Never Coming to a Cinema Near You - Arthouse Cinema 2015

Latest Lav Diaz leviathan gets a NY showing Sunday

http://www.filmlinc.com/films/on-sale/from-what-is-before

not really feeling it. Labuza:

...the problem with Diaz is rarely the length, but always the failed drama. So this is par for the course: a masterful 3.5 hours of time, nature, only occasionally punishing, before it turns into a movie where everyone just decided to become evil and kill each other. Good looking digital black and white though.

didn't notice before i pasted Frederik's last title the double "cinema". So damn European.

Sorry... The Diaz is quite good, but his best film of 2014 was clearly the documentary Storm Children.

aw, i was gonna call this thread "everything that doesn't have a raccon in space"

The Diaz is quite good, but his best film of 2014 was clearly the documentary Storm Children.

showing at NYC MoMA this weekend, not sure I can get to it

It was my favourite film from 2014 seen in 2014. Won't be #1 on my list now (STRAY DOGS!) and it's the kind of film that might play completely different on a rewatch, but the memory of it keeps growing in my mind.

8 hours of Diaz in a weekend... That would be intense. I still don't know what I think about him, I'm not completely unsure he isn't a charlatan with occasional flashes of brilliance. Wasn't a huge fan of Norte, but man, was I tired.

i'm skeptical of the Slow Cinema & New Miserablism or whatever it is. not a big fan of Pedro Costa either.

but i guess it depends, i like lisandro alonso & (sometimes) tsai ming-liang.

'Slow cinema' surely covers Hou, Edward Yang, Straub & Huillet and many others - so I'm often on board w/it but its not always going to work, which it shouldn't.

This was also linked the 2014 thread (this is late, or slow :-)):

Harun Farocki season @ Goethe in Feb:

http://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/lon/ver/en13760253v.htm

Two programmes of Straub-Huillet in March:

http://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/lon/ver/en13760246v.htm

Some Duras coming along, unfortunately I have another thing to attend the same eve:

http://www.institut-francais.org.uk/cine-lumiere/whats-on/special-screenings/marguerite-duras-two-films-on-voice-image/

well i guess the /category/ "slow cinema" includes those guys, but they aren't all willfully difficult and opposed to the mainstream in the same way. Straub&Huillet are godfathers of this trend, I suppose. Hou birthed "Asian Minimalism" I suppose but his work seems to stand apart -- there's such so much going on.

I don't love it because it's slow or miserable. I love a film that plays out like a world, I love really getting to know a place, and the practices needed to make it work. I think that's why I love documentaries like Slow Children, or the new Harvard SEL thing Iron Ministry, or Wang Bing's stuff like Til Madness Do Us Part, or perhaps even Maidan. It's why In Vanda's Room and Colossal Youth, tracking Fontainhas and it's replacement buildings, function honestly quite a lot better than Horse Money, who's world seems too fake (though it did play better on a rewatch) I guess it's also why I can't stop thinking about the first half of From What Is Before, where it's world is sloooowly assembled, while I, when I think about it, have to agree that the second half might not be that good.

Straub-Huillet is at this point kinda like the holy grail for me, the filmmakers that I've heard the most fascinating, interesting things about, while never having been able to see one of their films. Farocki's Still Life is the only of his I've seen and it's very good. And I'm looking forward to hearing what people get out of Jauja. For a Dane, it's a pretty unique experience...

STORM Children, not Slow Children.

So what Costa does for me in Colossal Youth is to talk about immigration and displacement of people into poor areas. I suppose the thing is to then talk about how 'slow' adds or detracts from that. Similarly Tarr's films are always set in utter misery - but its a misery borne out of utter corruption.

I found Diaz in Norte to be surprisingly accessible if you compare this Dostoevsky to what the Straubs are doing in Conversations in Sicily or The Moon and the Bonfires.

Also iirc Touch of Sin had a couple of 'slow' moments integrated into the rest of the film.

What I've convinced myself I find riveting about Colossal Youth is the way it's use of light and shadow and digital imagery illustrates the fleeting nature of both the transitory immigrant experience as well as the painful, ghostlike, but also longed-for past. I don't know about the slowness, but I think many of the scenes needed to be quite still to make the shadow-play work.

I have a DVD but only watched it once - I need to see it in the big screen :-(

I think emotionally works when you see the worn down faces - Ranciere (who has written about this film) talks about the people as almost in a zombie-like state.

Thinking this could be analogous to Still Life by Sohrab Shahid-Saless, and that is from '74. That last shot and what Costa is doing isn't a million miles apart at all.

Yeah, there's an essay by Ranciere in the booklet to the MoC version of Colossal Youth that I have. Reread it a few days back, as I'm jotting some thoughts on Costa down at the moment, especially on his camera and on nostalgia. I'm thinking about him a lot. I would love to see the two first digital films on a big screen, but they are only available on 35mm and I honestly don't know if that's optimal. It might be too warm. I've seen Ceylan's Once Upon a Time in Anatolia twice on the big screen, once on DCP and once on 35mm and I honestly think it played better in digital.

Sohrab Shahid-Saless is copied to my list, then. Though - thread connections! - I don't have a list.

still life is a really beautiful film, as his the previous saless, a simple event. very hard to see, but I have copies if anyone is interested. i also have some really cruddy-looking copies of the some of the films once he left iran for germany (and in fact, one film is an iranian-german co-production) but i haven't the heart to watch them.

saless died young in chicago, but i don't know how he ended up there.

frederik are you french? there are several sets of straub-huillet films released on DVD in france, albeit with no subtitles save for French ones (on their films that are in Italian and German).

i have violently mixed feelings on Straub & Huillet. some of their radical posturing is almost laughable, frankly (that is, it's hard to take seriously the idea that their intensely forbidding/austere films contribute anything to the revolution) but there is often something very commanding, even hypnotic, about their best films.

i think of saless's two iranian features are basically carrying on from the premises of neorealism but pushing further in the direction of narrating non-events. kiarostami's work seems to stem from a similar premise at times, although his work is more eclectic. (though i have seen part of an early saless short that almost plays like something from sesame street, it's very different from the features.)

I'm Danish and my French is pathetic. Better than my German, though. It's one of my bigger failings as a very pro-continental European that I speak nothing but English.

I just bought the New Wave set of three Straub-Huillet films, though, was amazingly cheap on amazon. Apparantly, it's kinda a rubbish version, but oh well, the price was right.

Just so when we feel like talking about this again.

ILX Official Slow / Contemporary Contemplative Cinema Thread

I thought to compare Shahid-Saless to Costa because the 'character' seems very much phantom like. Costa's work in the Lisbon projects is neo-realistic too.

My favourite S-H is Too Early, Too Late.

But I saw Still life about five years ago on a late night showing on TV so..

Panahi wins the Bear! Prizes out of Berlin:

Golden Bear – Taxi by Jafar Panahi
Jury Grand Prix (Silver Bear) – The Club by Pablo Larraín
Alfred Bauer Prize (Silver Bear) – Ixcanul Volcano by Jayro Bustamante
Silver Bear for Best Director
- Radu Jude for Aferim!
- Małgorzata Szumowska for Body
Silver Bear for Best Actress – Charlotte Rampling for 45 Years
Silver Bear for Best Actor – Tom Courtenay for 45 Years
Silver Bear for Best Script – Patricio Guzmán for The Pearl Button
Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution for Cinematography
- Sturla Brandth Grøvlen for Victoria
- Sergey Mikhalchuk and Evgeniy Privin for Under Electric Clouds
Best First Feature Award – 600 Miles by Gabriel Ripstein

wow -- actor and actress a nod to the stylish sixties and seventies

I'm really hoping that Panahi's Taxi is a remake of the Queen Latifah remake.

It seems to have been a really great Berlinale this year, which is great for me, since Berlin is the only big festival before CPH:PIX, which means I get to see them soon! Many many of these I really look forward to. Also, I'm just going to go ahead and link to (a translation of) what I wrote about Closed Curtain in 2013.

I'm really hoping that Panahi's Taxi is a remake of the Queen Latifah remake.

― Eric H., Saturday, February 14, 2015 3:52 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i just hope there's a cameo from reverend jim

makhmalbaf's the president deserves more attention than it's had IMO. i put it as no. 1 in my ballot for the film poll on ILE.

hasn't shown up in the US. The Gardener barely did.

makhmalbaf's the president

(Hopefully) At yer local arthouse in '15

Did Panahi employ Brazilian models for Taxi remake?

Saw From What Is Before yesterday, which is maybe even better than Norte. The quote of the top of this thread is a cretinous and inaccurate caricature of the film's actual content. It's partly about a country hurtling towards a social/political 'cataclysm', so a sense of foreboding and impending tragedy is present almost from the start (like Dumont's L'il Quinquin, it also uses cattle mutilation to signify something rotten in the body politic) and given the historical backdrop - the declaration of martial law by Marcos in 1972 - it's not exactly unexpected that things end pretty unhappily for most of the main characters, or that economic and political oppression makes many of them act 'badly' (or at least unwisely).

I quite like the fact that Diaz is something of a divisive figure, but his eye for landscape, his ear for the sounds of nature, seem to me undeniable, and not the work of a bullshitter or a charlatan. His credit at the end reads Produced.Directed.Written.Edited.Photographed - so I think he means it, man.

re: Diaz. It seems - from a couple of reviews I've seen - that people are trying to reconcile themselves to the fact he is not going to be making eight hour plus epics that cannot be screened anywhere but festivals anymore. And I'm guessing that if you are someone who is making things that are much shorter that certain elements yer bog standard art house reviewer is expecting to find will be missing. Looks like Diaz is also challenging himself by doing this although I haven't read any interviews.

Certainly look forward to seeing more.

also uses cattle mutilation to signify something rotten in the body politic

This was used quite often in art cinema in the 70s wasn't it? I was trying to get a list of these for an ILF poll.

The Straub link above didn't have its programme published when I linked. I thought it would be old films but its actually Straub's new film (programme 2) so really looking forward to catching it.

What I wrote about From What is Before in january.

I don't think the quote at top is entirely untrue, what I can't forget of FWiB is def the 'masterful 3.5 hours of time, nature'. The way all the characters come together in the first part, some of them wandering out of the wilderness, like wandering out of pre-history, while others - religion! - arrive by boat from the outside. That shot where the healers come wandering along the mountain. And the dancing!

Coincidentally, I finally got that Straub-Huillet dvd I ordered due to this thread. Haven't had a chance to watch it yet. Isn't that exciting information?

Sissako's Timbuktu is certainly worth seiing, but i don't find the filmmaking as forceful as it should be at times. The violence only does upsets once or twice.

sorry about my mangled autoedits

There's Harvard SEL films at DAFilm until March 29th. Manakamana! Iron Ministry! Leviathan, apparantly, at some point.

http://dafilms.com/event/203-sensory_ethnography_lab/

Also, Copenhagen Architecture Festival, where I work, begin this thursday, if anyone happens to be in Copenhagen... We have a clash I'm pretty proud of, showing Pedro Costa's Colossal Youth, Jonas Mekas' As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty and a talk on West-African cinema with short by Djibril Diop Mambety at the same time. Now, I'm 'proud' even though it's not me that have curated it, but still. That's some good films showing at the same time in Copenhagen!

things get serious in NYC this week: Jauja, Amour Fou, La Sapienza all opening.

Yeah, that's a good week. All of those are must sees, btw. Especially Amour Fou.

i don't have time for all 3 in one week(end), so two better run awhile.

OK, Amour Fou might be the best new film i've seen in a year and a half.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFZ51k96r4U

whew!

This has already been released on disc in the UK. I must've missed whatever theatrical run it had here.

I was one of about 3 people laughing in the theater at the best joke.

Ward, It was on the GFT for a few showings immediately prior to the GFF

really need to see amour fou

would love to hear what you thought of the eugene green, frederik; i liked it but remember leaving the theatre just overwhelmed by what digital had done to his style

& congrats on your programming, too. seeing as i was moving ahead in a theatre was really revelatory for me; are you pitching it as having a pronounced architectural bent? i can see it.

jed - thanks, then I definitely missed it - think I was annoyed that it wasn't a new print of Rivette's Amour Fou!

Missed it too :-(

This is a free screen of it @ the austrian cultural institute, might be my last chance to catch it in a screen that is bigger than a laptop.

http://www.acflondon.org/film/cineclub/amour-fou

Amour Fou is also running in LA... and opening in Miami, Seattle etc next month. Looks done in NY after tomorrow tho, which would be atrocious.

http://www.filmmovement.com/theatrical/index.asp?MerchandiseID=400

(Hausner's 2010 film Lourdes is also well worth seeing, but didn't prepare me for this.)

@schlump: If you're interested in all the premieres, it's Jauja, Amour Fou and La Sapienza. The short version of La Sapienza is that I had no idea who Green was, and was very positively surprised by the film, even though I thougth it was a bit old fashioned and that it's themes have bene pondered better other places recently. Of course, it being about architects discussing architecture, I am quite receptive to all that stuff after having worked at CAF a couple of years.

And thanks! We had a great weekend, though I only managed to see the films at the place I worked at. Jean Rouch' Petit a Petit is pretty great, and I need to see more Raymond Depardon. The Mekas belonged to a category on 'nostalgia' on how time and longing infects our surroundings - we also showed Colossal Youth in that category. I got to see half an hour of the film, and I need to see it, but it'll be on a screening link plugged into my tv. Sigh.

Also, so glad you liked Amour Fou, Morbs! I'm really looking forward to rewatching that at PIX next month, and rumours have it it will get distributed here sometime this summer. I could see it a lot of times. I love how so many of the images are ever so slightly off-kilter, as if the servants have made up the houses completely symmetrical, but then the inhabitants have moved all the chairs just a bit. There is just an amazing mood in that film.

also the Vermeerish color and lighting... there's a cut to a robin's egg-blue room at one point that looks animated for a couple of seconds. Def put me in mind of Rohmer too.

oh, wow, i'd forgotten hausner made lourdes. with elina lowensohn! i liked it.

& thanks for the la sapienza rundown. his very distinct mode comes across even more interestingly & surprisingly in the portuguese nun, i think.

http://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/lon/ver/en13760070v.htm

Really hope to see The State I am in. Goethe is the best value for money cinema in London. Three quid a pop.

The only Hausner I've seen is Hotel - wasn't that impressed, but this looks great. Helps that I've read some von Kleist back in December.

This film might inspire some HvK book burnings.

thanks for posting about those screenings

hotel wasn't that good, but lourdes was really powerful (and also oddly funny in places)

new curzon bloomsbury (ie the old renoir) is opening this week btw, lots of smaller screens with the aim of letting films play for longer apparently (ie more chance of catching something like amour fou), though im not that big a fan of tiny 40-50 people cinemas, they all seem to have little care spent on their design (eg the bfi studio which is quite a bad place to watch anything i find)

so has anyone seen Jauja? Looks like the last day in NYC...

This film might inspire some HvK book burnings.

Haha. But, no. His stories are still great.

Really hope to see The State I am in.

Ooh, don't miss Gespenster, if you haven't already seen it. That and Jerichow are both better than State.

I'm at CPH:PIX so I'm blogging about films again. Yesterday it was Hill of Freedom by Hong Sang-soo, Greenery Will Bloom Again by Ermanno Olmi and Da Sweet Blood of Jesus by Spike Lee. The new Hong was a slight dissapointment, while the other two were positive surprises. But, uhm, the Hong was still by far the best one... I'll mostly write in Danish this time, but every now and then I'll do English-language posts, if anyone's interested.

I want one of those jobs where you travel around to festivals and figure out what's best for the festival at home.

just loved the hong

Preferred Our Sunhi last year. But I'm def a fan.

http://www.goethe.de/ins/gb/lon/ver/en13760070v.htm

Really hope to see The State I am in. Goethe is the best value for money cinema in London. Three quid a pop.

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 24 March 2015 11:38 (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes actually, i've gotten on this lately and there is literally nowhere decent although the LA rebellion season at tate modern looks worth it, i've been wanting to see bush mama and the burnett films for quite a while and also £5 but honestly seeing films in london is really difficult and disheartening and the bfi rarely helps

heyo plax!

HALLO

the rio is great, if confined to the bigger arthouse releases out at the time - their double bills are usually fun/good

the la rebellion season is looking excellent, cant believe billy woodberry's movies have not been picked up by the bfi (though the sunday seminar event was a bit shabby); tate and ica prob best places for experimental stuff

tate never shows films though it is v irritating why do they even have a screening room

I know I'm not an impartial observer, but Danish film is kinda ridiculously strong at the moment - as in, some very good films by coincidence are premiering these few months. In Your Arms by Samanou Acheche Sahlstrøm won the big prize at Gothenburg. Bridgend by Jeppe Rønde has just premiered here in competition at PIX and will premiere in Britain soon and is dark and tough and beautiful. And best of all is Limbo by Anna Sofie Hartmann, also at PIX, who has been educated by the Berlin Filmschool, and whose film should be sought out by everyone who liked Strange Little Cat and Amour Fou.

And all those three are debut features! That is very very unique for Danish film, that three such great debut features will premiere in such a short span of time. Feels good!

well, haven't even read about em here.

whoa awesome that the la rebellion series is touring internationally! some amazing stuff there

i saw 'jauja' last year, was sort of on the fence about it tbh

I did see Jauja the other night, 6/10

i'm slightly confused about why the la rebellion thing is at the tate, its being funded by some evil sounding swiss cultural institute

i dunno but one issue i have with programmes like LA rebellion and when they had the anand pathwardhan season last year is that it becomes stuck into this art film context when actually, these films (and anands) are far, far more than just art films - they are bigger than that, but you wouldnt know from the way they are contextualised, discussed and presented (at least to my eyes). the discussions between those putting them on and the filmmakers are interesting but also kind of lame, like theres something obvious not really being spoken about.

but hey, at least i get to see them.

well, haven't even read about em here.

― the increasing costive borborygmi (Dr Morbius), 15. april 2015 03:33 (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Right, and you'll probably have to wait for a long time, if they ever come to the states... It's not just that they're small Danish productions, but also that nothing in the Danish system seems prepared for a film like Limbo. It's produced by the Berlin Film School, made with amateur volunteers, and while critics seem to like that it's different, they also seem kinda confused - if they choose to review it at all. It might never get anywhere. But it's really exciting for me to see Denmark portrayed in this way, hopefully it's the beginning of something more.

Really hope to see The State I am in.

Ooh, don't miss Gespenster, if you haven't already seen it. That and Jerichow are both better than State.

― Cherish, Thursday, April 9, 2015 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

State I am in was great! I am seeing Gespenster tonight and Yella on Friday.

Unfortunately can't see Jerichow as I already have other plans. Hmm...maybe my friend can be persuaded.

I am checking out The Austrian Cultural Institute and hopefully the Japanese Embassy - free screenings in both. (I need to check on the Korean institute actually.)

ICA 6 quid on a Tuesday. BFI still a reasonable tenner.

Curzon is dead although Blooms has that doc slot for 8 quid.

plax(ico) - first you are saying "tate never shows films though it is v irritating why do they even have a screening room" then you are confused by la rebellion thing. You do know most of these screenings and seasons at most arthouse cinemas are funded by national cultural institutions - some of which may or may not be 'evil'?!

Sorry for the multiple posts I'm just catching up:

i dunno but one issue i have with programmes like LA rebellion and when they had the anand pathwardhan season last year is that it becomes stuck into this art film context when actually, these films (and anands) are far, far more than just art films - they are bigger than that, but you wouldnt know from the way they are contextualised, discussed and presented (at least to my eyes). the discussions between those putting them on and the filmmakers are interesting but also kind of lame, like theres something obvious not really being spoken about.

but hey, at least i get to see them.

― StillAdvance, Wednesday, April 15, 2015 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So Indian and Japanese film festivals we spoke about are ok but those seasons at the Tate aren't? Seriously what do you think is "not being spoken about"? The film selections are jut as interesting as BFI and actually they show ppl like Costa (which BFI don't seem to want to fuck with), they have discussion to contextualise, with Q&A if you want to ask and challenge. The sad thing is Pathwardhan iirc used to show his films/docs on C4 in the 80s early 90s and now he cannot, so there is a marginalization. At least Tate are helping out, so "getting to see them" isn't this thing to leave in the margins.

http://londonkoreanlinks.net/2015/04/06/korean-novels-on-screen/

Could be good.

calm down. i never said i didnt want them to show them, im very happy that they do, but that i dont much like placing it in a purely art context is all. its something anand said himself (as well as wondering whether the tate was reaching the audience he wanted to) - i mean, kodwo eshun is a brilliant thinker, but he prefers to think of things in theoretical terms by and large (often very imaginatively) but i dont think films like burnett or woodberrys - while there is a lot to dissect - should really be viewed purely in that way. its interesting in a sense, as now these films dont have to carry the burden of racial/identity politics EXCLUSIVELY and can be viewed as the work of artists, which i definitely like, im just not that keen on making it one or the other. i suppose its not so much the branding or marketing that i am talking about but its in the Q&As after that it seems that way.

"So Indian and Japanese film festivals we spoke about are ok but those seasons at the Tate aren't?"

no idea how you deduced this btw

and yes, Q&As afford the chance to say what i want, but the fact is if you have curators and people delivering seminars, you kinda expect them to cover some of the ground for the audience.

I don't think its placing it in a 'purely art context'. Over the last few years there is less and less space for these kinds of films to be shown in the cinema or TV and galleries/museums are taking that on. So I think you get people who like cinema more in galleries (I watch far more films than exhibitions/follow more erm static visual arts).

I don't think Kodwo or anybody's intro to any films at the Tate will be swallowed uncritically by the audience (you are questioning it) and I doubt Kodwo is one to go 'my reading of this is THE reading of it'.

plax(ico) - first you are saying "tate never shows films though it is v irritating why do they even have a screening room" then you are confused by la rebellion thing. You do know most of these screenings and seasons at most arthouse cinemas are funded by national cultural institutions - some of which may or may not be 'evil'?!

― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, 15 April 2015 13:11 (6 hours ago) Permalink

I mean I know probably way more than I would like to about the relationships between cultural institutions and distribution companies and art spaces and etc. but it is still baffling to me that a swiss cultural institute is showing a UCLA archive curated batch of American independent films in London. of course its true that in London everything has some official cultural capital from like the French cultural institute or Austrian film bureau or something. (although this is simply not the case in smaller cities and this has explicitly to do with how hyper commercial London or other large metropolitan centres are). I honestly could not care less about seeing these films in art or cinema contexts and whether or not kodwo eshun talks beforehand, so long as there's an opportunity to see good films and they are not as prohibitively expensive as the BFI. there's a lot on this month, much more than I can go to and a lot of it clashes but sometimes I do struggle to find interesting things on although the Goethe has been particularly good lately esp the farocki/straub-huillet screenings last month.

I do wish that film intros could be kept much shorter than they usually are. the only exception is when I saw Chantal Ackermann do a Q&A last year at the ICA which was very funny and very interesting.

Just come back from Goethe - what an incredible filmmaker Petzhold is. I thought he was good but not THIS good.

I was at that one and yes Akerman was great - it did have an unplanned and chaotic feel and she is no wannabe theorist so that made it for something quite special.

But actually the Akerman screening w/an intro by Olaf Möller was possibly better - there was engagement, warmth, humour and snatches of criticism and structure, which kept it to a reasonable length.

I know they are of varying quality.

Just come back from Goethe - what an incredible filmmaker Petzhold is. I thought he was good but not THIS good.

Yep! Gespenster's my favorite. :)

For those of us who missed the Chytilova:

http://london.czechcentres.cz/programme/travel-events/the-traveling-retrospective-show-vera-chytilova/

...season at the BFI.

Typical, not making it to the Glasgow Film Theatre. They probably have to show It's A Wonderful Fucking Life another 300 times.

IaWLife is worth seeing but not worth seeing more than once every two decades; kinda weird how this generally angry death fantasy became a holiday family favorite

covering up anger and desperation, that universal holiday feelin'

Yeah I'm going to the chytilová season for sure, can't wait

Saw the Chytilova screenings a few weeks back, indeed great. Waiting to bump into xyzzzz at one of these viewings. His next chance is in half an hour, at Freak Scene. Dare he?

Denys Irving's 'Exit' is...fuck

saw the first ever screening of this film, presumed lost - a psychotic, anti-philosophical cry for help, an affirmation of the abyss, a murderous and intense headlong dive into the cultural revolution, finding only sadness, high speed and contempt

utterly singular & perhaps brilliant. made me feel truly frightened.

makes pejoratives like 'amoral' or 'pretentious' fairly moot - it is not concerned with how we feel

Rewatched Amour Fou today. Got even more out of it, so many layers, and so wonderfully constructed. It will get distribution in Denmark in june, can't wait to see it again.

A screening and discussion with Jeff Krulik, director of "Heavy Metal Parking Lot"

Date: Tuesday, April 28th
Time: 8pm

Location: Morbid Anatomy Museum, 424 Third Avenue, 11215 Brooklyn

In 2003, The Travel Channel commissioned a one hour documentary on circus sideshows that was rarely screened after completion. Tonight, join filmmaker Jeff Krulik--director of the legendary "Heavy Metal Parking Lot"--as he introduces and presents outtakes and unseen footage from the endless hours he recorded for the documentary, entitled "Traveling Sideshow: Shocked and Amazed," which was based on James Taylor's "Shocked and Amazed! On & Off The Midway."

Along with Jenni Olson's hourlong The Royal Road (Junipero Serra, manifest destiny, El Camino Real, Vertigo, the pining of a butch dyke), I saw two newish Mark Rappaport video essays on cinema and its signifiers, Becoming Anita Ekberg and The Vanity Tables of Douglas Sirk, mentioned below. He has a still newer one. I, Dalio, on the great French actor. (All three available on Fandor.)

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/image-and-voice-the-audiovisual-essays-of-mark-rappaport

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/how-the-video-essays-of-mark-rappaport-break-through-movies

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/sundance-2015-the-storied-path-to-the-royal-road

https://vimeo.com/116711175

Found Amour Fou hard going myself, even if enjoying some of the almost painterly compositions.

(Caught the Austrain Cultural Institute free showing this evening)

I found the chairs hard going.

Was also there (hi ledge!)...yes its a funny place to have a screening. A bit cramped, if people get up they can block the projector.

Loved Amour Fou a lot though. And it was a great place to enjoy the German granny telling von Kleist that his story was nonsense and that she "loved Goethe more". Got the loudest laughs!

Was that the 'best joke' referred to by Dr Morbius above, I wonder.

Morbs - please confirm.

royal road is such a pile of ass, saw it at the london lgbt film festival, preferred the bob mizer dvd they showed

tell us how u really feel, plax.

no, i was thinking of that aristo woman's line to vK about "life is meaningless but don't take it so seriously"

i'd go to the straub/huillet if i didn't already have matinee theatre tickets that day but a tip off to those that hadn't spotted this

http://am-london.tumblr.com/events

Thanks plax(ico) I'll try and make that.

http://www.regentstreetcinema.com/

this is basically the new riverside (same programmer). definitely going to go just to see what the actual place is like now.

From the dbl bills (Diary of a Chambermaid/Duke of Burgundy!) this looks interesting.

riverside always did good doubles... nice to see a place like this in central london too.

These are more interesting, usually dbl bills at Riverside were two films by the same director. This one is aiming at making connections. 15 quid per dbl bill isn't bad either.

not really. its about the same mix of director and thematic doubles from the looks of things.

I don't recall seeing anything but [x auteur] dbl bill @ Riverside, and always old films.

ok Frederik... anything on this Argentine guy Rejtman?

http://www.filmlinc.com/films/series/sounds-like-music-the-films-of-martin-rejtman

Oh, that's probably why Filmcomment had this article: http://www.filmcomment.com/article/martin-rejtman-two-shots-fired-dos-disparos

I knew nothing about him before I read that article. Actually, I knew nothing about Argentine cinema before 2001. I was thinking of starting a new thread, because I find it so weird. Nothing, no film at all, that I'd heard about before 01, and all of a sudden it's a major hotbed of cinema. That's weird. Iran or Romania, there's a couple old films I've heard about. Nothing in Argentina. Tell me if they're good, especially Rapado!

Also, anyone up for a thread on Argentine cinema? They're having a good year. The new Pineiro is good, and two films called Parabellum and Dog Lady was some of the best surprises at the latest PIX. There's a few films of a guy called Mauro Andrizzi up for stream at DAfilm: http://dafilms.com/event/208-mauro_andrizzi/ Seems kinda interesting. Anybody have some good articles/books on what happened that made Argentina great all of a sudden?

I found Two Shots very droll, but also frustratingly mysterious. (It's probably the most Madness of Mobile Phones-centric film I've yet seen; they ring throughout, and pretty much nothing gets communicated.) Rejtman did a Q&A, emphasizing how slowly he writes and works.

roundup:

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-sounds-like-music-the-films-of-martin-rejtman

This is the only pre-2001 Argentinian movie that comes to mind:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Official_Story

well Rejtman's debut Rapado was '92, apparently got some attention.

Halfway point poll. Multiplex wins decisively:

http://www.indiewire.com/survey/the-best-films-of-2015-so-far/best-film/

aside from Duke of Burgundy, feel like i haven't missed anything.

(Amour Fou and Gueros at the top for me)

Locarno Lineup:

Concorso Internazionale:

BELLA E PERDUTA by Pietro Marcello
BRAT DEJAN (Brother Dejan) by Bakur Bakuradze
CHEVALIER by Athina Rachel Tsangari
COSMOS by Andrzej Zulawski
ENTERTAINMENT by Rick Alverson
HAPPY HOUR by Ryusuke Hamaguchi
HEIMATLAND by Lisa Blatter, Gregor Frei, Jan Gassmann, Benny Jaberg, Carmen Jaquier, Michael Krummenacher, Jonas Meier, Tobias Nölle, Lionel Rupp, Mike Scheiwiller
JAMES WHITE by Josh Mond
JIGEUMEUN MATGO GEUTTAENEUN TEULLIDA (Right Now, Wrong Then) by HONG Sangsoo
MA DAR BEHESHT (Paradise) by Sina Ataeian Dena
NO HOME MOVIE by Chantal Akerman
O FUTEBOL by Sergio Oksman
SCHNEIDER VS. BAX by Alex van Warmerdam
SUITE ARMORICAINE by Pascale Breton
SULANGA GINI ARAN (Dark in the White Light) by Vimukthi Jayasund4ra
TE PROMETO ANARQUÍA by Julio Hernández Cordón
THE SKY TREMBLES AND THE EARTH IS AFRAID AND THE TWO EYES ARE NOT BROTHERS by Ben Rivers
TIKKUN by Avishai Sivan

Concorso Cineasti del presente:

DEAD SLOW AHEAD by Mauro Herce
DER NACHTMAHR by AKIZ
DOM JUAN by Vincent Macaigne
DREAM LAND by Steve Chen
EL MOVIMIENTO by Benjamín Naishtat
KEEPER by Guillaume Senez
LE GRAND JEU by Nicolas Pariser
LES ÊTRES CHERS by Anne Émond
LU BIAN YE CAN (Kaili Blues) by BI Gan
MOJ BRATE – MIO FRATELLO by Nazareno Manuel Nicoletti
OLMO & THE SEAGULL by Petra Costa, Lea Glob
SIEMBRA by Ángela Osorio Rojas, Santiago Lozano Álvarez
THE WAITING ROOM by Igor Drljaca
THITHI by Raam Reddy

Not as cool as last year, but new Akerman, Warmerdam, Rivers, Hong, Naishtat and Tsangari is cool. And Happy Hour by Hamaguchi is six-and-a-half hours long, so that's cool.

Stations of the Cross, anyone? Its austerity impressed Schrader.

http://www.littlewhitelies.co.uk/theatrical-reviews/stations-of-the-cross-28544

Alverson seems destined to make the same movie over and over but I am p into that movie

I saw it a couple weeks back. Loved it. Lead performance and the long shots are hard to deny.

Venice lineup:

Frenzy (Emin Alper, Turkey/France/Qatar)
Heart of a Dog (Laurie Anderson, US)
Blood of My Blood (Marco Bellocchio, Italy)
Looking for Grace (Sue Brooks, Australia)
Equals (Drake Doremus, US)
Remember (Atom Egoyan, Canada/Germany)
Beasts of No Nation (Cary Fukunaga, US)
Per amor vostro (Giuseppe M. Gaudino, Italy/France)
Marguerite (Xavier Giannoli, France/Czech Republic/Belgium)
Rabin, the Last Day (Amos Gitai, Israel/France)
A Bigger Splash (Luca Guadagnino, Italy/France)
The Endless River (Oliver Hermanus, South Africa/France)
The Danish Girl (Tom Hooper, UK/US)
Anomalisa (Charlie Kaufman/Duke Johnson, US)
L'attesa (Piero Mesina, Italy)
11 Minutes (Jerzy Skolimowski, Poland)
Francofonia (Aleksandr Sokurov, France/Germany/Netherlands)
The Clan (Pablo Trapero, Argentina/Spain)
Desde alla (Lorenza Vigas, Venezuela/Mexico)
L'hermine (Christian Vincent, France)
Behemoth (Zhao Liang, China/France)

Docs from Wiseman, Loznitsa and Tsai out of competition is very exciting. And Danish filmmedia is excited that Tobias Lindholm's (A Hijacking) new film A War is in Horizons. Though six months ago they were complaining he wasn't in competition at Cannes, and now the side-competition at Venice is ever so prestigious. Danish filmmedia is weird.

Schrader and stations of the cross go together like a horse and carriage

cool, didn't know there was a new skolimowski

The Indian film Court (ludicrous trial of an elderly protest singer for abetting a suicide through music): understated, funny, angry, little speechifying (even by lawyers).

(Venice prizewinner last year, i think?)

Drake Doremus must be the worst working filmmaker alive

Raves abound for Petzold's Phoenix but I found his last one just OK, so I'm a bit skeptical.

I didn't like it anywhere as much as Barbara.

It's a good genre piece, with a great ending. I'm watching a lot of the old Petzold, and the thing is that he just straight up copies old films and stories and twists them into a German context. Phoenix is basically Vertigo as a rubble film. Which is cool. But aesthetically, it's nothing special.

yeah it's a pulp movie done arty.

Yup. And it's perhaps not very good art, but it's thoughtful pulp. His film Jerichow is just a remake of The Postman Rings Twice, but it's twisted into telling a story about immigration to Germany. I like that style, just doing old and wellknown stories, but using that framework to make new images of your country. Plus it never gets too pretentious, I don't think, which is always a danger with this sort of thing.

after using actors last time, Jem Cohen has a new one more in line with his previous work, which i will likely see tonight as i have little faith it will run more than a week in NY.

http://www.ifccenter.com/films/counting/

i need to get out to that quick myself!

Didn't much care for Jerichow but liked Barbara, which puts me in a good place for Phoenix.

has anyone seen Hard To Be A God?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11sMDQIgggA

i'm not sure i could bear 3 hours of that level of grotesquerie but the FT called it "maybe the greatest film since the millennium began."

I'm really looking forward to it.

And I haven't seen anything that unpleasant in the trailers.

I wrote about it here: http://centrifugue.blogspot.dk/2014/04/cphpix-day-9-hard-to-be-god-road-to.html

It's definitely bewildering and weird and filled with nastyness, but it's cool.

I need to see it again.

it's an experience.
On netflix instant if you have a 12 foot wide television

too muddy and monotonous

Frederik B - just read your review, I'm curious why you and another reviewer I'd seen refer to the black and white being part of the film's difficulty. I wouldn't think this should be an issue for critics, so are you just talking about things that put off casual filmgoers?

Yeah. Probably. Normally something like that wouldn't bother me, it's only the length, the mud, the blood and the impenetrability of the plot which caused I minor headache. And festival sleep deprivation, of course. I want to go to another film festival soon. I wish I was at Locarno. The new Zulawski is supposedly quite cool.

Hard to be a God also b/w in an unusual way, have people seen A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night? That one is b/w in the most modern way possible, almost like Sin City. I liked it. A friend dismissed it as being a 90 minute American Apparel commercial, which is pretty much what I like about it.

I love Possession but I was disappointed by pretty much every other Zulawski film I tried (still three I haven't seen though but I stopped trying).

Not bothering with Girl Walks Home At Night. Same with It Follows. I've learned to trust my "I probably won't like that much" sense more often.

Well, I haven't seen It Follows, but from what I've heard it's a straight up horror film. Girl Walks Home is only horror the same way something like Bande a Part is a crime flick. It's all about the pictures, and the sexy young people, and the dancing. It's not the best film ever, but it's cool.

it follows is a fakeout horror film. Girl Walks Home is a drama with a vampire. hard to be a god is snorting pixie stix while someone dangles chicken feet in front of your eyes.
all three aren't flawless but all three are well worth seeing.

Haven't seen them yet but Hard To Be A God and Tale Of Tales are firmly in the "Finally! Something for me!" zone. Even if they end up boring me a bit.

Hard To Be A God actually looks a bit like Zulawski's On The Silver Globe.

Sounds good with Tale of Tales! Looking forward to that one.

Hong Sang-soo wins Golden Leopard. Zulaswski Best Director. Script and Actress goes to Japanese five-hour film Happy Hour.

http://www.pardolive.ch/pardo/pardo-live/today-at-festival/2015/day-11/LOC68-Palmares/palmares-2015.html

on the Hong film (hope to see it at NYFF)

https://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-locarno-2015-hong-sang-soos-right-now-wrong-then

He has sorta been on a roll this decade. Though I wasn't as big a fan of Hill of Freedom as many others, and prefer him when he's at his most loose and least willfully experimental. But Our Sunhi and Nobody's Daughter Haewon were great examples of that as well.

Last three Leopard winners: Albert Serra, Lav Diaz, Hong Sang-soo. That's pretty good. Much better than any of the big three festivals, imo.

Neil Young points out on twitter, that Hong has made three films with jury-member Moon So-ri. Locarno has been accused of nepotism before as well. But they consistently award great films, so I guess I'm ok with it.

I recommend The Mend, one of the livelier films ever about adult brothers -- kinda True West in whitepeople Harlem -- men together, acting in utterly disgusting primal ways. Also a career performance by sex machine Josh Lucas!

http://www.slantmagazine.com/features/article/interview-josh-lucas

Queen of Earth was...I'm not sure what it was, but it ruffled my feathers slightly.

just saw a v funny pan on Letterboxd that put me off watching it, for now

Which one?

it was Simon Abrams'

I wish Perry was able to synthesize his influences into something that didn't feel like a collection of neat stuff. And good god, stop it with the fucking extreme close-ups. We get it, Cassavetes is your homeboy.

Alternatively: WORST GRIM AND GRITTY WHAT ABOUT BOB REBOOT EVER!

I mean, seriously, how do you fuck up a film that, on paper, could be described as "Elizabeth Moss plays Klaus Kinski in: Daughter of Repulsion and Deathtrap?"

No red flags in that review for me.

but those are not favorable comparisons he's offering.

(admittedly none of that stuff rings my bell particularly except a couple JC films, and i have to see What About Bob)

Just watched Hard To Be A God. As impressively realised as the world is (which makes it worth watching, it really is a big achievement in this aspect), I did find most of the duration quite dull but always visually interesting enough.

Hey, has anyone seen Time Out of MInd starring Richard Gere and written/directed by Oren Moverman (screenwriter of I'm Not There, Rampart, The Messenger, Jesus' Son)?

It's showing at a suburban arthouse near me and I hope to catch it, especially after reading these reviews:

http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/time-out-of-mind/Film?oid=19116458

Richard Gere stars as an elderly man forced out on the streets of New York City. There isn't much more to the story than that, but for the talented writer-director Oren Moverman (The Messenger, Rampart) it's more than enough. Like no other movie I've seen, this communicates the nothingness of being homeless: the empty days, the banal conversations with fellow losers, the crushing tedium of walking the streets or riding the subway with nowhere to go. The movie was a passion project for Gere, who's had a rough time in Hollywood since aging out of the silver-haired-romance parts; he delivers a sober, subdued, resolutely unglamorous performance. Ben Vereen shines as the Gere character's cagey street buddy of necessity, and there are unobtrusive cameos from Steve Buscemi, Kyra Sedgwick, and Michael Kenneth Williams.

http://www.vulture.com/2015/09/movie-review-time-out-of-mind.html

It's on pay per view but haven't bothered b/c Gere is homeless.

CPH:DOX is showing Wang Bing's West of the Tracks during the festival, and I can't make it :( But other than that, there's the new films by Miguel Gomes - all three parts of Arabian Nights will be shown in a row on a saturday - Zhao Liang, Guerin, Loznitsa, Gitai, Castaing-Taylor, Rivers, Anderson and Wiseman. As well as old stuff by Denis, Rivette, Weerasethakul, and loads of others. I'm unsure how I'll ever fit in all the good stuff, but yeah.

Saw Field Niggas last night in Brooklyn. Remarkable hourlong doc/street portraiture shot entirely at 125th & Lex, keep an eye out. (Given a boost by the True/False fest and erstwhile ILXor Tape Store last spring; see interview below.)

http://nymediacenter.com/events/event/?id=E970FD8D-3799-449C-A91854CC81923AB4&slugid=ifp-screen-forward-presents-field-niggas

http://truefalse.org/news/stimulating-life-a-conversation-with-khalik-allah-of-field-niggas/

the times loved it; i'd really like to see it.

Ilx needs to see the new Porumboiu, I think a lot of you would love it. Exactly the film I needed from him after his last two nearly collapsed under their layers of meaning; this time it's just an exquisitely filmed yarn which refuses to give up it's idleminded yarniness. And the final sequence is sheer perfection, in such an ilx way.

I've also seen the other big Romanian film of the year Aferim! which is also very good and beautiful. A black and white western but otherwise quite typical Romanian...

v hyped for the treasure! seeing next week. interesting hearing you describe the last as collapsing; it felt so diffuse & wide-ranging as to just be like pleasant and absorbing, for me, like just kinda zen & spacious.

I did def like When Evening Falls on Bucharest, but it had so much going on, meta-layers, discussions, film style that did or didn't live up to what the director said, that it was almost too much for me. It was quite a short film for so much information. And coming after a four year wait, I would have been disappointed if that was his new style. The Second Game was just crazy, a single metaphor - rules of football = rules of society, as also seen briefly in Police, Adjective - explored through the most boring example ever... Porumboiu is probably my favorite youngish European director right now, and I love how each of his films adds so much to the discussion of his themes, but I needed a breather, I think. These last two were also bordering on self-parody, and I think that this latest proves that he was in on the joke all along. It's just a lovely film, basically.

field niggas = kind of film i would have to book online to avoid saying the title at the desk.

saw quite a few really great little movies at the london film fest this year - kothnodi, paulina, chevalier, others i cant think of right now. evolution, im not sure about. i think she ran out of ideas and padded a lot of it out TBH. but it had some lovely moments. they were just nearly all stretched to the point of boredom. and she didnt quite explore the concept enough either. bit dissapointing. johnnie to's the office, also looked stunning, started off brilliantly, but then seemed to lose it (or me at least) as i started to get very confused about WTF was going on and to whom and why i was meant to care. started to dart all over the place and end up in sort of lazy sentimentalish territory. or maybe i was just too tired.

looking forward to seeing gaspar noes love in a few weeks too.

FN is the kind of film that will likely be booked at single-screen cinemas/museums.

its only at the ICA in london. title seems like a shortcut to provocation TBH.

The Glaagow Film Theatre has a small season of new French films this month - any recommendations among these?

- All About Them (Bonnell)
- The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun (Sfar)
- Diary of a Chambermaid (Jacquot)
- Tokyo Fiancee (Liberski)
- A Perfect Man (Gozian)
- Standing Tall (Bercot)
- The Anarchists (Wajeman)
- Macadam Stories (Benchetrit)
- Microbe & Gasoline (Gondry)
- The Sweet Escape (Podalydes)
- All Cats are Grey (Dellicour)
- The Measure of a Man (Brize)
- Family for Rent (Ameris)
- Wild Life (Kahn)
- SK1 (Tellier)
- My King (Maiwenn)

I really want to see The Measure of a Man, but that's all I can say, have seen none of them.

To mark the 20th anniversary of the murder of Yitzhak Rabin, CPHDOX showed Rabin, the Last Day yesterday. Has anyone seen it? I don't really know what to say, it's a powerful story, but I'm not sure the drama-scenes doesn't take away from the power of it. Also, Benjamin Netanyahu comes off spectacularly awful in it, I have a feeling that Amos Gitai probably knew what he was doing, with that.

wild life was really good.

I saw all three parts of Gomes' Arabian Nights yesterday. That is one wild and weird experience... Overlong and boring in parts, but heartily recommended.

this indie western w/ Kurt Russell, Richard Jenkins came and went in a flash in NYC... showing on VOD

http://filmmakermagazine.com/96324-if-you-move-in-a-hasty-manner-ill-put-a-bullet-in-you-s-craig-zahler-on-bone-tomahawk/

looking forward to the new jafar panahi film, which im going to see tomorrow... i thought this is not a film was somewhat overrated (if accurately evaluated in its title ho ho), but this one looks good, if only because i doubt you can go wrong with the format.

i liked it better than his last one.

I think Taxi is merely good. The girl drove me mad.

Good, as in better than Girlhood.

The little girl in Taxi is wonderful, and really the key to the whole film ("sordid realism").

I recommend this humble indie tree-selling dramedy, Christmas, Again (shot by the ubiquitous Sean Price Williams):

http://www.moma.org/calendar/film/1598?locale=en

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZGHw3uJJAk

Pinkerton on Nathan Silver’s Stinking Heaven, a tale of rehabbed junkies set in “Passaic, New Jersey 1990” (when i lived there!)

http://www.artforum.com/film/#entry56672

Bone Tomahawk was really good!

seeing that at MoMA in 2 weeks w/ director q&a

finally caught The Lobster, which turned out to be essentially Animal Farm meets OKCupid. Considerably funnier and less oppressive than I was expecting

should we have a 2016 thread?

Sissako's Timbuktu is certainly worth seiing, but i don't find the filmmaking as forceful as it should be at times. The violence only does upsets once or twice.

― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Monday, March 16, 2015 1:57

Finally saw this and also saw it on some year-end top lists (Bob Mondello, NPR & others). Worth seeing but main characters still didn't seem fleshed out enough.

that gunshot in the marsh though

terrible and heartbreaking even if one saw it coming. People buried in sand and stoned was pretty upsetting too.

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-35220419

The US National Society of Film Critics has named Spotlight the best film of 2015.

Timbuktu, by Mauritanian director Abderrahmane Sissako, won best foreign language film.

I've never seen Sissako's earlier effort: "Bamako", mentioned below--

http://www.alternet.org/culture/2015-years-best-movies-classic-screen-romance-ghosts-auschwitz-delusional-tv-stardom

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon

Yes, African director Abderrahmane Sissako’s wry, rich, tragic and spectacular tale of life under the rule of Islamic militants in northern Mali’s legendary “library city” was nominated for the foreign-language Oscar last year. (It didn’t win, but I don’t begrudge “Ida” the prize.) That’s because the academy’s rules make no sense; “Timbuktu” did not play anywhere in the United States until late January of 2015. I have previously argued that a confluence of talent and circumstance have rendered Sissako — who was born in Mauritania, raised in Mali, educated in Russia and now lives in France — a figure of unique cultural importance. Far more to the point, he’s a great artist: Watch “Timbuktu” and then “Bamako,” his outrageous Brechtian assault against the Western banks and financial powers, and find out how his films speak to the mind, the heart and the spirit all at once.

I saw Tale of Tales yesterday and it's pretty amazing. So many beautiful shots. And it has a nice light touch when it comes to any interconnections between the different stories.