twi-ny recommended events

ZEN & ITS OPPOSITE: ESSENTIAL (& TURBULENT) JAPANESE ART HOUSE

A quartet of ghost stories kicks off new film series at the Japan Society

MONTHLY CLASSICS: KWAIDAN (Masaki Kobayashi, 1964)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Friday, October 15, $12, 7:30
Series runs through February 18
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org

Masaki Kobayashi paints four marvelous ghost stories in this eerie collection that won a Special Jury Prize at Cannes. In “The Black Hair,” a samurai (Rentaro Mikuni) regrets his choice of leaving his true love for advancement. Yuki (Keiko Kishi) is a harbinger of doom in “The Woman of the Snow.” Hoichi (Katsuo Nakamura) must have his entire body covered in prayer in “Hoichi, the Earless.” And Kannai (Kanemon Nakamura) finds a creepy face staring back at him in “In a Cup of Tea.” Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Cannes, KWAIDAN is one of the greatest ghost story films ever made, four creepy, atmospheric existential tales that will get under your skin and into your brain. KWAIDAN kicks off the Japan Society’s “Zen & Its Opposite: Essential (& Turbulent) Japanese Art House,” comprising six films that illustrate the Six Planes of Existence, or the Six Paths of Samsara. The series continues on November 12 with ONIBABA (Kaneto Shindo, 1964), December 10 with FIRES ON THE PLAIN (Kon Ichikawa, 1959), January 12 with HELL (Nobuo Nakagawa, 1960), and February 18 with SWORD OF DOOM (Kihachi Okamoto, 1966).

DEERHUNTER

Bradford Cox and Deerhunter will be celebrating release of HALCYON DIGEST at Webster Hall on Friday night (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Webster Hall
125 East 11th St. between Second & Third Aves.
Friday, October 15, $20, 6:00
212-353-1600
www.myspace.com/deerhunter
www.websterhall.com

Deerhunter plays New York City so often, it might feel like they’re a local band, but they actually hail from that hotbed of indie rock, Atlanta, home of such twi-ny faves as the Black Lips, Gringo Star, and Today the Moon, Tomorrow the Sun. Bradford Cox, Moses Archuleta, Lockett Pundt, Joshua Fauver, and Whitney Petty headlined a free show at Pier 54 in August, and now they’re back for a gig October 15 at Webster Hall on a bill with Real Estate (who were also at the pier with them) and Casino Versus Japan. This time around, Deerhunter will be celebrating the release of their dazzling new album, HALCYON DIGEST (4ad, September 28, 2010). The record opens with the dreamy, willowy “Earthquake,” which incorporates the sound of a vinyl swoosh that becomes the drumbeat as the song floats listeners away on an ethereal cloud. From the cheery 1960s Britpop of “Memory Boy” and “Basement Scene” to the sweetly subtle, driving VU-like guitar line of “Fountain Stairs” to the deep sax on “Coronado” and the great six-string outro on “Desire Lines,” Deerhunter has reinvented itself yet again. HALCYON DIGEST ends with “He Would Have Laughed,” a tribute to Cox’s late friend Jay Reatard, the Memphis garage punk who died last year at the age of twenty-nine.

ZILVINAS KEMPINAS: BALLROOM

Yvon Lambert
550 West 21st St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through October 16
Admission: free
212-242-3611
www.yvon-lambert.com
ballroom slideshow

Lithuanian multimedia artist Zilvinas Kempinas, who represented his country at last year’s Venice Biennale, has turned Yvon Lambert’s main space into a disco wonderland with “Ballroom.” Red, white, and blue lights reflect off the floor and onto mylar panels that cover the walls as rotating fans blow air down onto more than a dozen circles of unwound magnetic tape. The tape is held in place merely by the air itself; don’t worry if you step on it, because it will hold its shape like magic. All the elements combine for an ultracool experience; all that’s missing is thumping disco music. In the front room of the gallery, Roman Opalka’s “Passages” continues the French artist’s series of white paintings of numbers in order, a stark contrast to Kempinas’s lively “Ballroom.”

PIPILOTTI RIST: HEROES OF BIRTH

Visitors get lost in a dreamlike immersive environment in Pipilotti Rist show at Luhring Augustine (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Luhring Augustine
531 West 24th St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through October 16
Admission: free
212-206-9100
www.luhringaugustine.com
www.pipilottirist.net
heroes of birth slideshow

In fall 2008, Swiss artist Pipolotti Rist transformed MoMA’s Marron Atrium into a meditative multimedia immersive environment with “Pour Your Body Out (7354 Cubic Meters),” a twenty-five-foot-high, two-hundred-foot-long site-specific video installation about the interrelationship between nature, humanity, and the animal kingdom that could be seen while resting in a specially designed central island. Rist has now transformed Chelsea’s Luhring Augustine gallery with “Layers Mama Layers,” an immersive environment in which film of grazing sheep and futuristic green laser swirls are projected onto both sides of rows of translucent sheets of fabric hanging from the ceiling. Visitors become part of the installation as they walk through the rows, the film beaming onto their bodies. Whereas the projections are sharp on the outside sheets, they become more and more diluted and abstract the closer to the center you get, with the people walking past turning into eerie, otherworldly shadows. Meanwhile, a hypnotic lullaby plays, furthering the dreamlike atmosphere. (Don’t start counting those sheep.)

Pipilotti Rist’s “Massachusetts Chandelier” lights up the back room at Luhring Augustine with glowing underwear (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

In the back gallery, Rist has installed “Massachusetts Chandelier,” a video sculpture composed of underwear she collected from friends and family, arranged as a large light, hanging from the ceiling, onto which she projects brightly colored images that makes it look alive. Be sure to check out the wallpaper as well, although you might have a bit of trouble explaining to children what one of the repeated images is. In the front room, “All or Nothing” is a small, three-panel video of the wallpaper, along with an altar of flowers and a watercooler where you can grab a drink. Rist’s work is always engaging, and “Heroes of Birth” is no exception, a fun show guaranteed to please.

HILARY EASTON + COMPANY: LIGHT AND SHADE

Hilary Easton presents the world premiere of LIGHT AND SHADE at BAC this week

Baryshnikov Arts Center
450 West 37th St. between Ninth & Tenth Aves.
October 14-17, $20
www.hilaryeaston.com
www.bacnyc.org

“I love dancing,” choreographer, dancer, teacher, and native New Yorker Hilary Easton explains in her artist’s statement. “I love inventing movement, watching it, doing it.” That joy comes through in her work, which has been presented since 1992 at such venues as PS122, Danspace Project, SummerStage, the American Dance Festival, and Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors. New York-based Hilary Easton + Company will be holding the world premiere of their latest work, LIGHT AND SHADE, this week at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. The forty-five-minute duet will be performed by Michael Ingle and Emily Pope-Blackman, set to a sound score by Mike Rugnetta, with lighting design by Kathy Kaufmann and costumes by Madeleine Walach. The piece explores the many ways of experiencing intimacy, between the dancers onstage as well as between the performers and the audience.

ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY NIGHT

Alejandro Jodorowsky takes viewers on quite an acid trip in surreal Western EL TOPO

RABBIT MOVIE NIGHTS: EL TOPO AND THE HOLY MOUNTAIN
Rabbitholestudio
33 Washington St., Brooklyn
Wednesday, October 13, 7:00
Admission: free (two beers for $3)
718-852-1500
www.rabbitholestudio.com

EL TOPO (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1970)
Following the screening of several of his films and a personal appearance by the man himself at the Museum of Arts & Design, the New York City celebration of all things Alejandro Jodorowsky continues with a free double feature at Rabbitholestudio in DUMBO. It begins with the Chilean-born Mexican filmmaker’s acid Western EL TOPO, a psychedelic head trip that will blow your mind. Jodorowsky stars as the title character, a gunslinger traveling through a deserted landscape accompanied by his naked young son, who already knows his way around a firearm. After coming upon a town that has been decimated by a nasty group of marauders working for the Colonel, El Topo seeks violent revenge, eventually taking off with a woman and leaving his boy behind as he meets four masters on his path to proving he is the best there is. But soon El Topo is praying for redemption with a community of inbred cripples trapped in a cave. EL TOPO is a wild and bizarre journey through religious imagery, romance, and vengeance, a surreal spaghetti Western strained through the mad mind of Jodorowsky, widely hailed as the creator of the midnight movie. The film melds Bergman with Leone, Tod Browning’s FREAKS with Hiroshi Inagaki’s Samurai Trilogy, filtered through Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima’s LONE WOLF AND CUB. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before and, despite your better instincts, will lure you into the cult of Jodorowsky.

The beautiful weirdness never ends in Jodorowsky cult classic THE HOLY MOUNTAIN

THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1973)
Rabbit Movie Night concludes with one of the strangest films ever made. Inspired by Rene Daumal’s MOUNT ANALOGUE: A NOVEL OF SYMBOLICALLY AUTHENTIC NON-EUCLIDEAN ADVENTURES IN MOUNTAIN CLIMBING, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s THE HOLY MOUNTAIN also involves symbolically non-Euclidean adventures in mountain climbing, funneled through Carlos Castaneda, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, and magic mushrooms and LSD galore. What passes for narrative follows a Jesus look-alike thief (Horacio Salinas) and an alchemist with a thing for female nudity (Jodorowsky) on the path to enlightenment; along the way they encounter the mysterious Tarot, stigmata, stoning, eyeballs, frogs, flies, cold-blooded murder, naked young boys, chakra points, life-size plaster casts, Nazi dancers, sex, violence, blood, gambling, turning human waste into gold, death and rebirth, and the search for the secret of immortality via representatives of the planets, each with their own extremely bizarre story to tell. Jodorowsky, who is credited with having invented the midnight movie with the acid Western EL TOPO (1970), literally shatters religious iconography in a kaleidoscopic whirlwind of jaw-droppingly gorgeous and often inexplicable imagery composed from a surreal color palette, set to a score by free jazz trumpeter Don Cherry and Archies keyboardist Ron Frangipane. (Frangipane also worked with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who produced this film with their business manager, Allen Klein.) THE HOLY MOUNTAIN — which brings a whole new insight to Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle — is filled with psychedelic mysticism centered around the human search for transcendence in a wilderness of the sacred and profane. Jodorowsky’s work can move you deeply, but don’t expect it to make much sense. Sit back and let in pour in and over you — you’ll feel it. You may hate it, but you’ll feel it. Although you’ll definitely hate the very end.

THE DARKNESS OF DAY: RECENT FILMS BY JAY ROSENBLATT

Jay Rosenblatt’s remarkable THE DARKNESS OF DAY will have its New York premiere October 13-18 at MoMA

MoMA Film
Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
October 13-18
Tickets: $10, 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
212-708-9400
www.moma.org
www.jayrosenblattfilms.com

Watching his films, it’s easy to see how Jay Rosenblatt was formerly a therapist and has a master’s degree in counseling psychology. Born in New York and based in San Francisco for many years, Rosenblatt makes what he calls “long shorts,” “diary films,” and “short shorts” composed primarily of found and archival footage and home movies. Combining the images with existing text and classical or original music, he creates mesmerizing, poetic, deeply philosophical works that explore the nature of life and loss. From October 13 to 18, MoMA will be presenting the New York premiere of Rosenblatt’s latest masterpiece, THE DARKNESS OF DAY (2009), a twenty-six-minute examination of suicide inspired by the self-inflicted deaths of two people he knew. Using footage rescued from school Dumpsters, Rosenblatt incorporates industrial and educational films about suicide, touching on such well-known cases as the Hemingway family and the first man to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge as well as that of a Japanese woman who leaped into a volcano, setting off a rash of copycats. Beverly Berning and Richard J. Silberg narrate the film, which includes readings from a suicide victim’s journal, in a steady monotone that is a trademark of Rosenblatt’s work. THE DARKNESS OF DAY is both fascinating and frightening, perhaps the most honest look at suicide we’ve ever seen.

AFRAID SO is one of five poignant films by Jay Rosenblatt being shown at MoMA

Four other films will be screened along with THE DARKNESS OF DAY. In I JUST WANTED TO BE SOMEBODY (2006), Rosenblatt follows orange juice spokeswoman Anita Bryant’s war against gays in the 1970s. The three-minute PRAYER (2001) was part of Underground Zero, a project spearheaded by Rosenblatt and frequent collaborator Caveh Zahedi in which some 150 independent filmmakers were asked to make short films in response to the events of September 11, 2001; Rosenblatt combines shots of Muslims praying with a score by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. In the three-minute AFRAID SO (2006), Garrison Keillor reads from a poem by Jeanne Marie Beaumont that asks questions that all can be answered by the title while Rosenblatt shows related images; among the questions are “Is this going to hurt?,” “Will it leave a scar?,” “Are you contagious?,” and “Will I have to put him to sleep?” Rosenblatt opens up his own wounds in the multiple award-winning PHANTOM LIMB (2005), in which the producer, writer, director, and editor compares the death of his younger brother at the age of seven to the phantom limb syndrome experienced by people after losing an arm or a leg but still feeling it is there. Over a melancholic score featuring pieces by Arvo Pärt and Benjamin Britten, Rosenblatt intercuts home movies of him and his brother with narration about his family and new interviews with a man who experiences the phantom limb phenomenon, an expert on life after death, and a cemetery owner. PHANTOM LIMB is a beautiful yet harrowing film, a powerful journey into memory and loss. Despite their often very serious subject matter, Rosenblatt’s films are absolutely thrilling to watch, intellectually stimulating, visually vibrant, and emotionally powerful. Rosenblatt will be at MoMA to introduce the 7:00 program on October 13.