian Relationships in Film series.
IshirĆ Hondaâs 1969 film ALL MONSTERS ATTACK (70 min, DCP Digital) screens Saturday, 1pm, as part of the Dinosaurs Plus! on Film series.
Qiu Jiongjiongâs 2021 film A NEW OLD PLAY (179 min, DCP Digital) screens Saturday at 4pm. Followed by post-screening Q&A with director Qiu Jiongjiong. Co-sponsored by the University of Chicago Center for East Asian Studies, the Franke Institute for the Humanities, Film Studies Center, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, and Department of Cinema and Media Studies.
Krzysztof KieĆlowskiâs 1991 film THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE (98 min, DCP Digital) screens Saturday, 4pm, as part of the Mirroring series.
Darren Lynn Bousmanâs 2008 film REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA (98 min, 35mm) screens Sunday, 7pm, as part of the Revising the Musical Series.
ZĂłzimo Bulbulâs 1973 avant-garde short film SOUL IN THE EYE (11 min, Digital Projection) and LĂĄzaro Ramosâ 2020 film EXECUTIVE ORDER (102 min, Digital Projection) screen Tuesday, 7pm, as part of the Antropofagia: Reinventing Class and Race in Brazilian Cinema series.
Werner Herzogâs 1999 documentary MY BEST FIEND (99 min, DCP Digital) screens Wednesday, 7pm, as part of Conquistador of the Useless: The Films of Werner Herzog. More info on all screenings and events here.
â« FACETS Cinema
Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Pingâs 2023 film FEMME (99 min, Digital Projection) screens Wednesday at 7pm. Presented by Open Space Arts/Pride Film Fest.
The Midwest Gore Fest presents a Blacula Double Feature with William Crainâs 1972 film BLACULA and Bob Kelljanâs 1973 film SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM on Saturday at 6pm. With a vendor area where you can purchase spooky merch.
Kristoffer Borgliâs 2023 film DREAM SCENARIO (100 min, DCP Digital) screens Thursday, 7pm, as part of the If We Picked the Oscars series. More info on all screenings here.
â« Gene Siskel Film Center
Jean-Christophe Roger and Julien Chhengâs 2022 animated film ERNEST AND CELESTINE A TRIP TO GIBBERITIA (80 min, DCP Digital) screens Saturday and Sunday at 11am. Screening as part of the Kid Flix series and preceded by a short media-literacy introduction by Film Center staff.
The 2024 Oscar Nominated Documentary Shorts program continues its run.
The 2024 National Theatre Live production of Chekhovâs Uncle Vanya (110 min, DCP Digital), directed by Simon Stephens and starring Andrew Scott, screens Saturday and Sunday at 2pm. The Saturday showtime is sold out, and the Sunday tickets are running low.
Dan Horganâs 2023 documentary BEYOND THEIR YEARS (48 min, Digital Projection) screens Monday as part of the Midwest Film Festival. A Community Spotlight discussion will take place at 7:30pm, followed by the film screening, a Q&A with Horgan, and capped with an afterparty at Emerald Loop Bar & Grill.
An Evening with Baloji, which includes four short films by the Belgian-Congolese artist and musician, takes place Thursday, 6pm, as part of the Conversations at the Edge series. More info on all screenings and events here.
â« Inga Books (1740 W. 18th St.)
The No Shelter project, a video series exposing new forms of migrant detention being concocted by collaborations between the state and the non-profit industrial complex, with works made by a semi-anonymous collective of filmmakers, activists, survivors, and whistleblowers here in Chicago, screens Sunday at 6pm. Followed by a post-screening discussion with filmmakers and activists from several organizations and autonomous projects. More info here.
â« Music Box Theatre
DK and Hugh Welchmanâs 2024 Polish film THE PEASANTS (114 min, DCP Digital) continues this week.
The 2024 Oscar Nominated Documentary Shorts screen Saturday at 11am and Sunday at 1:30pm.
Denis Villeneuveâs 2024 sci-fi fantasy DUNE: PART TWO (166 min, 70mm) begins its run on Thursday. More info on all screenings here.
â« The Reel Film Club
Sergio Dowâs 2023 film THE MAN FROM ROME (120 min, Digital Projection) screens Tuesday, 7pm, at the Instituto Cervantes Chicago (31 W. Ohio St.). A reception with appetizers and wine starts at 6pm; the screening begins at 7pm, followed by a post-screening discussion with Dow. More info here.
â« Sweet Void Cinema (3036 W. Chicago Ave.)
Find more information on the Humboldt Park microcinema, including its larger screening and workshop schedule, here.
đïž ONLINE SCREENINGS/EVENTS
â« VDB TV
Beyond the Dust: Colonial Legacy in the Desert, programmed by MartĂ Madaula Esquirol, 2023 - 2024 Graduate Curatorial Fellow at the Video Data Bank, and School of the Art Institute of Chicago MFA candidate in Film, Video, New Media, and Animation, screens for free on VDB TV. Includes short works by More info here.
CINE-LIST: February 23 - February 29, 2024
MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs
CONTRIBUTORS // Kyle Cubr, Nic Denelle, Megan Fariello, Marilyn Ferdinand, George Iskander, Ben Kaye, Jonathan Leithold-Patt, Raphael Jose Martinez, Scott Pfeiffer, Michael W. Phillips Jr., Michael Glover Smith