Rivka Galchen is one of eight novelists taking part in Festival Neueu Literatur
Saturday, February 12, powerHouse Arena, 37 Main St., free, 6:00
Sunday, February 13, Idlewild Books, 12 West 19th St., free, 6:00
www.festivalneueliteratur.org
Two emerging German-language authors from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland will meet with two established American writers as well as translators and curators in Festival Neue Literatur, which features a pair of free weekend gatherings. Tonight at 6:00 at the powerHouse Arena in Brooklyn, Peter Weber (DIE MELODIELOSEN JAHRE), Andrea Winkler (HANNA UND ICH), Andrea Grill (ZWEISCHRITT), Rivka Galchen (ATMOSPHERIC DISTURBANCES), and assistant professor Paul North (Yale University) will discuss “The Power of the Novel,” while tomorrow night at 6:00 “Writing and Memory” will include readings and discussions with Antje Ravic Strubel (UNTER SCHNEE), Julia Schoch (VERABREDUNGEN MIT MATTOK), Dorothee Elmiger (EINLADUNG AN DIE WAGHALSIGEN), Francine Prose (MY NEW AMERICAN LIFE), and translator Susan Bernofsky (Columbia) at Idlewild Books. The festival is sponsored by the Austrian Cultural Forum, Deutsches Haus at NYU, the Goethe-Institut, the Consulate General of Switzerland in New York, the Swiss Arts Council, and the New York German Book Office.
Returning to the screen for the first time in sixteen years, legendary Korean actress Yun Jung-hee is mesmerizing in Lee Chang-dong’s beautiful, bittersweet, and poetic POETRY. Yun stars as Mija, a lovely but simple woman raising her teenage grandson, Wook (Lee David), and working as a maid for Mr. Kang (Kim Hi-ra), a Viagra-taking old man debilitated from a stroke. When she is told that Wook is involved in the tragic suicide of a classmate (Han Su-young), Mija essentially goes about her business as usual, not outwardly reacting while clearly deeply troubled inside. As the complications in her life grow, she turns to a community poetry class for solace, determined to finish a poem before the memory loss that is causing her to forget certain basic words overwhelms her. Winner of the Best Screenplay award at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, POETRY is a gorgeously understated work, a visual, emotional poem that never drifts from its slow, steady pace. Writer-director Lee (PEPPERMINT CANDY, SECRET SUNSHINE) occasionally treads a little too close to clichéd melodrama, but he always gets back on track, sharing the moving story of an unforgettable character. Throughout the film he offers no easy answers, leaving lots of room for interpretation, like poems themselves.
Orgasms are supposed to be a lot of fun, and that’s precisely what Liz Canner’s documentary, ORGASM INC., is. But it also shows how serious the business of sexual pleasure can be. Hired by a drug company to edit a video about Female Sexual Dysfunction, Canner discovered just how ridiculous the race to come up with “Viagra for women” is. Canner speaks with a wide range of people, from scientists and psychiatrists to activists and PR flunkies, who all have different angles on the success or failure of the female orgasm. She follows the exploits of Dr. Stuart Meloy and his Orgasmatron surgery in Winston-Salem (take that, Woody Allen!), Dr. Carol Queen showing off objects in San Francisco’s Good Vibrations Antique Vibrator Museum, Suzanne Roth operating the Genito-sensory Analyzer in Chicago, Lisa at a convention questioning the procedure she is hyping, Designer Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation, and sexologist Leonore Tiefer, PhD, going in front of FDA committees leading the fight against approval of Big Pharma’s latest suuposed female orgasm miracle drug, which has included the topical cream Alista and the testosterone patch Intrinsa. Jay Beaudoin and Nicholas Fischer add goofy animation throughout the film, depicting a cartoon race across a bed to be the first one to come up with the magic bullet. Canner infuses the hot-button topic with charm and humor, letting the absurdity of it all play out in all its glory. Titillating and shocking, infuriating and revealing, ORGASM INC. is a surprising and satisfying foray into the billion-dollar world of female sexual pleasure. Canner will be at the Quad for the 4:20, 6:15, and 8:10 shows Friday through Sunday, then at the 6:15 shows Monday through Thursday. 
David Lynch’s debut feature is about faith, fidelity, and fatherhood. Jack Nance stars as Henry Spencer, a lonely, scared man who suddenly has to raise his newborn child himself after his girlfriend, Mary X (Charlotte Stewart), leaves. Oh, it’s also about fear, fascination, and futility, the most bizarre film ever made by a major director. The avant-garde narrative seems to come from another dimension, with mutants, decapitation, a lady in a radiator, and a pencil-making machine. Everything about the movie, shot in creepy black and white, is strange, from the sound to the special effects to the bizarre score to the greatest hairstyles this side of BARTON FINK. It’s nearly a one-man show, with Lynch serving as writer, director, composer, producer, art director, production designer, editor, and special effects guru. ERASERHEAD is an amazing, unforgettable journey through the diseased mind of a madman. You haven’t truly lived until you’ve seen it at least once.
