These two remarkable Polish features were expanded by Krzysztof Kieslowski from his film The Decalogue, in which each segment illustrates one of the Ten Commandments; the complete series is one of the key works in contemporary world cinema. A Short Film About Killing (1987) might be called terminally Polish in its bleak handling of a brutal murder and the public execution of the murderer; winner of the jury prize at Cannes, it’s probably the most powerful movie ever made about the death penalty. A Short Film About Love (1988), located more centrally in the housing complex that recurrently appears throughout The Decalogue, is about the voyeuristic relationship between a troubled 19-year-old postal worker and a woman he spies on every night through his telescopea relationship that becomes more complex and takes on certain overtones recalling Rear Window once the woman becomes aware of his gaze and eventually decides to seduce him. (JR) Read more
Stephanie Black’s eye-opening 2001 documentary focuses on how the International Monetary Fund has devastated Jamaica’s agriculture and industry, but it also powerfully illustrates what globalization has been doing to underdeveloped countries around the world. An ideal companion to No Logo, Naomi Klein’s bible of the antiglobalization movement, the film shows in depressing detail how Jamaica’s independence from British rule in the early 60s only ripened it for new kinds of exploitation. The narration, adapted by Jamaica Kincaid from her 1988 book A Small Place and read by Belinda Becker, alternates with interviewees ranging from former prime minister Michael Manley to IMF deputy director Stanley Fischer; we also get a generous sampling of Jamaican music. 86 min. (JR) Read more
On the eve of the May 1968 demonstrations in Paris, a young American film freak (Michael Pitt) meets a vaguely incestuous French brother and sister (Louis Garrel and Eva Green) at the Cinematheque Francais and gets drawn into their perverse games, which involve sex as well as cinephilia. Less sexy, believable, literary, and transgressive than Gilbert Adair’s 1988 source novel The Holy Innocents, which he adapted for director Bernardo Bertolucci, this watchable if far-fetched movie (2003) is seriously marred by its three leads; only Garrel manages to suggest a person rather than a fashion model dutifully following instructions. And ironically, despite the nudity that provoked an NC-17 rating, the film suffers from its own censorship of the novel’s homosexual elements. 115 min. (JR) Read more
