Flaming Creatures

Forget everything you might have heard about the late Jack Smith’s legendary bisexual, orgiastic, superlow-budget, experimental 1963 masterpiece–a lot more is going on here, artistically and otherwise, than either Jonas Mekas or Susan Sontag has ever suggested. This jubilant, celebratory 45-minute film holds up amazingly well; despite its notoriety and censorship during the 60s, it’s more than just an orgy of nude and seminude bodies–male, female, and transvestite. The camera and even the cheap, hothouse decor participate in the joyful free-for-all, suggesting both the privacy of a Josef von Sternberg wet dream and the collective force of a delirious apocalypse. But the simplest way to describe it is to call it a vision. Theatre Building, 1225 W. Belmont, Thursday, August 14, 6:00, 773-327-5252. –Jonathan Rosenbaum