đ˝ď¸ Crucial Viewing
Pedro Costa in Chicago
See Venues and showtimes below
Pedro Costa's WHERE DOES YOUR HIDDEN SMILE LIE? (France/Documentary) and Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huilet's SICILIA! (Italy/France)
Block Cinema (at Northwestern University) â Friday, 6pm [Free Admission]
Halfway through Pedro Costaâs capturing of the working relationship between legendary husband and wife filmmakers Jean-Marie Straub and Danielle Huillet, as they edit their film SICILIA!, we see an editing console running footage of a fish cooking on a hearth, its smoke spiraling backwards into the fish itself. Not only can one revel in the formal simplicity of the image, which seems straight out of F.W. Murnau, but this small moment remains central to the film before us, as well as the filmmakersâ work, through the very essence of film construction, reversing and forwarding the images theyâve made, giving formal life to the matter of their ideas. It also serves to remind us that beneath the philosophical musing and pacing, lies a completely human rendering of two individuals, not that much different from any long-time married couple. What Costa captures in his overwhelmingly beautiful and meditative documentary, is both Straub and Huillet hard at work, or hardly working, as Huillet keeps her husband on track, who canât help telling stories about Bunuel, Ray, Chaplin, and Eisenstein, as he paces in and out the door of their editing room, which might as well be the portal to another world. There is a bottomless, intricate quality to the film that grounds us in the day-to-day gestures and comments of two people, locked into either an artistic or domestic commitment. Even the debate between the small seconds of trimming a clip somehow feels magnificent and epic, even though they are simply determining where to make a cut in their film. Costa seems very intent on portraying the two as they are, not as the âmaterialisticâ and âdenseâ figures theyâve been described as in essays since the 1960âs, but as the most profound and earthbound artists still alive in a time seemingly far-removed from their heyday. For instance, Straub could be telling a story about a shirt he found once in a pile of rubbish, possibly leading the viewer towards an oblique philosophical rumination on the conception of finding treasure in junk, until Huillet corrects him, informing him, and us, that she in fact bought the shirt for him while they were in Rome location-scouting. What seems like the undercutting of one of Straubâs infamous remarks about life and cinema, becomes an even deeper revelation careening through the discourse between these artists, giving way to a romantic comedy of sorts, but also an unveiling of the humor and romance within their artistic process, leading toward the heart of all three filmmakersâ particular brands of cinema: a cinema of complexity, punctuated and given life by the simplicity of human natureâs inherent playfulnessâthe foundation of all great art. The final shot of Straub, after Huillet has left the frame to walk up to a projection booth, while he sits alone outside the screening of their very first film, THE CHRONICLE OF ANNA MAGDALENA BACH, is one of those foreboding shots at the dusk of a long career (like the final shot in John Fordâs 7 WOMEN) that remains incredibly haunting and touching, transcending what weâve become accustomed to, as we and the filmmakers emerge from the dark editing room, eyes still mesmerized by the glow of a soft screen, back into the plain air. Followed by a screening of SICILIA! (1999, 66 min, 35mm). Costa in person for a post-screening conversation with the audience. (2001, 104 min, DCP Digital) [John Dickson]
---
Pedro Costa's HORSE MONEY (Portugal)
Music Box Theatre â Saturday, 2pm
Pedro Costa reaffirms his position as one of contemporary cinema's finest filmmakers with his first fiction feature in eight years, a hypnotic masterpiece that examines the African immigrant experience in the director's native Portugal. HORSE MONEY is a sort-of sequel to COLOSSAL YOUTH (2006) in that Costa again takes the elderly Cape Verdean immigrant known only as Ventura as his subject, although here Costa uses the retired construction worker's haunted visage to more explicitly examine the scars left by his country's twin bloody legacies of fascism and colonialism. Ventura, lit and framed to alternately resemble Darby Jones in I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE (1943) and Woody Strode in SERGEAN RUTLEDGE (1960), spends much of the film wandering the halls of a dark, prison-like hospital while ruminating on a lifetime of painful memories. Costa boldly melds past and present by having the reason for Ventura's stay explained as both the "nervous disease" that causes his hands to shake uncontrollably and the knife fight with a fellow immigrant that required 93 stitches from 40 years earlier. Although HORSE MONEY is passionately concerned with social issues, there is a thankful absence of editorializing here: one powerful sequence involves a Cape Verdean woman reading aloud birth and death certificates that belong to herself and her family, letting the objective facts of marginalized lives speak for themselves, and another features a montage of static shots of African immigrants simply staring into Costa's camera from inside their cramped Lisbon homes while the rousing song "Alta Cutelo" by the band Os Tubaroes plays on the soundtrack. The film's indelible highlight, however, is an extended climax in which Ventura angrily confronts his demons in an elevator, conversing with the voices in his head while a soldier holding a rifle behind him looks on in silence. This "exorcism," a scene that appeared virtually intact in the omnibus film CENTRO HISTORICO, leads to a cathartic finale in which Ventura leaves the hospital and is greeted by a rosy-fingered dawn. A final shot, however, shows the character staring at knives in a store's display window (perhaps a subconscious visual quote from Fritz Lang's M) suggesting that, decades after the "April Revolution," the real revolution has not yet begun. Followed by a post-screeningQ&A with Costa moderated by Jonathan Rosenbaum. (2014, 103 min, DCP Digital) [Michael Glover Smith]
Charles Chaplin's A KING IN NEW YORK (UK/US)
Music Box Theatre â Saturday and Sunday, 11:30am
All of Chaplinâs post-Tramp features build upon the theme of MODERN TIMES, bemoaning the loss of longstanding human values in the midst of unrestrained technological progress. In A KING IN NEW YORK, the threats to humanism are pandemic: they appear in the form of soulless advertising and factory-assembled pop culture and in the institutionalized cruelty of McCarthyâs anti-Communist witch-hunts. Chaplin attacks these subjects as bluntly as he did Nazism in THE GREAT DICTATOR, his vitriol emerging as much from his leftist politics as from his experience of being all but expelled from the United States by the FBI, who had been keeping a file on him for years. (Chaplin remained a persona non grata in the U.S. for some time after his self-imposed exile; case in point, KING wasnât released here theatrically until 1972.) Yet time has proven this a remarkably wise picture, defined by a generosity toward nearly all of its charactersâeven the various American hucksters met by Chaplin's deposed King Shahdov, who visits New York City after a revolution forces him to flee his home country. The film hinges on the King's friendship with a very funny Marxist caricature (played by Chaplin's 11-year-old son, Michael, whose beautiful, precise gestures were devised, down to the last detail, by his father), whose parents end up victims of the McCarthyite witch-hunts. Chaplin presents the relationship with surprisingly little sentimentality, which might be why the film's endingâa tragic reversal of the reunion that closes CITY LIGHTSâis among the most devastating moments in Chaplinâs career. Screening as part of the To Avoid Any Misunderstanding: The Other Charles Chaplin series. (1957, 110 min, 35mm) [Ben Sachs]
James Benningâs 11 x 14 (US/Experimental)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Sunday, 8pm
James Benningâs exquisite feature-length narrative collage captures a series of arresting scene fragments, those moments of drama and tension found in the in-between of life. We glean traces of narrative throughoutââa man most likely having an affair, a lesbian couple on a road trip, a hitchhiker looking through odds and endsââbut are primarily left with snapshots of time that leave indelible impressions on any audience member willing to come along for the ride. Amidst this bevy of naturalistic montage, packed with billboards and vehicles and grand American nature, are three distinct long takes spread throughout the runtime, each announcing itself with little fanfare before burrowing into the watcherâs mind and laying root. First, a ten-minute, unbroken shot of a shadowy figure riding at the front of a Chicago L train, the audience projecting themselves into the silhouetted mind of the onscreen persona. Does sorrow lie there? Acceptance? Heartbreak? Mere passivity traveling across the tracks resting above Chicago? Next, two women in bed together, both nude in their respective fashions, as a record plunks away in the background. Reveling in silence for minutes on end, they eventually embrace each other in a tender contortion, projecting ease, comfort, and a beautiful stillness. Finally, perhaps the most inane image to sit with for minutes on end, a smoke stack, billowing a dragonâs breath of smoke over the course of seven minutes with an unidentified country track playing behind it, its own place in the filmâs diegesis a mystery to the viewer. Benning is more than content to let his audience sit with moving images, be they organic or mechanical, dynamic or static, to revel in the faint recollections of the world around us. His worlds are, very much so, much weightier than puffs of smoke. Screening as part of the series, An Artist of Intimate Intent: James Benning. (1977, 83 min, 16mm) [Ben Kaye]
Peter Weirâs MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD (US)
Chicago Film Society at the Music Box Theatre â Thursday, 6:45pm
The films of Australian director Peter Weir feature characters who must face incredible breaks in their everyday reality, on both small and large scales; his 2003 period epic MASTER AND COMMANDER: THE FAR SIDE OF THE WORLD does this on an extremely large scale while still centering the personal. Based on the book series about Royal Navy captain Jack Aubrey (here played most steadily by Russell Crowe) by British author Patrick OâBrian, the film features the minute details of life aboard a warship during the Napoleonic WarsâMASTER AND COMMANDER famously begins with an intertitle stating "OCEANS ARE NOW BATTLEFIELDS." Caught off guard off the coast of Brazil by a French privateer, Aubrey and the crew of the HMS Surprise must out-sail and outwit the superior shipâânotably recouping in the GalĂĄpagos Islands. It oscillates between the claustrophobia of experiencing wartime trapped on a ship and expressing the sense of wide adventure that sea life offers. The empathy and care Aubrey shows for his crew, particularly for the much younger sailors on board, is complicated by the many tough decisions he must make throughout; itâs also complemented by his friend Dr. Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany), the shipâs surgeon, who isnât afraid to gently question Aubreyâs leadership. MASTER AND COMMANDER is also a film that focuses a great deal on education and skill, with scenes of Aubrey and Maturin teaching the crew about sailing and nature. In addition to the impressive shots of the ships themselves, Weir emphases objects and tools. The detail here is not just minutiae or historical grounding; it underscores that each crew member not only has a particular job, but also a particular story. The comradery of the crew in moments of singing sea shanties and playing music, as well as unsettling loss of life, are at the heart of the film. Like Maturin, MASTER AND COMMANDER also questions modernity and progress through its examination of war, imperialism, and their effect on the nature of men; the film is devoid, it should be mentioned, of women, with arguably the ships themselves being the only female characters. But just as important to the filmâs larger themes are the shots of the ships in battle on the ocean and the stunning cinematography from long-time Weir collaborator Russell Boyd. A striking early shot of a massive amount of crew members climbing around the rigging demonstrates Weirâs skillfulness at piecing together arrestingly beautiful imagery grounded in specific time and experience. Preceded by Rose Lowderâs 2001 short film VOILIERS ET COQUELICOTS (SAILBOATS & POPPIES) (2 min, 16mm). (2003, 138 min, 35mm) [Megan Fariello]
Akira Kurosawa's KAGEMUSHA (Japan)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Friday, 9pm
KAGEMUSHA holds the distinction of being both a powerful film that expresses thematic ideas Akira Kurosawa put in nearly all his films as well as a somewhat by-the-numbers historical drama. When a petty criminal is discovered to have an incredible likeness to a warlord who recently died, he is hired to impersonate him as a political decoy to help win the feudal wars that Japan was then experiencing. It's decided that they'll have this common thief stand in for the warlord, so as to not let any of the rivals know of the death or show any signs of weakness in the clan. As time passes, the son of the deceased warlord becomes more upset with the idea of this imposter being the leader and begins to test him politically, hoping to trip him up. Despite all his attempts, the imposter not only convincingly "becomes" the dead leader but actually leads troops into a major battle. Only in the fog of war is his true identity revealed. More than just a battle epic, this exploration into concepts of self, war, and court politics makes KAGEMUSHA one of Kurosawa's best jidaigeki (pre-Meiji Restoration period pieces, aka samurai films). This is a movie that wholeheartedly believes in nuance. Perhaps that's why, despite both George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola being executive producers, itâs considered one of Kurosawa's minor works. It doesn't have the clear-cut, American Western film binary of good guys and bad guys that SEVEN SAMURAI (1954), YOJIMBO (1961), and SANJURO (1962) had. There is no hero, or even an anti-hero. Instead, the film explores the concept of power itself. KAGEMUSHA asks if power lies in the person or in those around him. There is an almost existential exploration of the self. Unlike many of Kurosawa's other samurai films, this isn't a period piece but a piece of historical fiction. The figures in the film, besides the imposter, were real people. The battles discussed actually happened. This blending of fantasy and history creates a hazy verisimilitude that aids Kurosawa's dissection of the self and power. This approach allows the audience to have a baked-in familiarity of the narrative. Any student of Japanese history will already know the outcome of these battles, but by framing his story this way, Kurosawa can fully focus on his philosophical themes while using the overarching plot as familiar shorthand. In practice, you can see the influence of KAGEMUSHA in the later works of Tarantino, particularly in how INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (2009) and ONCE UPON A TIME... IN HOLLYWOOD (2019) use historical characters and events as a backdrop for character studies. Perhaps the younger, cheekier Kurosawa could have called this film ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEDIEVAL JAPAN, what with its folk tale framing. The epic scale of the film and its extravagant use of color very much foreshadow his next film, RAN (1985). Perhaps that's also why KAGEMUSHA has been unfortunately relegated to minor work status; it was immediately eclipsed by one of the greatest films ever madeââwhich is unfortunate, because KAGEMUSHA truly is up there with RASHOMON (1950), SEVEN SAMURAI, RAN, THRONE OF BLOOD (1957), and YOJIMBO as one of Kurosawaâs great considerations of the psyche of man. Rescheduled screening as part of the Programmerâs Picks series. (1980, 180 min, 35mm) [Raphael Jose Martinez]
đ˝ď¸ ALSO RECOMMENDED
Anna Hintsâ SMOKE SAUNA SISTERHOOD (Estonia/Documentary)
Cinema Femme Short Film Fest at the Music Box Theatre â Sunday, 7pm
The function of sweat is to regulate body temperature, cooling the skin as it evaporates. It effectively acts as a neutralizer, endeavoring to restore one to a state of comfort and balance. For the group of women featured in Anna Hintsâ SMOKE SAUNA SISTERHOOD, sweating becomes symbolic as they use the titular (at least, one-third of it) space to exorcise their demons. In Estonia there exists whatâs known as the smoke sauna tradition, different to regular wood-burning saunas in its lack of a chimney, which causes the room to fill with smoke that slowly exits through a vent; UNESCO added it to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2014. Hints documents the smoke sauna experience with little exposition, rather conveying details of the tradition and the several women naturally. This makes the experience of watching it more immersive than didactic. The subjects of this abstract documentary bare more than just their souls, as theyâre nude for most of the film. As they go about the tenets of the traditionâwhich includes cold plunges, salt scrubs, and being gently beaten with a whiskâthey talk about various subjects respective to womanhood, from childbirth to body image to sexual assault. Often itâs not clear whoâs talking, the camera instead focused on another one of the women who's listening. The womenâs bodies sometimes touch in intimate ways, fitted against one another like puzzle pieces, together becoming whole. Ants Tammikâs cinematography is beautiful; in the sauna, especially, he captures the interplay of colors and shapes formed by their bodies against the dark background, presenting them in a visually striking manner that begs consideration rather than merely asking viewers to look at them. Magical realist elements link the practice back to its almost mythological tradition, imbuing the present with the past. It seems an altogether healing experience, from which expelling trauma can become a balm for the sweltering soul that yearns for alleviation. (2023, 89 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
---
Also taking place as part of the 2024 Cinema Femme Short Film Fest are the Lori Felker Spotlight Series Q&A Event on Sunday at 5pm; the Cinema Femme Shorts Program 1: Dear Body on Sunday at 9:30pm; the Cinema Femme Shorts Program 2: Sincerely, Yours on Wednesday at 7:30pm; and the Cinema Femme Shorts Program 3: P.S. on Wednesday at 9:30pm, with all three shorts programs featuring a post-screening Q&A with filmmakers. There will also be virtual events featured on their YouTube channel and a closing night reception Wednesday from 5pm to 7pm in the Music Box Lounge. Must have a VIP ticket to attend. More info here.
RaMell Ross' HALE COUNTY THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING (US/Documentary)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Monday, 7pm
A feast for the senses, photographer RaMell Rossâ debut film, HALE COUNTY THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING, evades easy description, but the filmmaker gives it a go. Ross prefaces his film with a title card that says âthe discovering began after I moved to Alabama in 2009 to teach photography and coach basketball. Photographing in my day-to-day I began filming, using time to figure out how weâve come to be seen.â And indeed, Ross plays with time the way a poet uses meter to bring images to life. Ross focuses his attention on two young, black men and the people in their orbit as they make their way into the future, and a narrative of sorts emerges about their lives and dreams. But our experience of them occurs more at physical and emotional levels; they are bodies in motion, playing basketball, moving furniture, riding horses, dancing, and goofing on each other. They are figures in the universe Ross shoots so evocatively, superimposing a sun emerging from a partial eclipse onto the palm of a young boy. Shooting from a moving car, his camera blurs acres of cotton crops into liquidlike ripples that seem to scrub at the past injustices those fields have seen. Time-lapse photography imparts the feeling that we are a mere blip in the lifespan of the universe, and when an unexpected death comes, Ross suggests a transformation by watching a black swallowtail butterfly flitting in an open field. His use of sound is suggestive as well. Shooting college basketball players moving around a locker room before a game, Rossâ choice of a slowly building, cacophonous music track becomes uncomfortable, as though our hearts are pounding with the same anticipatory anxiety as the players before they finally find release by heading out onto the court. He films a man burning tires, a noxious act we can practically smell, but chooses to see the beauty of the act as he films the black smoke rising into the atmosphere as the sun shining through the branches of a tall tree backlights it and tinges it red. No matter what we see, know, or think we know about Alabama, by the time Billie Holiday sings the film out with âStars Fell on Alabama,â itâs clear weâve been shown heaven on earth. Screening as part of Apparitions: An Assemblage of Black Independent Films. (2018, 76 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Vera Drewâs THE PEOPLEâS JOKER (US)
Music Box Theatre ââ See Venue website for showtimes
Though initially catapulted into infamy for its legally-dubious use of characters from the Batman franchise, THE PEOPLEâS JOKER is far more than the faux-controversy surrounding its cheeky superhero antics. Director/writer/star Vera Drewâs multimedia collage of comic tomfoolery is as much a playful piece of comic-book lampooning as it is a deeply introspective origin story for Drewâs own coming-out as a trans woman, transplanting her life story onto the neon buildings and villainous cohorts of Gotham City. Drewâs fair-use feature is punk in every sense of the word; the melding of live-action actors, wonky CG imagery, stop-motion animation, and 2D cartoons makes for a tapestry of intertwining artistry. The casting of notorious alt-comic performers, from Maria Bamfordâs freakish Lorne Michaels to Tim Heideckerâs Alex Jones-esque Perry White to David Liebe Hartâs transcendently tapped-in performance as the comic guru Raâs Al Ghul, gives further shape and texture to the general reclamation, distortion, and anarchic reverence for the corporate properties on display. Drewâs own coming-out journey is delivered with humor and truth in equal measures. Her humor is oftentimes ribald and nonsensical, yet it never distracts from the earnestness at the root of her story, resulting in sequences that veer from delirious to artful in a matter of moments. Itâs a tale that undeniably belongs to Drew but now, with the wide release of this film, can be shared with the world. Warner Bros. may own their specific clown prince of crime, but Vera Drewâs Joker the Harlequin is a character that now belongs to us all; a villain whoâs lived long enough to see herself become our hero. Drew in attendance for post-screening Q&As after the 7pm screening on Friday and the 7pm screening on Saturday. Note that the Friday screening is sold out. (2022, 95 mins, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]
Kleber Mendonça Filho's PICTURES OF GHOSTS (Brazil)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Saturday and Sunday, 4pm
Kleber Mendonça Filhoâs PICTURES OF GHOSTS defies categorization inasmuch as where it may technically be a certain kind of filmâa hybrid between a more conventional form of documentary and the elusive essay filmâit nevertheless proceeds like something else altogether, not any certain type of film but rather just a film, borne from the desire to create something personal and thus free of constrictive labeling. In three parts, Mendonça Filho explores his hometown of Recife, the coastal capital of the state of Pernambuco in Brazil, and its connection to cinema, both as it relates to him personally and from a historical perspective. The first section looks at the apartment where he grew up, where he discovered cinema, and where he shot early amateur films and even later some of his professional ones. Sixty percent of the film is composed of archival material (including footage from Mendonça Filhoâs own short and feature films), yet some of it feels indistinguishable from what was presumably shot specifically for the film. While this combination of material is a common formula for documentaries, the editing here feels especially natural, helping to capture what Mendonça Filho is evoking in the film at large, looking at images and cinema as ghostly ephemera whose souls linger where a physical presence may have disappeared. The second and third parts focus on this explicitly as Mendonça Filho explores the legacy of theatrical exhibition in Recife, showcasing closed or demolished theaters from the past and those still standing. The melancholy that pervades the film is owed to the absences, and the archival material makes whatâs now gone feel again alive but to mournful effect. According to Mendonça Filho's film, the masters of cinema are really people like Alexandre Moura, a longtime projectionist who passed away in the early aughts; we see old footage of him as he takes off his shirt to combat the oppressive heat and as he laments getting tired of the music from THE GODFATHER after hearing it for four months straight. Itâs clear Mendonça Filho loved him, and we come to love him, too. I donât believe cinema is dead, but thereâs no denying some of itâsuch as Moura, whose demise is part and parcel with the death of a certain bit of cinemaâhas left us. The old photographs, footage, and reminiscences of the former and still-remaining theaters illustrate that past for us, creating a proxy world where the spirits still live; the third part, focused on cinemas that have been converted to churches, alludes both to cinema as a kind of religion and emphasizes the aforementioned ghostliness. The strange divergence at the very end, which evokes Jim Jarmusch's NIGHT ON EARTH, nicely ties together this singular amalgamated work. Screening as part of the New Releases (+More) series. (2023, 93 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
Pedro AlmodĂłvarâs BAD EDUCATION (Spain)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Wednesday, 7pm
Anyone familiar with Pedro AlmodĂłvar will expect an insane plot, dramatic music, a good dose of camp, refreshing queer perspectives, and actresses with incredible range and charisma. In an unusual turn, BAD EDUCATION focuses almost entirely on men, and more importantly, boys, in a tale much closer to AlmodĂłvarâs childhood and more terrifying in its indictment. Whereas his well-known films such as ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER and WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN focused on women in crisis and the strange, powerful bonds they form, as well as the surprising strength of their characters in thankless, domestic situations, BAD EDUCATION is surprisingly absent of women, save in the form of Gael GarcĂa Bernalâs transgender alter-ego (whom he portrays with admirable intensity). Instead of manipulating tropes of classic Hollywood melodrama, BAD EDUCATION weaves an intriguing and difficult-to-discern web of mystery, childhood sexual trauma, and the perilous and powerful bond between two little boys, who may or may not be meeting again decades later to unravel the emotional entanglement that has haunted them their whole lives. Outlining the plot of this movie ahead of timeâor even fully understanding the plot of this movie when the credits rollâbears almost no impact on the chilling, visceral, sinking feeling that will haunt you as you leave the theater. Screening as part of the Programmerâs Picks series. (2004, 106 min, 35mm) [Alex Ensign]
Olivier Assayas' PERSONAL SHOPPER (France)
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Tuesday, 7pm
PERSONAL SHOPPER continues to explore themes that run throughout Olivier Assayas' oeuvre, especially CLEAN (2004) and CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA (2014). Much like CLEAN, which starred Maggie Cheung, the film centers on an isolated, inward-facing character recovering from trauma in the city of Paris. Much like CLOUDS, the film stars Kristen Stewart, who plays a personal assistant (specifically in this case, a personal shopper) to a glamorous actress entrenched in the world of celebrity and fashion. Unlike CLOUDS, however, PERSONAL SHOPPER delves into the world of the assistant, and the single-name celebrity, Kyra (Nora von Waldstätten), is seen rarely. Kristen Stewart commands almost every second of screen time, much like Maggie Cheung does in CLEAN. Drawing comparisons among these three films is helpful in finding more depth and meaning in PERSONAL SHOPPER, which suffers in some ways from a meandering, underdeveloped screenplay that elicits accidental laughs and does too much juggling of tone to strike a resounding emotional chord. Assayas called the movie a "collage," but unfortunately the collage is uneven in execution, despite an incredibly impressive performance from Stewart. Apart from the unevenness of the screenplay, the movie has many interesting aspects, and one of the most inspired is allowing Kristen Stewart to do things without being highly sexualized and without speaking. She emotes in a subterraneously explosive manner, indicating the enormous tension within her character without overtly emoting. It's surprisingly captivating. PERSONAL SHOPPER vacillates between several genres, from dark comedy to coming-of-age to psychological thriller, and lastly to horror. The reason the film vacillates so much is due in part to the actual plot: Maureen (Stewart) is a personal shopper by day, and a medium on nights and weekends, mourning her dead twin brother who said he would send her a sign from beyond. She is in Paris for an indefinite amount of time, putting off her own life, and existing as something of a ghost herself, just waiting. Because the movie accepts the existence of ghosts as a given, it turns into a psychological thriller (revolving around an exchange of text messages with an unknown number who may or may not be Maureen's brother...it gets old, fast, watching text messages pop up on a screen), and then a spooky horror (by far the weakest element of the movie), while exploring elements of Maureen's character in quieter, sadder, less suspenseful scenes, hinting at depths the movie never quite reaches. Critics have disagreed widely in their reviews of the film, and it is easy to see why, but it is still highly recommended to see the film for yourself and wonder what this could have been with a stronger screenplay, given how fascinating it is to watch already. Screening as part of the Americans in Paris: After the Dance series. (2016, 105 min, DCP Digital) [Alex Ensign]
Balojiâs OMEN (International)
Gene Siskel Film Center â See Venue website for showtimes
In his feature film debut, Belgian-Congolese rapper, musician and filmmaker Baloji, (whose name, ironically, means sorcerer in Swahili), considers four people targeted with accusations of witchcraft in his native Congo. The first, Koffi (Marc Zinga), is going back to Kinshasa, the capital city of Democratic Republic of the Congo, from Brussels, where he lives with his girlfriend, a white woman whoâs pregnant with their twins and whom he plans to marry. Heâs making the visit to get the approval of his family, though we soon learn heâs practically estranged from them as a result of a large birthmark on his face that they say is a zaboloâthe mark of the devil. His father seems to be avoiding Koffi in his work at the mines, while his mother refuses to let him in her house. At an outdoor get-together his nose begins to bleed on the newborn baby of one of his sisters, the outsized reaction to which sets into motion the filmâs events. Centered in addition to Koffi, his sister and another of his family members whom I wonât divulge here as those targeted for witchcraft, Baloj also includes a young boy who lives on the street and uses the accusations to his advantage as the leader of a small wrestling gang. The boy is mourning the loss of his sister, which seems to fuel the conflict they have with another such group. As the film follows Koffi during his short trip, Tshala (Eliane Umuhire, who appeared in the 2021 film NEPTUNE FROST), also emerges as a central figure. Though not marked by the devil, sheâs distanced from her family as the result of her being in a polyamorous relationship with a younger man; theyâre moving to South Africa, like Koffi moved to Belgium, to disconnect further from familial and cultural repression. Baloji fragments the narrative to disorienting effect, perhaps mimicking the way one might feel to be so removed from people and beliefs once so close to them. The occasional magic realist elements reinforce the other, bringing into perspective the idea of sorcery in relation to the natural, so-called ârealâ world. (2023, 90 min, DCP Digital) [Kat Sachs]
Chiara Malta and SĂŠbastien Laudenbachâs CHICKEN FOR LINDA! (France/Animation)
Gene Siskel Film Center â See Venue website for showtimes
Anarchy reigns in this energetic, limited-animation feature centered on a girlâs demand that her mother prepare chicken and peppers, a dish her Italian father made just before he died suddenly when she was still in diapers. This is a reasonable demand, given that her mother feeds her prepackaged, microwaved food (this is France?), but a general strike has closed down every store in the area where she could buy a chicken. What ensues is a series of misadventures involved the theft of a live chicken, a watermelon deliveryman, a feckless police officer, and a band of unruly children in Lindaâs housing project trying to help her capture the chicken that has made good its escape from the stockpot several times. CHICKEN FOR LINDA!, which won the 2024 CĂŠsar Award for Best Animated Film, is a combination of slapstick comedy, sad reckoning with grief, and hope for the future. The colorful images are inviting, and the couple of songs included are actually pretty good. The problems of single motherhood and sisterly rivalry rear their ugly heads but do not appreciably diminish the filmâs manic fun. (2023, 76 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]
Alice Rohrwacherâs LA CHIMERA (Italy/France/Switzerland)
Music Box Theatre â See Venue website for showtimes
For Arthur, thereâs little that separates the living from the dead. Played by a steely, towering Josh OâConnor, most often seen sidling through scenes donning a detritus-laden white linen suit, he spends his days wandering about with his merry band of "tombaroli," pilfering the tombs hidden beneath their feet across Italy, raiding a myriad of resting places for long-lost Etruscan treasures that, in their eyes, arenât doing the dead any good just sitting about. Arthurâs mind wanders about, too, to his long-lost love Beniamina, a figure seen in flickers, dreamlike, perhaps also sitting in that nebulous zone between what we know is gone but what we wish was still here. Indeed, our first glimpse of Arthur is of him riding a train back home after the end of his prison sentence, his own resurrection back into the land of the "living." Alice Rohrwacherâs film tends to navigate various planes of existence, often changing aspect ratios, film stocks, even genres; the story curves through tropes found in heist thrillers, comedies, and romances, employing techniques found within the realms of silent film, experimental essay, and documentary filmmaking. Her collage of storytelling ends up falling somewhereââspiritually and thematicallyââbetween a fairy tale and a ghost story, weighing the love of the present with the love of that which is long past, of building your life in deference to death, of weighing oneâs soul against the thrill of unearthing objects not meant for human eyes. Arthur himself is gifted with an otherworldly spirit of divining, of knowing in his very soul where these underground treasures lie, with Rohrwacherâs camera literally performing revolutions to find Arthur in another visual plane, familiar yet upside-down. What a gift to find a film so brimming with passion, humor, and otherworldly desire brimming from every frame for those curious enough to pull on the threads Rohrwacher leaves lying before us. Perhaps a glimmer of light will shine through after all that digging. (2023, 130 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]
Julio Torres' PROBLEMISTA (US)
FACETS Cinema â See Venue website for showtimes
Written by, directed by, and starring Julio Torres, PROBLEMISTA is an enchanting little treat of a film. Torres plays Alejandro Martinez, an immigrant from El Salvador who dreams of making quirky introspective toys for Hasbro that offer social commentary. In a desperate need to sponsorship for his visa, Torres has to do unbearable gig work to follow his dreams. One of these jobs is working for a company that cryogenically freezes people. He's put in charge of monitoring the body of Bobby (played wonderfully in flashbacks by RZA), an incredibly earnest artist who paints what can only be described as what look like dumb Magrittesââif Magritte painted only eggs. When Alejandro screws up at the job and gets fired, he winds up working for Bobby's wife, Elizabeth, a completely insufferable and stereotypical New York artist. The two work together to get a gallery showing of Bobby's egg paintings in order to sell them for continued payment on Bobby's frozen body. It's utterly ridiculous. And nothing but a joy. PROBLEMISTA plays with surrealism like soft, warm clay. Everything is real and non-real here. Like a Latin American magical realist novel brought to life, every metaphor is visualized. Thought processes and interactions are romanticized or catastrophized and brought to the screen in dreamlike vignettes. When Torres confronts Swinton, he appears as a knight fighting a hydra. Craigslist is a villainous vaporwave glitchart echo of Ursula from THE LITTLE MERMAID. The woman on the other end of phone at the call center for Bank of America pledges her allegiance to the bank before shooting Torres due to overdraft fees. It's all a bit of silly fun. Twee but never saccharine. The only film in recent memory I can compare PROBLEMISTA to would be Kentucker Audley and Albert Birney's soft-dystopian STRAWBERRY MANSION (2021), both with their Wes Anderson-as-Max Fischer-esque sets and object designs and their gentle takes on the soulless grind of last-stage capitalism. The only problem with PROBLEMISTA is that it slightly suffers from classic concern of the auteurââthat their first film maybe very well be their last. While all the ideas Torres plays with are executed well, there's just... a lot of them. Maybe too many. Little visual ideas that could be revisited for comedic or sentimental effect aren't because a new one needs to be introduced. As a long-time fan of Torres, following his career from the shockingly influential cult public access turned cable TV show The Chris Gethard Show through his infuriatingly canceled TV show Los Espookys to this, I've yet to get anywhere near tired of his ideas and visualsââbut I don't need, or particularly want, so many all at once. I suppose saying that there is a bit too much creativity in a film is a strange jab, but there can be too much of a good thing. This is an art film that is trying its hardest not to be one because it's a film about art and artists itself. So instead, it floats in the incredibly specific, weird liminal space of between My-First-Quirky-Indie-Movie gateway film for budding cinephiles and a high-minded and arch surrealistic piss-take on the art worldââall while being pure entertainment. An incredibly auspicious debut feature, I can only hope that enough other people find the joy in PROBLEMISTA and its contagious rewatchability so that Torres gets money to make more films. (2023, 98 min, DCP Digital) [Raphael Jose Martinez]
Ben Kolakâs CAT CITY (US/Documentary)
The Plant (1400 W. 46th St.) â Friday, 7pm
When I see a cat on the street, my first thought is âAw!â My second thought is âI love you.â And my third thought is âI must take you home.â Nowhere in this thought process do I consider anything about that catâs place within a complicated urban ecosystem; beyond the big eyes, antennae-like ears, long whiskers, soft fur, little feetâIâm getting carried awayâare considerations far larger than the incessant cuteness of just one of natureâs most glorious creatures. Donât get me wrong, Iâll never stop loving cats of all types, sizes and environments, but thereâs something to be said about fully understanding the nuances of Chicagoâs feral cat population. Ben Kolakâs documentary does a good job addressing the issue from all sides, starting with a progressive 2007 ordinance that allows people to care for feral cats by becoming caretakers and encouraging âTNRâ: trapping, neutering, and releasing them back on the streets. While an interviewee in the film observes that animal advocacy is often a plight of affluent white women, Kolak turns this assumption on its head and focuses instead on people from marginalized communities, such as a woman with physical disabilities whoâs made taking care of cats her vocation and various community members from the cityâs South and West sides. Theyâre all cat colony caretakers, who have gone through the process of becoming registered with the city to care for cat populations in their neighborhoods, taking on the responsibility of providing food and water as well as vaccinating, undertaking the TNR process, and providing medical care as needed. In a way, the cat communities and the human communities that care for them reflect one another, showing how vulnerable populations work together from other communities to survive. Tension comes into play when Kolak introduces the birding community, first highlighting some problems specific to birds (like birds colliding into skyscraper windows) and then the impact that the outdoor cat population, technically an invasive species, has on them. Some go as far as to think that feral cats should be exterminated in order to protect the bird population; the average person is likely to come out of this with more questions than answers, the inherent enigma of nature just as perplexing when applied to urban ecosystems. The film takes a KEDI-like approach in featuring many of the cats as characters, with names like Topcat, Diego, Frida, Hip-Hop, and Princess, a charming quality that emphasizes the human-like complexity of the animalsâ dynamics amongst themselves and with humans. The footage of the cats and birds is impressive, and the graphics used to convey facts and map out locations across Chicago where these people and animals live are tasteful. All told, itâs an edifying journey for cat lovers, nature lovers, and city dwellers alike, with plenty to amuse and ponder. Followed by a panel discussion and Q&A. (2023, 79 min, Digital Projection) [Kat Sachs]
Paul Thomas Anderson's MAGNOLIA (US)
Davis Theater â Friday, 7pm
Paul Thomas Anderson's MAGNOLIA is a well-meaning rip-off of Robert Altman's SHORT CUTS, which is itself based on a collection of Raymond Carver's short stories. Though Anderson confuses the meaning of homage with plagiarism, the film is still intriguing as a philosophical counterweight to its prototype. Both follow an ensemble of seemingly unrelated characters as their lives haphazardly intersect over the course of one day in Los Angeles. This narrative structure can be found as early as 1932 in Edmund Golding's GRAND HOTEL and inherently poses questions about fate and happenstance. While Altman's film embraces an absurdist outlook, Anderson rejects chance and coincidence, favoring divine intervention in the form of magical realism. The cynicism and irresolution of SHORT CUTS is ultimately replaced in MAGNOLIA by an epiphanic clarity and optimism. Anderson further imitates Altman's style by employing music as a theme. Instead of using the improvisational mode of jazz, Anderson plays with the operatic form, splitting his film into three separate acts. Stylistically, Anderson works in the idiom of Scorsese and Renoir, using fluid long takes that emphasize the interconnected nature of his characters. MAGNOLIA is worth viewing exclusively for Tom Cruise's performance as Frank T.J. Mackey, a misogynistic motivational speaker, whose self-help system "Seduce and Destroy" encourages the sexual conquest of women by any means necessary. The character is something of an alter ego for Cruise's role as Dr. Bill Harford in EYES WIDE SHUT. (1999, 188 min, Digital Projection) [Harrison Sherrod]
Jonathan Demme's STOP MAKING SENSE (US/Documentary)
Music Box Theatre â Saturday, Midnight
Doc Films (at the University of Chicago) â Friday, 7pm and Saturday, 9:30pm
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. Screening at Doc as part of the Board Picks series. (1984, 88 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
Francis Ford Coppola's ONE FROM THE HEART: REPRISE (US)
Alamo Drafthouse â Saturday, 12pm
After a calamitous response upon its initial release, ONE FROM THE HEART, a dazzling mashup of New Hollywood drama and Golden Age musical aesthetics, is back once again to win over the hearts and minds of a new generation of perhaps kinder-hearted filmgoers. Director Francis Ford Coppolaâforever remangling and reinterpreting his own vast filmographyâhas returned to his phantasmagorical love story with a new cut of this once-maligned work, trimming fourteen minutes off of the original runtime to concoct a new version, fully restored in stunning 4K. Though Coppola canât do anything to excise some of the more fundamental structural flaws of his work, heâs still succeeded in creating a tighter, more compact vision for what he dreamed the future of Hollywood could be. The scope of ONE FROM THE HEART is something to astound: Coppola and his merry band of collaborators, rather than traveling to Las Vegas to film this musical tale, built an entire Sin City simulacrum inside of their own studio, to the point where the walls of the sound stages are visible in certain shots. Coppolaâs cinematic aspirations here are the worlds of pure self-reflexive artifice, dreamlike structures fully cognizant of their own artificiality. As a work judged on pure visuals, thereâs not much else like it, with waves of neon color devouring the frame and Vittorio Storaroâs cinematography feeling more like a dancer than a camera. Yet even with such passion thrown on screen, the emotional heart of Coppolaâs story of a relationship in turmoil lacks that extra oomph. Perhaps this is due to the nature of ONE FROM THE HEARTâs musical elements, providing atmospheric shape rather than internal substance, with Tom Waitsâ songsâhaunting as they areâmerely suffusing the scenes with texture rather than filling them up entirely. As rich and intense as the worlds of Frederic Forrest and Teri Garrâs respective infidelities can be, there can be a perhaps intentional emotional distance from these characters whose lives are so suffused with music, yet music never pours out of their very souls. It certainly leaves you wanting (though much of the boggish melodrama from the original cut is excised here), but thereâs still so much within Coppolaâs forgotten world thatâs enough to satisfy the hungriest cinephiles, ready to feast upon a world of brightly-lit temptation and spectacle. (1981, 93 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]
Krzysztof Kieslowski's THREE COLORS: RED (Belgium/France)
Alamo Drafthouse â Tuesday, 3:30pm
One of the culminating films of the 20th century, RED not only brings Krzysztof Kieslowkiâs Three Colors trilogy to a grand close but stands at the summation of one of the great careers in modern European movies. Kieslowski and his longtime co-writer Krzysztof Piesiewicz symphonically interweave their major themes (fate, coincidence, the possibility of transcendence in modern life), creating a story thatâs remarkable for being both dense and flowing. Where BLUE was inspired by the idea of liberty and WHITE by the idea of equality, RED tackles the concept of fraternity, inviting viewers to contemplate how individuals are connected to one another in society at large. It centers on the relationship between a burgeoning fashion model (Irène Jacob) and the retired judge (Jean-Louis Trintignant) she meets by chance after she hits his dog with her car. The young woman wants to do good by the judge, but she doubts her mission as she gets to know him; the old man turns out to be a misanthrope who uses audio surveillance technology to spy on his neighbors. Kieslowski and Piesiewicz counterpose this story with one about an aspiring young judge who comes to suspect his lover of being unfaithful, and while this tale is more comic in nature, it gains resonance from its parallels with the principal narrative. Like few other directors, Kieslowski was able to suggest the perspective of a compassionate deity looking out on humankind, and in RED, he uses that gift to advance a perspective thatâs at once intimate and broad. These characters could be anybody (Kieslowskiâs camera could have followed any telephone wire from that opening montage, could have landed on any subject); that they experience individual desires and moral aspirations inspires wonder with the depth and variety of human existence. Piotr Sobocinskiâs cinematography, with its emphasis on deep reds and blacks, adds to the filmâs inviting power. Screening as part of the Alamo Time Capsule 1994 series. (1994, 99 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Sachs]
đď¸ ALSO SCREENING
⍠Asian Pop-Up Cinema
The extensive and inimitable Asian Pop-Up Cinema series continu+es its eighteenth season. Their in-person and virtual offerings are too many to list; visit here for more information.
⍠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 March 15, 2026. More info here.
⍠Chicago Public Library
View all screenings taking place at Chicago Public Library branches here.
⍠Doc10
Chris Smithâs 2024 documentary DEVO (95 min, DCP Digital) screens Thursday, 7pm, at the Davis Theater as the opening night event of the Doc10 film festival. Further coverage coming in next weekâs list. More info here.
⍠Doc Films (at the University of Chicago)
Henry-Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiroâs 2005 documentary MURDERBALL (88 min, Digital Projection) screens Saturday at 1pm. Sponsored by Students for Disability Justice.
Vadim Kostrovâs 2021 film SUMMER (109 min, DCP Digital) screens Saturday, 7pm, as part of the New Releases (+ More) series.
Sean Dailyâs 2002 documentary THE HUNT (108 min, Digital Projection) screens Sunday at 1pm. Sponsored by Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections' current exhibit, Scav Hunt at UChicago.
Kinuyo Tanakaâs 1960 film THE WANDERING PRINCESS (102 min, DCP Digital) screens Thursday,
7pm, as part of the Kinuyo Tanaka: Actress and Auteur series.
Ed Emshwillerâs 1972 short film SCAPE-MATES (28 min, 16mm), Donna Deitchâs 1970 short film SHE WAS A VISITOR (2 min, 16mm), Marie Menkenâs 1961 short film EYE MUSIC IN RED MAJOR (6 min, 16mm) and Robert Nelsonâs 1971 film BLEU SHUT (33 min, 16mm) screen Thursday, 9:30pm, as part of the Inside Outsider Cinema series. More info on all screenings and events here.
⍠FACETS Cinema
The 2024 FACETS Screen Gems Benefit honoring Jacqueline Stewart takes place Wednesday starting at 6pm. More info here.
⍠Gene Siskel Film Center
David Bickerstaffâs 2024 documentary JOHN SINGER SARGENT: FASHION AND SWAGGER (90 min, DCP Digital) begins and Ken Loachâs 2023 film THE OLD OAK (113 min, DCP Digital) and Minhal Baigâs 2024 film WE GROWN NOW (93 min, DCP Digital) continue screening this week. See Venue website for showtimes.
The Chicago Palestinian Film Festival continues, though most films are sold out. The Film Center has added encore screenings of the award-winning short films program and Farah Nabulsiâs 2023 film THE TEACHER (118 min, DCP Digital). More info on all screenings and events here.
⍠Music Box Theatre
David Zellner and Nathan Zellnerâs 2024 film SASQUATCH SUNSET (89 min, DCP Digital) continues. See Venue website for showtimes.
Jim Sharmanâs 1975 cult classic ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (100 min, 35mm) screens Friday at midnight.
Sean Price Williamsâ 2023 film THE SWEET EAST (104 min, 35mm) screens Tuesday at 7pm. More info on all screenings here.
⍠Sweet Void Cinema (3036 W. Chicago Ave.)
Find more information on the Humboldt Park microcinema, including its larger screening and workshop schedule, here.
đď¸ ONLINE SCREENINGS/EVENTS
⍠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: April 26 - May 2, 2024
MANAGING EDITORS // Ben and Kat Sachs
CONTRIBUTORS // John Dickson, Alex Ensign, Megan Fariello, Marilyn Ferdinand, Ben Kaye, Raphael Jose Martinez, Harrison Sherrod, Michael Glover Smith