The lives of three very different individuals intertwine in Abbas Kiarostami’s remarkable LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE
LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE (Abbas Kiarostami, 2012)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Friday, October 26, 6:50
Series runs October 26-28
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
www.ifcfilms.com
Following the Tuscany-set Certified Copy, his first film made outside of his home country, master Iranian auteur Abbas Kiarostami heads to Japan for the beautifully told Like Someone in Love. Rin Takanashi stars as Akiko, a sociology student supporting herself as an escort working for bar owner and pimp Hiroshi (Denden). An older, classy businessman, Hiroshi insists that Akiko is the only person to handle a certain client, so, despite her loud objections, she is put in a cab and taken to meet Takashi (Tadashi Okuno), an elderly professor who seems to just want some company. But soon Akiko unwittingly puts the gentle old man in the middle of her complicated life, which includes her extremely jealous and potentially violent boyfriend, Noriaki (Ryō Kase), and a surprise visit from her grandmother (Kaneko Kubota). Taking its title from the song made famous by, among others, Ella Fitzgerald, Like Someone in Love is an intelligent character-driven narrative that investigates different forms of love and romance in unique and engaging ways. Kiarostami (Taste of Cherry, Close-Up) and cinematographer Katsumi Yanagijima, who has worked on numerous films by Takeshi Kitano, establish their visual style from the very beginning, as an unseen woman, later revealed to be Akiko, is on the phone lying to her abusive boyfriend about where she is, the camera not moving for extended periods of time as people bustle around her in a crowded bar. As is often the case with Kiarostami, who has said that his next film will be set in Italy, much of the film takes place in close quarters, including many in cars, both moving and parked, forcing characters to have to deal with one another and face certain realities they might otherwise avoid. Takanashi is excellent as Akiko, a young woman trapped in several bad situations of her own making, but octogenarian Okuno steals the show in the first lead role of a long career that has primarily consisted of being an extra. The soft look in his eyes, the tender way he shuffles through his apartment, and his very careful diction are simply captivating. Despite his outstanding performance, Okuno is committed to returning to the background in future films, shunning the limelight. A jazz-filled film that at times evokes the more serious work of Woody Allen, another director most associated with a home base but who has been making movies in other cities for a number of years now, Like Someone in Love is like a great jazz song, especially one in which the notes that are not played are more important than those that are. Like Someone in Love is screening October 26 at 6:50 as part of the BAMcinématek series “IFC Sneaks,” which offers an advance look at such upcoming IFC Films as Rodney Ascher’s Room 237, an obsessive examination of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, and Walter Salles’s hotly anticipated On the Road, an adaptation of the Jack Kerouac novel with Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty, Sam Riley as Sal Paradise, Kristen Stewart as Marylou, Amy Adams as Jane, Kirsten Dunst as Camille, and Viggo Mortensen as Old Bull Lee.
“Your eminence, I am not happy,” Guido (Marcello Mastroianni) tells the cardinal (Tito Masini) halfway through Federico Fellini’s self-reflexive masterpiece 8½. “Why should you be happy?” the cardinal responds. “That is not your task in life. Who said we were put on this earth to be happy?” Well, film makes people happy, and it’s because of works such as 8½, which will be screening October 19 as part of the Rubin Museum Cabaret Cinema series “Happiness is . . .” and will be introduced by Mexican-born, New York-based cartoonist Felipe Galindo. Fellini’s Oscar-winning eighth-and-a-half movie is a sensational self-examination of film and fame, a hysterically funny, surreal story of a famous Italian auteur who finds his life and career in need of a major overhaul. Mastroianni is magnificent as Guido Anselmi, a man in a personal and professional crisis who has gone to a healing spa for some much-needed relaxation, but he doesn’t get any as he is continually harassed by producers, screenwriters, would-be actresses, and various other oddball hangers-on. He also has to deal both with his mistress, Carla (Sandra Milo), who is quite a handful, as well as his wife, Luisa (Anouk Aimée), who is losing patience with his lies. Trapped in a strange world of his own creation, Guido has dreams where he flies over claustrophobic traffic and makes out with his dead mother, and his next film involves a spaceship; it doesn’t take a psychiatrist to figure out the many inner demons that are haunting him. Marvelously shot by Gianni Di Venanzo in black-and-white, scored with a vast sense of humor by Nino Rota, and featuring some of the most amazing hats ever seen on film — costume designer Piero Gherardi won an Oscar for all the great dresses and chapeaux — 8½ is an endlessly fascinating and wildly entertaining exploration of the creative process and the bizarre world of filmmaking itself. And after seeing 8½, you’ll appreciate Woody Allen’s 1980 homage, Stardust Memories, a whole lot more. “Happiness is . . .” continues through December 28 with such other Allen favorites as Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers, Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca, and George Cukor’s Camille, held in conjunction with the larger Rubin Museum program “
Yoga has come a long way, baby, as shown in the award-winning documentary Yogawoman. Unfortunately, however, this eighty-four-minute look at the transition of the art and practice of yoga from a male-exclusive method of finding inner peace to a woman-dominated community is a self-congratulatory infomercial that basically preaches to the converted. Dryly narrated by yoga enthusiast Annette Bening, who sounds like she had something better to do, Yogawoman is a family affair, written and directed by Kate McIntyre Clere (A Hard Place, Gaining Ground) and her sister Saraswati Clere and produced and photographed by Kate’s husband, Michael McIntyre. The film portrays the yoga world — indeed, it’s an international affair, visiting Japan, Australia, India, Germany, Kenya, and the UK in addition to various cities in the US (primarily New York and San Francisco) — as a tight-knit collection of women who use yoga not only for physical exercise and easing the mind but to play a key role in the overall life cycle, having positive effects on menstruation, sexuality, pregnancy, eating habits, the aging process, and battling cancer. Among the parade of talking heads who speak while sitting in front of the same blue background are Seane Corn, Angela Farmer, Cyndi Lee, Tari Prinster, and Patricia Walden, superstars in the field who sing the praises of the ever-growing discipline, but it all comes off as New Agey and self-important. There’s no doubt that yoga is beneficial and empowering in so many ways, but Yogawoman sells it like it’s a magic elixir that will cure all of your — and this troubled world’s — ills. Yogawoman opens October 19 at the Angelika; the filmmakers and various women who appear in the movie will participate in Q&A sessions following the screenings at 7:00 on Friday and Saturday and 3:00 on Sunday.
After his grandmother’s death at the age of ninety-eight, filmmaker Arnon Goldfinger (The Komediant) brought a camera to her Tel Aviv apartment to document going through the things she left behind and delve into Gerda Tuchler’s long life, which included growing up in Germany prior to WWII and escaping to Palestine in the 1930s. While opening drawers and closets, Goldfinger discovers a stack of Nazi propaganda magazines, soon learning a secret about Gerda and her parents that shocks him and his family. And in investigating further, he finds out yet more about this fascinating yet troubling relationship that has direct links to the highest levels of the S.S., coming upon intriguing details that he must decide whether to reveal or keep buried, well aware how they could affect other people’s lives and memories. The Flat is a compelling research procedural that Goldfinger spent five years putting together, with no intention of stopping, despite the potential hurt it could bring to his friends and family, particularly his mother. But it is not cruelty or revenge so much as a thirst for knowledge and the truth that drives him, no matter the cost, as he explores his Jewish grandparents’ questionable ties to their German roots. Goldfinger was named Best Director of a Documentary at the Jerusalem Film Festival for The Flat, with the jury noting, “This is a beautifully composed film about uncomfortable truths and the challenge of confronting them. Mr. Goldfinger undertakes expert research and leads us through his findings in a way that is not only gentle and sensitive, but also compelling and creative.” The Flat, which was shown at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival and opens theatrically on October 19, is indeed all of those things and more. Goldfinger will be at the IFC Center to discuss the film at the 7:30 and 9:45 screenings on Friday and Saturday night.
