The unpredictable and provocative Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Tropical Malady) offers a mysterious and beautiful experimental feature (2006) based on memories of his parents, who were both doctors. It’s divided into two parts, both set in the present, with many rhyme effects between them. The first, set in and around a rural clinic, centers on his mother; the second, set in the vicinity of a Bangkok hospital, focuses on his father, though it’s a kind of quizzical remake of the first and both characters appear in each section. There’s nothing here that resembles narrative urgency, but this is a quiet masterpiece, delicate and full of wonder. In Thai with subtitles. 105 min. a Gene Siskel Film Center. Read more
French director Patrick Cazals will attend this screening of his excellent video documentaries Sergei Paradjanov, the Rebel (2004, 52 min.) and Rouben Mamoulian: The Golden Age of Broadway and Hollywood (2006, 63 min.), which look at two very different directors born in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. The Paradjanov portrait skimps on the more conventional early features, but it’s priceless for its interviews with the eccentric director (shot during production of his last feature, Ashik Kerib) and its sampling of the collages he produced during his long prison terms. The Mamoulian documentary also features fascinating interviews with its subject, covering both his stage and his movie work, and it confirms that Mamoulian, remembered mainly as a technical innovator, was an underrated and highly cultivated filmmaker. Clips are limited to trailers (from Mamoulian’s Becky Sharp and Blood and Sand) and audio from the directors’ features, but Cazals proves that excerpts aren’t essential if the insights are sufficiently sharp. In English and subtitled French and Armenian. a Wed 5/16, 6:30 PM, Gene Siskel Film Center. Read more
However great Julie Christie might be, she’s not generally regarded as a tragedienne. Yet after seeing this wonderful adaptation of Alice Munro’s story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain,” I began to think of Christie’s roles in Petulia (1968) and McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) as way stations toward this career-defining performance. She plays a stylish woman in a successful 44-year marriage who struggles to keep her dignity after finding herself afflicted with Alzheimer’s. The other leads (Michael Murphy, Olympia Dukakis, and Gordon Pinsent as Christie’s husband) are fine as well, but it’s Christie who places this powerful love story about the cruelties of aging within hailing distance of Leo McCarey’s sublime Make Way for Tomorrow. This is a film I expect to be carrying around with me for quite some time. Canadian actress Sarah Polley wrote and directed, in her feature debut. 110 min. Reviewed by J.R. Jones this week in Section 1. a Landmark’s Century Centre. Read more
