Clemens Klopfenstein’s evocative poetic fantasy proceeds with a highly illogical plot as if it were the most natural thing in the world. A Swiss philologist flying from Zurich to Stockholm suffers a plane crash, swims ashore, and finds himself in Macao, along with the plane’s pilot. After he tries repeatedly and unsuccessfully to phone his wife in Switzerland, he gradually realizes that he and the pilot are dead, and they attempt to escape from their affable oriental paradise. (His wife, meanwhile, discovers that the plane crashed into the Baltic Sea.) Vividly shot by Klopfenstein himself, this haunting and pleasurable Swiss drama has such a compelling mood that you can almost taste it; the dreamy night scenes, shot through a blue filter, convey some of the ambience of tinted silent films. With Max Ruedlinger, Christine Lauterburg, Hans-Dieter Jendreyko, and Shirley Wong (1988). (JR) Read more
Whatever else you might say about this weird, creepy, and funny independent item by Guy Maddin, it’s certainly different (1988). Although this is a black-and-white sound picture (with occasional sepia and tinting), the ambience is mainly neo-Nordic silent cinema crossed with surrealism; it’s basically played for deadpan laughs, with a fair amount of gore and black humor. Around the turn of the century two patients (Kyle McCulloch and Michael Gottli), who occupy adjacent beds at a primitive and impoverished hospital near Winnipeg, swap yarns about their lives, and strange coincidences coalesce from their separate stories. If you’re in search of something unusual, you should definitely check this out. With Angela Heck and Margaret-Anne MacLeod. 77 min. (JR) Read more
The Gene Siskel Film Center’s monthlong retrospective on French director Luc Moullet peaks this week with screenings of some of Moullet’s best work. Both parts of his career are represented–his neoprimitive beginnings, when he shamelessly flaunted his lack of money and technique while alluding to Hollywood genres (The Smugglers, A Girl Is a Gun), and his mature mastery as a comic performer and a director, when he pushed situations to hilarious extremes (The Comedy of Work, Opening Tries).
Shot in black and white, The Smugglers (1967, 81 min.) is the closest thing to a testament in Moullet’s oeuvre; despite some derisive allusions to adventure thrillers, the tone is closer to sweet-tempered absurdism, with throwaway gags about backpackers and imaginary borders in the French Alps. It screens with the miniature epic Opening Tries (1988, 15 min.), which shows Moullet’s baroque ingenuity at trying to remove a twist-off cap from a large bottle of Coke. (Sat 4/15, 5 PM, and Mon 4/17, 6 PM) The delirious and erotic color “western” A Girl Is a Gun (1971, 77 min.) is Moullet’s feature Une Aventure de Billy le Kid with funny English dubbing. Jean-Pierre Leaud and Rachel Kesterber costar with some scene-stealing landscapes. (Sat 4/15, 3 PM, and Wed 4/19, 6 PM)
The Comedy of Work (1987, 90 min.) Read more
