Daily Archives: September 30, 2005

Keane

Clean, Shaven (1993), the debut feature of independent filmmaker Lodge Kerrigan, follows a schizophrenic back to his hometown, where he hopes to see his daughter. After a disappointing second feature (1998’s Claire Dolan), Kerrigan returns with his best work to date, at least in terms of narrative drive and suspense. It focuses on a man (Damian Lewis), who may or may not be schizophrenic, searching the New York Port Authority bus terminal and its immediate vicinity for his six-year-old daughter, who’s allegedly been abducted but may not even exist. When he eventually befriends a desperate young woman (Amy Ryan) with a six-year-old girl, our uncertainty naturally escalates. R, 90 min. (JR) Read more

El Dia Que Me Quieras And Eureka

Two fascinating 16-millimeter experimental films, both involving history. El dia que me quieras (1997, 30 min.), which translates as The Day You’ll Love Me, is by Argentinean-American Leandro Katz and mixes color with black and white in a poetic meditation on the famous 1967 photograph of Che Guevara’s corpse surrounded by his Bolivian captors. Its investigation is threaded through an extended contemporary interview with the photographer, Freddy Alborta, and a Jorge Luis Borges text adapted and read by Katz. Ernie Gehr’s Eureka (1974, 30 min.) unpacks and illuminates footage of San Francisco’s Market Street taken about a century ago. (JR) Read more