this week in film and television

CinéSalon: ENIGMATIC EMMANUELLE DEVOS (with Emmanuelle Devos in person)

Emmanuelle Devos will be at FIAF for a Q&A following the 7:30 screening of Read My Lips on June 6

French Institute Alliance Française, Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Tuesday, June 6 – July 25, $14, 4:00 & 7:30
Series continues Tuesday nights through March 21
212-355-6100
fiaf.org

FIAF got quite a curator for its eight-week, eight-film CinéSalon series “Enigmatic Emmanuelle Devos”: beloved award-winning French actress Emmanuelle Devos herself. And to kick off the festival, which runs Tuesday nights from June 6 through July 25, Devos will be in Florence Gould Hall to present Jacques Audiard’s 2001 thriller, Sur mes lèvres (“Read My Lips”), for which Devos won the first of her two Césars as Best Actress. The film, which also stars Vincent Cassel, will be shown at 4:00 and 7:30 on June 6, with the later screening followed by a Q&A with Devos, who turned fifty-three earlier this month. The series continues with seven other films selected by Devos: Sophie Fillières’s Gentille, Arnaud Desplechin’s Kings and Queen and My Sex Life . . . or How I Got into an Argument, Jérôme Bonnell’s Just a Sigh, Lorraine Lévy’s The Other Son, Anne Le Ny’s Those Who Remain, and Martin Provost’s Violette. Devos, who has appeared in more than forty films during her twenty-six-year career, also received César nominations for Kings and Queen, The Adversary, and My Sex Life . . . as well as winning a second César for In the Beginning.

THE SURVIVALIST

Martin McCann stars as a man who will do just about anything to survive in Stephen Fingleton’s gripping debut feature

THE SURVIVALIST (Stephen Fingleton, 2015)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.facebook.com/thesurvivalistfilm

Stephen Fingleton’s debut feature, The Survivalist, arrived at Tribeca in 2015 with the kind of expectations that are, well, tough to survive. The script was on both the 2012 Hollywood Black List (tied for fourteenth) and the 2013 Brit List (number one) of best unproduced screenplays; the self-taught Fingleton has been included in various names-to-watch, stars-of-tomorrow lists; and his twenty-three-minute SLR was shortlisted for an Oscar. Despite all the buildup, The Survivalist lives up to its billing as a gripping dystopian thriller from a major new talent. In the indeterminate near-future, oil production has plummeted while population growth exploded, leaving very little food available. Deep in the forest, an unnamed man (Martin McCann) lives by himself, fiercely defending his small cabin and vegetable garden. He is part Mad Max, part Rambo, setting traps to catch animals and protect him from other humans who might threaten his self-sufficient existence. But when the stoic Kathryn (Olwen Fouéré) and her teenage daughter, Milja (Mia Goth), show up, asking for temporary food and shelter — and willing to offer an alluring trade for them — the survivalist ultimately decides to let them into his carefully organized private world, knowing that things could change drastically at any moment.

Stephen Fingleton and Martin McCann talk things over on the set of THE SURVIVALIST

The Survivalist opens with long scenes of no dialogue or music at all, just naturalistic soundscapes, setting the stage for an intense, powerful experience. The Northern Ireland forest is like a character unto itself, living, breathing, fraught with menace. Fingleton and cinematographer Damien Elliott zoom in extra close on the man’s eye lashes, as if each individual hair were fighting for existence as well. McCann (Shadow Dancer, Clash of the Titans) combines danger with tenderness when he softly caresses a photograph of a woman or makes soup for Kathryn and Milja, his eyes ever-alert, revealing someone who is still trying to hold on to his last vestiges of humanity. Theater veteran Fouéré and young actress Goth are superb as a mother-and-daughter team desperate to make it through the apocalypse. The relationship among the three protagonists evokes Don Siegel’s underrated 1971 Civil War drama The Beguiled, in which Clint Eastwood plays a wounded soldier being tended to in a girls boarding school, only taking place here in the future instead of in the past. Despite knowing better, you’ll want to root for all three of them to triumph in this horrific ticking-time-bomb of a world, which might be a whole lot closer than we think. Fingleton also made a well-received short prequel of sorts, Magpie, which establishes the fiercely taught mood of the feature film but is best watched afterward.

THE WOMEN’S BALCONY

The women have a bone to pick with a new rabbi in Emil Ben-Shimon’s The Women’s Balcony

THE WOMEN’S BALCONY (Emil Ben-Shimon, 2016)
Lincoln Plaza Cinema, 1886 Broadway at 63rd St., 212-757-2280
Quad Cinema, 34 West 13th St., 212-255-2243
Opens Friday, May 26
www.menemshafilms.com

Judaism may be matrilineal, but that doesn’t mean that women are treated as equal to men, especially among sects espousing fundamentalist religious beliefs, although women are considered holier than men in Orthodox communities. In Emil Ben-Shimon’s absolutely wonderful debut feature, The Women’s Balcony, that all comes to a head when wives, mothers, girlfriends, and daughters, relegated to a balcony in the back of a small, local shul — as if on a pedestal, farther away from the Torah but closer to G-d — come crashing down when the structure breaks, suddenly putting them on the same level as the men. It’s no coincidence that this happens during an Orthodox bar mitzvah, when a boy becomes a man, which is much different from an orthodox bat mitzvah, when a girl becomes a woman. When a fundamentalist rabbi from a nearby congregation offers to help rebuild the Mizrahi synagogue, the place of women in the shul are far from his main concern, leading to a furious and delightful battle of the sexes. With the elderly Rabbi Menashe (Abraham Celektar) flustered because the accident has left his wife in a coma, Rabbi David (Avraham Aviv Alush) is only too happy to step in, demanding further separation between the men and the women, which causes problems for such couples as gabbai Aharon (Itzik Cohen) and Tikva (Orna Banai); mild-mannered Nissan (Herzi Tobey) and Margalit (Einat Sarouf); and warmhearted shopkeeper Zion (Igal Naor) and Etti (Evelin Hagoel), who have a terrific marriage and equal partnership until things start changing at the shul. Meanwhile, everyone is hoping that Yaffa (Yafit Asulin) finds the right man as she expands her dating search, until she and Rabbi David’s assistant (Assaf Ben Shimon) take an interest in each other, a potential Romeo and Juliet romance.

Not even the Passover seder can bring order to the chaos surrounding the reconstruction of a synagogue in The Women’s Balcony

The Women’s Balcony was written by first-time screenwriter Shlomit Nehama, Ben-Shimon’s ex-wife, who was inspired by the religious extremism she saw in an Israeli neighborhood where she had once lived. The film evokes such sweet-natured favorites as Local Hero and Waking Ned Devine as well as Aristophanes’s Lysistrata as the women fight for their rights. Ben-Shimon (Mimon, Wild Horses) maintains an infectious pace throughout, as cinematographer Ziv Berkovich puts the audience right in the middle of the action, accompanied by Ahuva Ozeri and Shaul Besser’s playful, Jewish-flavored score. Naor and Hagoel are outstanding as Zion and Etti, the emotional center of the film, a lovely couple with a bright view of life, at least until exclusion and sexism get in the way. Asulin is excellent as Yaffa, the young woman who is part of the next generation of Judaism — and who is not extremely knowledgeable about her religion. But even when situations are at their most tense, Nehama and Ben-Shimon keep it all lighthearted; if only more religious (and marital) disputes could be handled with such grace and wit. Nominated for five Israeli Academy Awards, including Banai for Best Supporting Actress, Rona Doron for Best Costume Design, Vered Mevorach for Best Makeup, the late Ozeri (who passed away recently at the age of sixty-eight) and Besser for Best Score, and Alush for Best Supporting Actor, The Women’s Balcony opens May 26 at Lincoln Plaza and the Quad.

IMMIGRANT SONGS: LIQUID SKY

Liquid Sky</em. is having its last-ever 35mm screening in New York City this weekend

Liquid Sky is having its last-ever 35mm screening in New York City this weekend

LIQUID SKY (Slava Tsukerman, 1982)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Saturday, May 27, and Sunday, May 28, 7:20 (both followed by Q&As)
212-255-2243
quadcinema.com
www.liquidskythemovie.com

“Everybody wants euphoria; what’s wrong with that?” a character declares in Slava Tsukerman’s 1982 sci-fi cult classic, Liquid Sky. First, a tiny alien spaceship lands above a rooftop apartment in the shadow of the Empire State Building. Margaret (Anne Carlisle), a Connecticut native who dresses in shocking makeup and clothing, lives there with Adrian (Paula E. Sheppard), a performance artist and heroin dealer specializing in Liquid Sky. Their world is all about sex, drugs, and punk / new wave music. Later, at the club, they meet Vincent (Jack Adalist), who claims his father is a bigwig in the movies, and Paul (Stanley Knap), a middle-class junkie whose wife, Katherine (Elaine C. Grove), is trying to get him to kick the habit. Katherine’s brother, the androgynous, Bowie-esque Jimmy (also played by Carlisle), is a friend of Adrian and Margaret’s who is going to model with Margaret in what turns out to be a very strange fashion shoot for Midnight magazine with an oddball crew that includes a cool designer (Nina V. Kerova), an eager photographer (Alan Preston), and a snappy hair stylist (Christine Hatfull). Meanwhile, UFO hunter Johann Hoffman (Otto von Wernherr) is on the trail of the midtown alien ship and being wined and dined by the hot-to-trot Sylvia (Susan Doukas), whose window offers an excellent view of Adrian and Margaret’s apartment. The plot thickens when Margaret discovers that she seems to have a rather special power whenever a sexual partner (or rapist) has an orgasm with her.

Ann Carlisle stars as both Jimmy and Margaret in Liquid Sky

Ann Carlisle stars as both Jimmy and Margaret in Slava Tsukerman’s Liquid Sky

Released in August 1982, Liquid Sky was ahead of its time in its treatment of gender identity and sexual orientation (and even bathroom usage); in fact, it’s already postgender. It also presages the AIDS crisis and the protest motto “Sex = Death.” And the special effects, which were created by Russian cinematographer Yuri Neyman and combine science with psychedelia, might look cheesy now but they were cutting edge (and still slyly funny) thirty-five years ago, as were the freaky costumes and production design by Marina Levikova. Marcel Fieve was responsible for the fab makeup and hair. Written by Soviet émigré Tsukerman (Stalin’s Wife, Perestroika), his wife, Kerova, and Carlisle, the film, inspired by Wendy Steiner’s The Scandal of Pleasure and Tsukerman’s own emigration, is an avant-garde look at the immigrant experience in America, whether coming from outer space, the Soviet Union, or Connecticut, as well as the Reagan-era counterculture. The Empire State Building rises tall in numerous shots, a large phallic symbol of personal freedom. There is also a brief shot of the Twin Towers, echoing Carlisle’s performance as both Margaret and Jimmy. The acting is mediocre at best and the plot doesn’t always make sense, but Liquid Sky is more than just a captured moment in time, as it explores issues that are still controversial today. The hypnotic, synth-heavy soundtrack is by Tsukerman, Clive Smith, and Brenda I. Hutchinson, but nothing can top Sheppard’s performance of “Me and My Rhythm Box.” Carlisle appeared in nine movies between 1981 and 1990, including Desperately Seeking Susan and Crocodile Dundee, but hasn’t made another one since, and Tsukerman has directed several nonfiction works but Liquid Sky is his only feature; however, they are collaborating on a documentary about the making of the movie (and perhaps a sequel as well). Among other things, the film is about death, and the original negative is decaying, so the Quad will be presenting the last-ever 35mm New York City screenings of Liquid Sky on May 27 and 28 at 7:20 as part of “Immigrant Songs,” with Tsukerman and Carlisle participating in Q&As after both shows. The series concludes May 26-29 with Brian De Palma’s Scarface and May 27-31 with Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth.

RESTLESS CREATURE: WENDY WHELAN

Ballet star Wendy Whelan invites audiences it to watch her attempt to get back onstage in Restless Creature

RESTLESS CREATURE: WENDY WHELAN (Linda Saffire & Adam Schlesinger, 2016)
Film Forum, 209 West Houston St., 212-727-8110
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Francesca Beale Theater, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th St. between Eighth Ave. & Broadway
Opens Wednesday, May 24
www.facebook.com/restlesscreatureww

“I’ve always been extremely devoted to what I do, and I love being a part of the New York City Ballet. But I do feel the ticking clock, and at times I’ve thought, if I don’t dance, I’d rather die. I’ve actually said that,” longtime New York City principal dancer Wendy Whelan says in the intimate and revealing documentary Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan. Whelan gave directors and producers Linda Saffire and Adam Schlesinger remarkable access as she faces a turning point in her life and career. In 2013, she began to notice she wasn’t getting the parts she used to excel in and decided to get reconstructive hip surgery, hoping that she could return to dancing full-time, at top level. She allows Saffire and Schlesinger into the operating room as Dr. Marc J. Philippon performs the procedure on her torn right labrum. “Ballerinas are probably God’s best athletes,” Dr. Philippon, says. The film then documents her hard-fought battle to return to the stage, as it’s unclear that she will ever regain her skills — or if Peter Martins and the New York City Ballet will even want her back. “What the fuck is this gonna be like when I can’t do this anymore,” she wonders, later adding, “I need to get back in the game, because I don’t have a ton of time left at my game.” With an inspiring dedication, brave honesty, and self-deprecating sense of humor, Whelan, who turned fifty earlier this month, works with physical therapists Marika Molnar and James Gallegro and discusses options with her husband, choreographer and creative director David Michalek; her manager, Ilter Abramowitz; her mother, Kay; and friends Adam Barrett and Maria Scherer, holding nothing back about the choices she must make. Concerned that soon she will not physically be able to be at her best in ballet, she starts the “Restless Creature” contemporary dance project with choreographers Kyle Abraham, Josh Beamish, Brian Brooks, and Alejandro Cerrudo. But she still aches to return to her home of thirty years, the New York City Ballet, where decades of balletomanes, twi-ny included, have thrilled to her technical precision, insight, musicality, and breathtakingly beautiful line.

Wendy Whelan faces a crossroads in her career in intimate and revealing documentary

Saffire and Schlesinger, who previously collaborated on such documentaries as Smash His Camera and Sporting Dreams, combine home movies and photos with lovely clips of Whelan in pieces by Christopher Wheeldon, George Balanchine, William Forsythe, Jerome Robbins, and Alexei Ratmansky. They mix in scenes of her being interviewed by dance writers, partying with friends and colleagues, talking with former dancers Jock Soto and Philip Neal, and rehearsing with NYCB soloist Craig Hall and principal dancer Tyler Angle. Only once during the year-and-a-half shoot did Whelan ask for privacy; otherwise, her life is an open book, and it’s both exhilarating and heartbreaking to watch, as the film is about much more than just one artist’s struggle to remain relevant; it’s an inherently relatable story about the effects of age, how each of us might react to the inevitable decline of the body. Whelan expresses how hard it is to know that there are certain moves she will never be able to perform again, no matter how well her rehab goes, so there is an underlying sadness throughout the film even as we cheer her on to accomplish her lofty goals. But what really makes the film work is Whelan herself; all of the behind-the-scenes intrigue and personal reflections are fascinating, but Whelan proves to be an extraordinary human being. “You changed how people behave in this profession,” former principal dancer and current Pacific Northwest Ballet artistic director Peter Boal tells her. Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan will likely make many viewers take a good look at their own future with new enthusiasm as they approach critical crossroads. The film opens May 24 at Film Forum and Lincoln Center; there will be Q&As with Whelan, Saffire, and Schlesinger (sometimes joined by executive producer Diana DiMenna) at the former on May 25 and May 26 at 7:00 and May 27 at 4:40 and at the latter on May 24 at 7:00, May 25 at 5:00, May 27 at 7:00, and May 28 at 1:00.

KEVIN GEEKS OUT ABOUT FAMOUS MONSTERS

kevin geeks out about famous monsters

Nitehawk Cinema
136 Metropolitan Ave. between Berry St. & Wythe Ave.
Friday, May 25, $16, 9:30
718-384-3980
nitehawkcinema.com
kevingeeksout.com

Film fan and historian extraordinaire Kevin Maher will be taking a scary look at monster movies for the May entry of his monthly Kevin Geeks Out presentation at Nitehawk. On May 25 at 9:30, he’ll be joined by Amber Dextrous, Jon Abrams, Kevin Rice, Kevin Harrington, Chris Smith, and Jack Theakston, who will each discuss their favorite monster. There will be rare footage of classic films, not-so-classic remakes, and other strange versions of well-known and not-so-well-known behemoths. The trailer includes clips of numerous hellions — if you can recognize most of them, you need to be at this event — from Count Chocula to the Creature from the Black Lagoon, so clearly anything goes.

FLEET WEEK 2017

fleet week

Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum and other locations in all five boroughs
Pier 86, 12th Ave. & 46th St.
May 24–29, pier activities free unless otherwise noted
www.intrepidmuseum.org/fleetweek
militarynews.com/app/fleetweeknewyork

The U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard will be pouring into New York City for Fleet Week, which takes place May 24-29 at the Intrepid and other locations. The annual celebration, which began in 1982, leads into Memorial Day weekend, reminding everyone that the holiday is not just about barbecues and beaches. Below are only some of the highlights; all pier events are free and open to the public. Admission to the museum is $17-$33 but free for all U.S. military and veterans.

Wednesday, May 24
Parade of Ships, New York Harbor, 8:15 am – 1:00 pm

Fort Wadsworth Fleet Week and National Park Centennial Celebration, Fort Wadsworth Overlook, Staten Island, 9:00 – 11:30 am

U.S. Navy Divers, New York Aquarium, 10:00 am – 3:00 pm

Thursday, May 25
U.S. Coast Guard Silent Drill Team Performance, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 11:00 am

U.S. Coast Guard Silent Drill Team Performance, 9/11 Memorial Plaza, 1:00

Thursday, May 25
and
Friday, May 26
Public Tours of Visiting Ship Research Vessel Neil Armstrong, end of pier 86, 10:00 am – 12:30 pm

Thursday, May 25
Friday, May 26
and
Saturday, May 27
U.S. Navy Dive Tank in Times Square, plaza between 43rd & 44th Sts., 10:00 am – 5:00 pm

Thursday, May 25
through
Monday, May 29
General Public Ship Tours, Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, Homeport Pier in Staten Island, Pier 92 in Manhattan, 8:00 am – 5:00 pm

Friday, May 26
Movie on the Flight Deck: Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986), introduced by former NASA astronaut and T-38 pilot Gregory C. Johnson, 7:00

Navy Band Concert, with Navy Band Northeast Rhode Island Sound, Military Island, Times Square, 8:00

Friday, May 26
through
Monday, May 29
Giant Leaps Planetarium Show, Intrepid, Hangar 3, Rotunda, 12:15 – 3:15

Saturday, May 27
Marine Day, with a formation run, military static displays, demonstrations, and a performance by the USMC Battle Color Detachment, 8:00 am – 4:00 pm

Broadway Showcase: Cats, Kinky Boots, School of Rock, Ernest Shackleton Loves Me, The Imbible: A Spirited History of Drinking, and Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, emceed by The Play That Goes Wrong, Pier 86, Main Stage, 12 noon

U.S. Coast Guard Search & Rescue Demo, Homeport Pier, Staten Island, 12 noon

CAMMO Voices of Service, Pier 86, Main Stage, 1:30 & 4:30

American Military Spouses Choir, Pier 86, Main Stage, 3:30 & 5:00

Navy Band Concert, with Navy Band Northeast Rhode Island Sound, Military Island, Times Square, 6:00

Battle of the Big Bands, with Harlem Renaissance Orchestra, Glenn Crytzer Orchestra with guest vocalist Hannah Gill, Gunhild Carling with the Swingadelic Big Band, Jason Prover and the Sneak Thievery Orchestra, swing dancing lessons, the Bathtub Ginnys, the Intrepid Swing Dance Brigade, contests, MC Dandy Wellington, DJ VaVa Voom and Odysseus Bailer, Flight Deck, $55-$95, 7:00 pm – 1:00 am

U.S. Marine Corps Battle Color Detachment Performance, Father Duffy Square, Times Square, 8:00

Fleet Week will feature celebrations, commemorations, and memorials May 24-30 in all five boroughs (photo courtesy Fleet Week New York)

Saturday, May 27
and
Sunday, May 28
Activities, displays, demonstrations, tours, and more, including “Dive into Density,” U.S. Coast Guard Silent Drill Team, SeaPerch Pool Demonstrations, antique military vehicles, “Signal Flags,” CEC/Seabee Historical Foundation’s STEM activity, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers North Atlantic Division, “Catch a Cable,” 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

Saturday, May 27
Sunday, May 28
and
Monday, May 29
Explosive Ordnance Disposal Navy Divers, New York Aquarium, Coney Island, $11.95 – $14.95

Meet the Author: Julia Maki, My Mom Hunts Submarines, Hangar 2, Stage, 11:00 am, 12 noon, 1:00

Sunday, May 28
Performance by Tap Life, Pier 86, Main Stage, 12:30

Performance by America’s Sweethearts, Pier 86, Main Stage, 1:00 & 3:00

Performance by Deployed: A New Musical, Pier 86, Main Stage, 1:30 & 4:30

Performance by the 78th Army Band, Pier 86, Main Stage, 2:00

Performance by Exit 12 Dance Company, Pier 86, Main Stage, 3:30

Navy Band Concert, with Navy Band Northeast Rhode Island Sound, Military Island, Times Square, 4:00

Theater of War, with Zach Grenier, Kathryn Erbe, and Reg E. Cathey, Allison & Howard Lutnick Theater, free with RSVP, 7:00

Monday, May 29
Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Day Observance, commemorating the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Battle of Midway, Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument, Riverside Dr. & 89th St., 10:00 am

Activities, displays, demonstrations, tours, and more, including Minus 5 Ice Sculpting Experience, CEC/Seabee Historical Foundation’s STEM activity, FDNY Fire Safety Experience, Dina Parise Racing 3,000HP Fallen Heroes Cadillac and Porta Tree display, Veterans Vision Project and Arizona State University, U.S. Air Force Auxiliary, Veteran Artist Program, Hudson Valley Paws for a Cause, Intrepid former crew members, “Dive into Density,” SeaPerch Pool Demonstrations, “Signal Flags,” “Catch a Cable,” “What Floats Your Boat?,” Pier 86, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm

Memorial Day Ceremony, Pier 86, 11:00 am

Search & Rescue Demonstration by the U.S. Coast Guard, end of Pier 86, 2:00

Bubble Garden by the Gazillion Bubble Show, Pier 86, 2:00 – 6:00