this week in film and television

CREATIVE ENCOUNTERS: THE BEACHES OF AGNÈS

Agnès Varda takes an unusual approach to autobiography in THE BEACHES OF AGNES

CinéSalon: THE BEACHES OF AGNÈS (LES PLAGES D’AGNÈS) (Agnès Varda, 2008)
French Institute Alliance Française, Florence Gould Hall
55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
Tuesday, May 3, $14, 4:00 & 7:30
Series continues Tuesdays through May 31
212-355-6100
www.fiaf.org

“The whole idea of fragmentation appeals to me,” filmmaker, photographer, and installation artist Agnès Varda says in the middle of her unusual cinematic autobiography, the César-winning documentary The Beaches of Agnès. “It corresponds so naturally to questions of memory. Is it possible to reconstitute this personality, this person Jean Vilar, who was so exceptional?” She might have been referring to her friend, the French actor and theater director, but the exceptional Belgian-French Varda might as well have been referring to herself. Later she explains, “My memories swarm around me like confused flies. I hesitate to remember all that. I don’t want to.” Fortunately for viewers, Varda (Jacquot de Nantes, The Gleaners and I) does delve into her past in the film, sharing choice tidbits from throughout her life and career, in creative and offbeat ways that are charmingly self-effacing. Using cleverly arranged film clips, re-creations, photographs, and an array of frames and mirrors, the eighty-year-old Varda discusses such colleagues as Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker, and Alain Resnais; shares personal details of her long relationship with Jacques Demy; visits her childhood home; rebuilds an old film set; speaks with her daughter, Rosalie Varda, and son, Mathieu Demy; talks about several of her classic films, including La Pointe Courte, Cléo from 5 to 7, and Vagabond; and, in her ever-present bangs, walks barefoot along beaches, fully aware that the camera is following her every move and reveling in it while also feigning occasional shyness. Filmmakers don’t generally write and direct documentaries about themselves, but unsurprisingly, the Nouvelle Vague legend and first woman to win an honorary Palme d’or makes The Beaches of Agnès about as artistic as it can get without becoming pretentious and laudatory. The film is screening May 3 at 4:00 and 7:30, kicking off FIAF’s “Creative Encounters” CinéSalon series, comprising five unique documentary portraits. (By the way, the FIAF award Varda won in 2013 was from the International Federation of Film Archives for her work in film presentation and restoration, not from the French Institute Alliance Française.) The festival continues every Tuesday in May with Guillaume Nicloux’s The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq, Michel Gondry’s Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?, Claire Denis’s Jacques Rivette, the Night Watchman, and Chantal Akerman’s One Day Pina Asked…

VIKTORIA

A baby born without a belly button in 1980 Bulgaria sets things in motion in VIKTORIA

VIKTORIA (Maya Vitkova, 2014)
IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St., 212-924-7771
Lincoln Plaza Cinema, 1886 Broadway between 62nd & 63rd Sts., 212-757-2280
Opens Friday, April 29
bigworldpictures.org

Motherhood is not necessarily for everyone, as depicted in Maya Vitkova’s impressive feature-film debut, Viktoria. Vitkova wrote, directed, and produced the darker-than-dark absurdist epic black comedy and intense family drama, which has won awards at festivals around the globe. Irmena Chichikova gives a boldly stark, devastating performance as Boryana, a young Bulgarian woman in 1980 trying to do everything she can — short of having an illegal abortion — to end her pregnancy. Her husband, Ivan (Dimo Dimov), and mother, Dima (Mariana Krumova), are furious with her, enraged at what she is doing. When she ultimately does have a baby girl, the child is born without a belly button, a symbol of the lack of connection between mother and daughter. Boryana is further incensed when the infant is selected as Baby of the Decade by Todor Zhivkov (Georgi Spasov), the real-life Bulgarian president and longtime head of the Communist Party. The state bestows special gifts on the family, but Boryana grows more and more disenchanted with the situation, her unhappiness evident in her every movement and blank stare. Meanwhile, Viktoria, who is played at nine years old by Daria Vitkova and at fourteen by Kalina Vitkova, keeps a close connection to Zhivkov, reveling in being a showpiece for the government; she even has a special phone line that links her and Zhivkov, a kind of umbilical cord between the two. But the fall of Communism in 1989 leads to sociopolitical changes that affect the relationship between Boryana, Ivan, Dima, and Viktoria as they have to find their place in the new world order.

A mother (Irmena Chichikova) and daughter (Daria Vitkova) have difficulties connecting in impressive debut from Maya Vitkova

Chichikova is mesmerizing as Boryana, who says very little, her eyes and body emitting a stream of negative emotions that feel like impossible physical weights. Maya Vitkova uses milk as a metaphor throughout the 155-minute film; Boryana is unable to lactate, continuing the disconnection between mother and daughter, and a later scene in the rain takes it to another level. Viktoria is gorgeously photographed by Krum Rodriguez, from sparse interiors to stunning pathways in the woods, while Kaloyan Dimitrov’s piano-based score maintains the dour mood without becoming overly melancholic. The first half of the film is sardonic and bitterly funny, but as time marches on, the tone becomes more serious but no less absurd. Based on actual events, Viktoria is rather long and fades to black several times in what could have been mysteriously poetic finales, but the ultimate denouement has its own pure beauty. And in a touching end credit, Vitkova dedicates the film to her mother.

ANNA KARINA IN NEW YORK CITY

Anna Karina will be in New York City for three special presentations of films she made with onetime husband Jean-Luc Godard

Who: Anna Karina
What: Screenings and discussions in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens
Where: BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas, 30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St., 718-636-4100
Museum of the Moving Image, 35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria, 718-777-6800
Film Forum, 209 West Houston St., 212-727-8110
When: BAM: Tuesday, May 3, $20, 7:30; MoMI: Wednesday, May 4, $25, 7:00; Film Forum: Friday, May 6, $14, 7:30
Why: Legendary Danish-French actress Anna Karina will be making three rare New York City appearances next week at a trio of special screenings of films she made with Jean-Luc Godard. On May 3, the seventy-five-year-old Karina, who was married to Godard in from 1961 to 1965, starred in seven of his films in addition to works by Agnès Varda, Roger Vadim, Jacques Rivette, Volker Schlöndorff, Tony Richardson, Benoît Jacquot, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Raoul Ruiz, and others, will be at BAM for a members-only screening of 1960’s A Woman Is a Woman, for which she won the Best Actress Award at the Berlin Film Festival, followed by a Q&A with Melissa Anderson. If you’re not a BAM member, you can see Karina on May 4 at the Museum of the Moving Image, where she will participate in a conversation with Molly Haskell after a screening of 1965’s Pierrot le fou. And on May 6, Film Forum will present 1964’s Band of Outsiders, with Karina taking part in a discussion and audience Q&A following the 7:30 show. Band of Outsiders continues there through May 12, alongside the series “Anna & Jean-Luc,” which also includes Vivre Sa Vie, Alphaville, Le Petit Soldat, Made in U.S.A., A Woman Is a Woman, and Pierrot le Fou.

DOUGH

Ayyash (Jerome Holder) learns how to make challah from master baker Nat Dayan (Jonathan Pryce) in DOUGH

DOUGH (John Goldschmidt, 2016)
Village East Cinema
181-189 Second Ave. at 12th St.
Opens Friday, April 29
212-529-6799
www.menemshafilms.com
www.villageeastcinema.com

John Goldschmidt’s Dough is a sweet-natured, goodhearted buddy movie that can’t quite escape its leavened story, never quite rising to its potential. (Pardon the puns, but the film opens in New York City during Passover, when observant Jews cannot eat bread products made with yeast.) The great Jonathan Pryce stars as Nat Dayan, a kosher baker in London’s East End who specializes in bagels, challah, and muffins for a devoted but dwindling clientele. When a large chain supermarket moves in next door, ruthless developer Sam Cotton (Philip Davis) hires away Nat’s assistant in a direct attempt to force him out of business. Desperately seeking a new employee — and regularly expressing disappointment that his son, Stephen (Daniel Caltigirone), chose a law career over the family legacy — Nat agrees to hire Ayyash (Jerome Holder), the teenage son of his cleaning woman, Darfur refugee Safa (Natasha Gordon). Ayyash is a low-level drug dealer trying to make a good impression on Victor (Ian Hart), the brutal, violent local drug kingpin. The white and Jewish Nat and the black and Muslim Ayyash mix like, well, oil and water at first as the former teaches the latter how to bake, but when Ayyash accidentally drops some pot into the dough mixer, customers go crazy for the resulting challah, giving renewed energy to Nat and his customers. Meanwhile, the old curmudgeon is being courted by the recently widowed Joanna Silverman (Pauline Collins), the bakery’s landlady.

Pryce (Brazil, Miss Saigon), who is not Jewish but can be seen in New York City this July playing Shylock in The Merchant of Venice at Lincoln Center, is a joy to watch, balancing a lovely gentleness with a gruff edge, and Holder makes a fine film debut as Nat’s unexpected apprentice, but the rest of the cast has to play cardboard characters who are either purely good or purely bad, involved in clichéd situations and TV-sitcom twists. Goldschmidt (Maschenka, She’ll Be Wearing Pink Pyjamas), a TV-movie veteran who hasn’t directed a feature film since the mid-1980s, and first-time screenwriters Yehudah Jez Freedman and Jonathan Benson try to capture the charm of such film favorites as Local Hero, Waking Ned Divine, and The Full Monty, with occasional success, but they also leave several gaping plot holes, including a major one that is never addressed as the bakery’s wares get nearly everyone, including children, high as kites. Even the well-developed relationship between Nat and Ayyash, which includes a compelling moment when they both pray in the bakery, the former putting on tefillin, the latter bowing down to Mecca on a small carpet, goes awry in the end. There’s still a lot to enjoy in Dough, but the individual delights don’t add up to a successful whole, with too much soggy matzoh and not enough bite.

OPEN PLAN: STEVE McQUEEN PUBLIC PROGRAMS

Steve McQueen, “End Credits,” sequence of digitally scanned files, sound, continuous projection, 2012 (courtesy of the artist; Thomas Dane Gallery, London; and Marian Goodman Gallery)

Who: Steve McQueen and Donna De Salvo, Harry Belafonte and Dr. Cornel West
What: Two public programs in conjunction with the exhibition “Open Plan: Steve McQueen”
Where: Whitney Museum of American Art, 99 Gansevoort St., 212-570-3600
When: Friday, April 29, Steve McQueen in Conversation with Donna De Salvo, $15, 6:30; Sunday, May 1, Harry Belafonte and Dr. Cornel West Discuss Paul Robeson, $20, 5:00
Why: The Whitney’s five-part “Open Plan” series, which previously featured installations by Andrea Fraser, Lucy Dodd, Michael Heizer, and Cecil Taylor, concludes with a project by visual artist Steve McQueen that expands on his 2012 work, “End Credits,” an exploration of the FBI’s investigation into the political activities of actor, singer, athlete, lawyer, and civil rights activist Paul Robeson. McQueen, who began his career as an experimental short filmmaker (his 2004 exhibition at the Davis Museum at Wellesley College was an eye opener), wrote and directed Hunger and Shame before directing 2013’s 12 Years a Slave, which won the Best Picture Oscar. In conjunction with the multimedia show, the Whitney will be hosting two talks. On April 29, McQueen will discuss his career with senior curator Donna De Salvo, who organized the show with curatorial assistant Christie Mitchell. And on May 1 — not coincidentally May Day — actor, singer, songwriter, and activist Harry Belafonte and philosopher, professor, author, activist, and self-described “prominent and provocative democratic intellectual” Dr. Cornel West will team up to explore Robeson’s life and legacy. End Credits will be on view in the expansive Neil Bluhm Family Galleries through May 14; in addition, the Whitney is presenting the U.S. debut of McQueen’s “Moonlit” sculpture in the adjacent Kaufman Gallery.

LAURA POITRAS: ASTRO NOISE

Laura Poitras examines the War on Terror from various intriguing angles in immersive Whitney exhibition (photo by Ronald Amstutz)

Whitney Museum of American Art
99 Gansevoort St.
Through May 1, $18-$22
212-570-3600
whitney.org

Award-winning documentarian, journalist, and former chef Laura Poitras has opened a lot of eyes around the world with such films as Citizenfour, The Oath, and My Country, My Country and her investigative reporting for such outlets as the Guardian, the Washington Post, and the website she started with Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Cahill, the Intercept. The New School graduate is now sharing highly sensitive information about surveillance, drones, Guantánamo Bay Prison, the NSA, and more in a fascinating new way in “Astro Noise,” a five-room immersive installation on view at the Whitney. Poitras, whose Oscar-winning Citizenfour featured whistleblower Edward Snowden, invites viewers into a frightening world that is all too real. In the catalog, Astro Noise: A Survival Guide for Living under Total Surveillance, curator Jay Sanders notes that the title “echoes with associations. Discovered accidentally by astronomers in 1964 and initially thought to be a technical error, astro noise refers to the faint background disturbance of thermal radiation left over after the big bang. . . . More pointedly, Astro Noise is the name Edward Snowden gave to an encrypted file containing evidence of NSA mass surveillance that he shared with Poitras in 2012.” The exhibition begins with selections from her “Anarchist” series, consisting of full-color, large-scale prints of images Poitras created based on documents Snowden gave her of descrambled signals from the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters, including “Israeli Drone Feed (Intercepted February 24, 2009)” and “Power Spectrum Display of Doppler Tracks from a Satellite (Intercepted May 27, 2009).” In the middle of the second room is a thick two-sided screen on which two different films are projected on opposite sides; for O’Say Can You See, Poitras filmed people coming to Ground Zero and looking at the destruction wrought by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, while on the other side is U.S. military footage of 9/11-related interrogations of Said Boujaaida and Salim Hamdan, who both ended up at Guantánamo. In the third room, “Bed Down Location” visitors can lie down on a carpeted raised platform and gaze up at a screen on the ceiling that shows night skies in Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan, where drone attacks have taken place, as well as the sky at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, where drones are tested and flown.

Laura Poitras (b. 1964), ANARCHIST: Israeli Drone Feed (Intercepted February 24, 2009), 2016. Pigmented inkjet print mounted on aluminum, 45 × 64 3/4 in. (114.3 × 164.5 cm). Courtesy the artist

Laura Poitras, “ANARCHIST: Israeli Drone Feed (Intercepted February 24, 2009), pigmented inkjet print mounted on aluminum, 2016 (courtesy of the artist)

For “Disposition Matrix,” Poitras situates narrow, rectangular viewing peepholes at different heights in six walls; inside are official documents, video interviews, cell-phone footage, screenshots from intercepted drone feeds, and diagrams that deal with various aspects of the War on Terror, including Abu Ghraib prison, definitions of such phrases as “clandestine collection” and “covert action,” and home video of a town in Yemen on two successive days in August 2012, one depicting a wedding, the second the aftermath of a U.S. drone strike. Because of the way the peepholes are arranged, it is difficult to get the full picture of what is inside each slot, evoking how hard it is to get the full story from the government. In the fifth room, Poitras, who participated in the 2012 Whitney Biennial, makes herself the subject, something she specifically avoids in her documentaries, detailing how the U.S. government put her on a secret watchlist, continues to track her, keeps detaining and interrogating her at airports, and considers legal action to arrest her under the Espionage Act. (Meanwhile, she has sued the government.) Poitras adds a little surprise at the end, revealing how any one of us could be next. In a catalog interview with Sanders, Poitras states, “I very much like the idea of creating a space that challenges the viewer as to whether to venture in or not. . . . We live life not knowing what will happen next. What do people do when they’re confronted with choices and risks?” Poitras’s debut art installation does just that, confronting visitors with ideas and information that, unfortunately, might no longer be shocking but still come with alarming choices and risks.

CLASSIC IFC CENTER: CITY LIGHTS

Charlie Chaplin is tickled that CITY LIGHTS is an IFC Center classic pick

WEEKEND CLASSICS: CITY LIGHTS (Charles Chaplin, 1931)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
April 29-30, May 1, 11:00 am
Series continues weekends through June 26
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com

A genuine American treasure, City Lights is one of Charlie Chaplin’s most thoroughly entertaining masterpieces. Serving as writer, director, editor, producer, and composer, Chaplin also stars as the Little Tramp, a destitute man who instantly falls in love upon seeing a blind Flower Girl (Virginia Cherrill). When she mistakes him for a millionaire with a fancy car, he decides to pretend to be rich so she might like him, but when he actually becomes pals with the business tycoon (Harry Myers), he thinks he might eventually be able to get the money for her to get a new operation that could restore her eyesight. The only problem is that the millionaire, who parties wildly with the Little Tramp every evening, taking him to ritzy nightclubs and even giving him his car at one point, remembers nothing the next morning, and doesn’t want anything to do with him. It all leads to an unforgettable conclusion that pulls at the heartstrings. Despite the availability of sound, Chaplin chose to make City Lights a silent picture, although he did incorporate sound effects and, in one section, distorted speech. Although the film features several hysterical slapstick bits, including the opening, when the Little Tramp is sleeping on a statue entitled “Peace and Prosperity” as it is unveiled, and a scene in which he saves the millionaire from a suicide attempt, virtually every minute comments on the social reality of depression-era America and the widening gap between the rich and the poor. Metaphors abound as the Little Tramp tries his best to maintain a smile and search out love during the bleakest of times. City Lights is screening at 11:00 am April 29, 30, and May 1 in the “Weekend Classics” film series “Classic IFC Center,” consisting of favorite films selected by the theater’s managers, projectionists, and floor staff; City Lights was chosen by administrative staffer Asha P., who notes, “If only one of Charles Chaplin’s films could be preserved, City Lights would come the closest….” The festival continues through June 26 with such other greats as Black Narcissus, Ace in the Hole, The Godfather, Shadow of a Doubt, and Loves of a Blonde.