Clouds of May, the second feature of Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan, struck some viewers as belonging to the school of Kiarostami, a mistake they wouldn’t make with his masterful third feature. An industrial photographer in Istanbul (Muzaffer Ozdemir), who hasn’t recovered from his busted marriage, finds himself the reluctant host of a country cousin (Mehmet Emin Toprak) looking for work. Ceylan uses this slim premise to build a psychologically nuanced relationship between the men as an uncomfortable domestic arrangement leads to irrational spats. The narrative, capped by a brief bad dream and the capture of a mouse, isn’t always legible, but it feeds into a monumental, luminous visual style like no other. The nonprofessional leads won top honors at Cannes in 2003; shortly afterward Toprak died in an auto accident. In Turkish with subtitles. 110 min. Music Box. Read more
A disturbing look at how people in the rural midwest respond to the Iraq war is the main focus of this 2003 documentary by Austrian filmmaker Andreas Horvath. The unabashed ignorance and/or indifference of most of his interview subjects, combined with their overall acceptance of war and gun ownership as higher principles, registers as frighteningly typical and indicates how successful the Bush administration has been at convincing Americans that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 and armed with weapons of mass destruction. To his credit Horvath engages with these positions and doesn’t try to hide his own, but he also lingers over a hysterical evangelist, an American-flag fetishist, and a demolition derby as if they somehow explained the rest. 105 min. (JR) Read more
The minimalism of this Abbas Kiarostami film makes it one of the boldest experiments yet by the masterful Iranian filmmaker: its ten sequences transpire in a car driving through Tehran, with a stylish young divorcee at the wheel and a series of six characters in the passenger seat. Shot with two digital video cameras mounted on the dashboard, it’s neither scripted nor directed in any ordinary sense, but Kiarostami spent a long time preparing the nonprofessional actors (all strong performers). The best scenes involve the driver’s spiky ten-year-old son (the only male in the cast, but a fitting stand-in for Iranian patriarchy), a young woman she picks up twice near a shrine, and a prostitute. The film offers a fascinating glimpse of the Iranian urban middle class, and though it eschews most of the pleasures of composition and landscape found in other Kiarostami films, it’s never less than riveting. In Farsi with subtitles. 94 min. (JR) Read more
Unlike the Gospel of Mel Gibson, this dutiful 180-minute adaptation is in English and neither wallows in suffering nor aims for art-movie credentials, apart from a few brief black-and-white flashbacks. Directed by British journeyman Philip Saville from a script by John Goldsmith and produced by Cineplex Odeon magnate Garth Drabinsky, this is an ideal straight-ahead version of Jesus’s story, built around Christopher Plummer’s offscreen narration, for people who don’t already know all the details and can’t follow all of The Passion of the Christ without a synopsis. It also dwells a lot more on Jesus’s teachings and miracles than The Passion and seems to care more about the suffering of other crucified individuals. I’m still waiting for a movie Jesus who looks even half as Semitic as Gibson’s Caiphas, but Henry Ian Cusick still does a creditable job. (JR) Read more
This collectively made documentary by the Video Activist Network cuts between the early stages of the Iraq invasion in March 2003 and massive San Francisco street demonstrations protesting it, with particular emphasis on the war profiteering of companies that supported George W. Bush’s presidential candidacy. This also offers glimpses of international demonstrations against the American-led invasion, the parroting of government propaganda on network newscasts, and the great battle sequence in Orson Welles’s Chimes at Midnight. 52 min. (JR) Read more
The most important lesson in any education is recognizing what you don’t know, and this 2003 French video by Ali Essafi, about the everyday operations of the famous Arab news service, may be an eye-opening experience even for those who consider themselves sympathetic observers of the political turmoil in the Middle East. Furthermore, getting to see an Al Jazeera producer shape a news report helped me realize how little I know about equivalent practices at CNN or NBC. Even more valuable are the glimpses of how Al Jazeera reporters view America and American activitiesthe perspective our own news services seem least equipped or even inclined to give us. 52 min. (JR) Read more
From the Chicago Reader (April 2, 2004). — J.R.
People seem divided by the second film (1992) in Michael Haneke’s deadpan, low-key Austrian trilogy (after The Seventh Continent, before 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance), about affectless contemporary violence. Some consider it an essential document of our time, while others (myself included) regard it as a letdown after its predecessor — overly familiar in its themes, though still somewhat potent in its depiction of an alienated 14-year-old boy from a well-to-do family who’s preoccupied with video technology and winds up committing a monstrous act. In some ways, the portrait of his parents is even more chilling. In German with subtitles. 105 min. (JR) Read more
Jacques Demy’s first and in some ways best feature (1961, 90 min.), shot in exquisite black-and-white ‘Scope by Raoul Coutard, is among the most neglected major works of the French New Wave. Abandoned by her sailor lover, a cabaret dancer (Anouk Aimee) brings up their son while awaiting his return and ultimately has to choose among three men. Chock-full of film references (to The Blue Angel, Breathless, Hollywood musicals, the work of Max Ophuls, etc) and lyrically shot in Nantes, the film is a camera stylo love letter, and Michel Legrand’s lovely score provides ideal nostalgic accompaniment. In his third feature and biggest hit, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Demy settled on life’s disappointments; here at least one major character gets exactly what she wants, and the effect is no less poignant. With Marc Michel, Jacques Harden, and Elina Labourdette (the young heroine in Robert Bresson’s 1945 Les dames du Bois de Boulogne). In French with subtitles. Music Box. Read more
A farm girl in premed studies (Julia Stiles) falls in love with the prince of Denmark (Luke Mably), who’s hiding out at her university after a long spell of goofing off, shortly before he’s expected to assume the throne. I dreaded the worst after seeing the trailer, but Martha Coolidge directs as if the characters were believable human beingsat least until the end, when Hollywood and fairy-tale conventions have to triumph over humanity and common sense. James Fox and Miranda Richardson play the prince’s parents. PG, 111 min. (JR) Read more
The British black-comedy classic (1955), about a gang of thieves who find lodging in the home of a little old lady, is improbably transmuted into Joel and Ethan Coen’s Greatest Hits (with a southern setting, slapstick accidental suicide, etc), suggesting they might better have started off from scratch. In place of Katie Johnson’s indestructible London senior we get Irma P. Hall as a hefty black matron in small-town Mississippi, and instead of Alec Guinness’s band of thieves we get a far more incompetent team of misfits headed by Tom Hanks (who adds a southern accent and an enjoyable if fussy spin to Guinness’s performance). The Coens’ lack of interest in Mississippi is moderated by a healthy appreciation of gospel music, but their smirking appreciation of stupidity extends to every character in the movie while including no one in the audience. With Marlon Wayans, J.K. Simmons, Tzi Ma, and Ryan Hurst. R, 104 min. (JR) Read more
This remarkable British silent (1929) is special in many ways. Directed by German master E.A. Dupont, with lavish sets and luscious cinematography by two of his compatriots, Alfred Junge and Werner Brandes, it charts the erotic hold of a Chinese beauty (Anna May Wong) over the owner of a palatial London nightclub (Jameson Thomas). He fires her as a dishwasher for distracting coworkers with her tabletop dancing, then hires her back as a featured performer, to the consternation of his mistress (Gilda Gray). Scripted by Zola-inspired novelist Arnold Bennett, with significant roles played by Cyril Ritchard and Charles Laughton, this is far ahead of its time in its treatment of both race and gender. Dupont has an original way of employing camera movement to suggest erotic chemistry between characters, and Wong, who even provoked a rave notice from Walter Benjamin, is as memorable and confident as Louise Brooks was in the films of G.W. Pabst, made around the same time. 92 min. (JR) Read more
No one seems to know how to filmand thereby appreciatethe surface of a pond, lake, river, or ocean quite like Alfred Guzzetti, a Cambridge-based experimental-documentary filmmaker who will present eight of his short works here. I’m tempted to call these films and videos meditative, because they all reflect on nature and various aspects of everyday life: a three-way intersection in Calcutta Intersection; motorists and cityscapes in The Tower of Industrial Life; the landscape, people, and weather of China in Under the Rain; the trees in Guzzetti’s backyard over many seasons in Chronological Order. But often intruding on this gaze are texts running across the screen that seem to carry with them all the complications of civilization. The shorts, made between 1978 and 2004, total 82 minutes. (JR) Read more
The Bush administration’s heartless and xenophobic new immigration policies, which often imply that we have more to fear from ordinary Muslims than from people like Timothy McVeigh, have had real human consequences, and this video documentary by Sree Nallamothu examines just a couple of cases. Focusing on the routine harassment of two north-side mena dancer and a father who came to the U.S. seeking medical care for his two blind childrenNallamothu shows how easily government resources can be wasted and innocent lives blighted once nationality and ethnicity are automatically treated with suspicion. 60 min. (JR) Read more
No one seems to know how to film–and thereby appreciate–the surface of a pond, lake, river, or ocean quite like Alfred Guzzetti, a Cambridge-based experimental-documentary filmmaker who will present eight of his short works here. I’m tempted to call these films and videos meditative, because they all reflect on nature and various aspects of everyday life: a three-way intersection in Calcutta Intersection; motorists and cityscapes in The Tower of Industrial Life; the landscape, people, and weather of China in Under the Rain; the trees in Guzzetti’s backyard over many seasons in Chronological Order. But often intruding on this gaze are texts running across the screen that seem to carry with them all the complications of civilization. The shorts, made between 1978 and this year, total 82 minutes, and Guzzetti is likely to have very interesting things to say about them. Gene Siskel Film Center. Read more
This remarkable British silent (1929) is special in many ways. Directed by German master E.A. Dupont, with lavish sets and luscious cinematography by two of his compatriots, Alfred Junge and Werner Brandes, it charts the erotic hold of a Chinese beauty (Anna May Wong) over the owner of a palatial London nightclub (Jameson Thomas). He fires her as a dishwasher for distracting coworkers with her tabletop dancing, then hires her back as a featured performer, to the consternation of his mistress (Gilda Gray). Scripted by Zola-inspired novelist Arnold Bennett, with significant roles played by Cyril Ritchard and Charles Laughton, this is far ahead of its time in its treatment of both race and gender. Dupont has an original way of employing camera movement to suggest erotic chemistry between characters, and Wong, who even provoked a rave notice from the great Walter Benjamin, is as memorable and confident as Louise Brooks was in the films of G.W. Pabst, made around the same time. 92 min. David Drazin will provide live piano accompaniment, and Graham Russell Gao Hodges, author of Anna May Wong: From Laundryman’s Daughter to Hollywood Legend, will introduce the Saturday and Sunday screenings. Gene Siskel Film Center. Read more
