Park Jin-pyo’s semifictional love story (2002) about a man and woman in their early 70s, played by a real-life couple who reenact some of their own experiences, was banned in Korea until late last year because of its explicit sex scenes. I admire this feature more than I like it, partly because I resent the hokey music and wonder if the filmmakers aren’t a little too pushy in advancing their noble intentions. Still, this is a serious look at the potential joys and sorrows of growing old, and Park Chi-gyu and Lee Sun-ye are certainly affecting in the lead roles. In Korean with subtitles. 77 min. (JR) Read more
Brian Dannelly’s first feature is audacious and likable not only for its satirical treatment of fundamentalist Christian teenagers (Jena Malone, Mandy Moore, Macaulay Culkin, Patrick Fugit, Eva Amurri) and a couple of their elders (Martin Donovan, Mary-Louise Parker) but also for its sympathy toward them. Dannelly and cowriter Michael Urban seem to have firsthand knowledge of how religious vocabulary can deteriorate into a rhetoric that serves any agenda. Even more important, they balance their ridicule with a sharp sense of how difficult being a teenager is. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a teen movie as lively, as unpredictable, as generous, and as tough-minded as this one. PG-13, 92 min. Pipers Alley, River East 21. Read more
Basque abstract artist Jose Antonio Sistiaga painted directly onto film with homemade inks to create this silent 1970 feature. But Sistiaga’s strangely titled work, which has recently been restored, is different from the films of Stan Brakhage, who didn’t come to film from painting and had his own rhythm. Among the predominant patterns in this abstract extravaganza are dancing drops and specks that alternately suggest satellites, flying saucers, or rushing bodies of water, and its combination of color and 35-millimeter ‘Scope (with about half an hour in black and white) yields the kind of spectacle one associates with musicals and SF epics. This gets richer as it develops, recapitulating and developing its motifs of shape and color, which inevitably suggest representational forms (pebbles and bubbles, bats and insects, stained glass and latticework), only to move beyond them, as music does. That’s why the silence here is absolutely necessary–it allows the images to sing. 75 min. Gene Siskel Film Center. Read more
