This exquisitely filmed 1992 experimental feature by Svetlana Proskurina, starring her husband Victor Proskurin and written by Andrei Chernykh, concerns a famous stage actor undergoing an identity crisis–a theme that may call to mind Bergman, though the mesmerizingly slow camera movements often recall Tarkovsky. Much of the film is erotic and lyrical, with a fair amount of nudity, and there’s an eclectic score with jazz elements by Vyacheslav Gaivaronsky. The unidiomatic and often confusing subtitles make this difficult to follow in spots, but the color images are so ravishing that you may not care. Film Center, Art Institute, Columbus Drive at Jackson, Sunday, September 22, 4:30, 443-3737.
–Jonathan Rosenbaum
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): film still. Read more
This hour-long 1995 Danish documentary by Krzysztof Wierzbicki, made shortly before Krzysztof Kieslowski’s untimely death, feels incomplete when it comes to fleshing out every important stage of writer-director Kieslowski’s career with clips, but as an extended interview giving us some notion of why he retired and what his state of mind was like in his last days it’s priceless. Kieslowski’s mordant wit is trained on a good many subjects, including the behavior of Americans, and we learn that the script he was working on when he died was for a project he had no intention of directing. On the same program at the Polish Film Festival are two short films I haven’t seen–Michal J. Dudziewicz’s The Cinema Workers Come to Light out of the Dream Factory (1995), a documentary about half a century of Polish filmmaking, and Mariusz Malec’s half-hour The Quiet Harbor, which will be shown without English subtitles. Gateway, 5216 W. Lawrence, Saturday, September 21, 4:00, and Wednesday, September 25, 8:00, 486-9612.
–Jonathan Rosenbaum
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): film still. Read more
