French cult classic offers a very different take on the holiday season
LE PÈRE NOËL EST UNE ORDURE (SANTA STINKS) (Jean-Marie Poiré, 1982)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
December 28 – January 2
Tickets: $12, in person only, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days, same-day screenings free with museum admission, available at Film and Media Desk beginning at 9:30 am
212-708-9400
www.moma.org
While here in America, Christmas movie traditions tend to be on the more sappy side, like the treacly It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th St., or any one of a number of updated versions of A Christmas Carol, France has a very different idea of what qualifies as a holiday favorite. Le père Noël est une ordure, also known as Santa Stinks (or the closer translation Father Christmas Is a Bastard), has been a cult classic going on thirty years now. The no-holds-barred seasonal slapstick satire is the creation of Jean-Marie Poiré and the members of the popular Le Splendid café-théâtre company, who spend a New Year’s Eve together like you’ve never seen before. Thérèse (Anémone) and Pierre (Thierry Lhermitte) work at a suicide-prevention hotline, but they are not very good at helping lonely, depressed people, as shown early on when a man calls from a phone booth and quickly puts a bullet in his head when no one at the SOS Detresse Amitié really listens to him. Meanwhile, their cranky coworker, Madame Musquin (Josiane Balasko), gets trapped in an elevator, desperate to get to her Christmas Eve dinner; young transvestite Katia (Christian Clavier) stops by looking for a little love; neighbor Preskovic (Bruno Moynot) keeps bringing over the most disgusting homemade treats imaginable; and low-level crook Félix (Gérard Jugnot) wanders around in a Santa suit, chasing rabbits and wielding a gun while his pregnant wife, the obnoxiously chatty Josette (Marie-Anne Chazel), does everything she can to get away from him while also commenting on all the fun. Le père Noël est une ordure has no sympathy for the holiday season, instead reveling in low-grade humor, over-the-top violence, and surprising plot twists that are not at all what you’d expect from a Christmas movie. With that in mind, MoMA has chosen to present the U.S. theatrical premiere of this French farce with a one-week run beginning December 28 so as not to ruin your Christmas celebration. (And to further save you from potential ruination, be sure to pay no attention whatsoever to Nora Ephron’s all-star 1994 dud, Mixed Nuts, which was loosely based on Le père Noël est une ordure.)
The hunt is on for the mysterious land known as Laputa, an Atlantis-like civilization in the sky, in Hayao Miyazaki’s award-winning Laputa: Castle in the Sky. Pazu is looking for it to prove that his father wasn’t crazy; Mooska needs its power to rule the world; Dola and her sons want its jewels; and little Sheeta is searching for her past. Miyazaki’s gorgeous landscapes are at once Monet-like, then Constable-esque. The story, inspired by the town of Laputa in Gulliver’s Travels, will delight the child in everyone who lets themselves get spirited away by the magic. The first film released by Japan’s Studio Ghibli, Laputa is screening in a new 35mm print December 28 to January 12 as part of the series “Castles in the Sky: Miyazaki, Takahata & the Masters of Studio Ghibli,” a dual presentation of the IFC Center and GKIDS’ New York International Children’s Film Festival. As an added treat, the film is being shown in its original Japanese with English subtitles instead of dubbed, so you won’t get distracted by the voices of James Van Der Beek, Mark Hamill, Cloris Leachman, Mandy Patinkin, and Anna Paquin. The series also includes such other Miyazaki works as Howl’s Moving Castle, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Ponyo, My Neighbor Totoro, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Porco Rosso, Princess Mononoke, and his masterpiece, Spirited Away, in addition to such lesser-known Studio Ghibli films as Hiroyuki Morita’s The Cat Returns, Tomomi Mochizuki’s Ocean Waves, Isao Takahata’s Only Yesterday, and Yoshifumi Kondo’s Whisper of the Heart, all being screened in new 35mm prints.
Charlie Chaplin died thirty-four years ago on Christmas Day, at the ripe old age of eighty-eight, so Film Forum is paying tribute to the anniversary by screening a restored 35mm print of the complete version, with a newly recorded orchestral score, of what Chaplin called “the picture I want to be remembered by.” Made four years prior to the Great Depression, the slapstick comedy is still remarkably socially relevant, tackling unemployment, crime, hunger, and poverty. Chaplin, who wrote, produced, and directed the silent masterpiece, stars as the Lone Prospector, a little tramp who has set out to strike it rich during the Alaskan Gold Rush of 1848 but isn’t really having much luck. He takes shelter during a snowstorm in a small shack, does battle with a pair of much bigger men, turns into a chicken, and, yes, eats his shoe, doing whatever it takes to survive. The prescient film was originally to star Lita Grey as the love interest, but Chaplin impregnated (and later married) the sixteen-year-old, so she was replaced by Georgia Hale. Film Forum is screening The Gold Rush, which also features Mack Swain as Big Jim McKay, Malcolm Waite as ladies’ man Jack Cameron, and Tom Murray as Black Larsen, through December 29, including five times on Christmas Day. (And by the way, if you’ve only seen Charles Chaplin’s reedited 1942 version with his own treacly narration and score, well, you’ve never really experienced this American treasure.)