this week in lectures, signings, panel discussions, workshops, and Q&As

BAD NEWS! I was there…

Eight messengers descend to deliver tragic tales in JoAnne Akalaitis’s BAD NEWS! I was there . . . (photo by Ian Douglas)

NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
566 La Guardia Pl. at at Washington Square South
September 6-8, $40
212-992-8484
nyuskirball.org

The good news is that five-time Obie winner JoAnne Akalaitis’s BAD NEWS! I was there . . . is a salient, pertinent, and entertaining work. The bad news is that it’s all too true. Initially workshopped five years ago at Poet’s House and debuting at the Guthrie last year, BAD NEWS! is a clarion call that relates Greek tragedy to what is happening around the world today. The ninety-minute show takes audiences, divided into four groups, through numerous spaces in NYU’s Skirball Center, where it continues through September 8; in each location, two messengers in yellow safety vests with flashlights in the pocket over their heart deliver tales of disaster, murder, catastrophe, suicide, violence, butchery, incest, and war as a young child (Jah-Sire Burnside, Devin Coleman, Donovan Coleman, and Riley Velazquez) sits nearby, reading superhero comic books. The audience is separated from the performers by yellow caution tape, a constant reminder of impending doom. “In death there is nothing but death,” the cast says in unison.

JoAnne Akalaitis’s BAD NEWS! I was there . . . takes audiences all around the NYU Skirball Center (photo by Ian Douglas)

The dialogue and songs (the music is by Bruce Odland), presented in English, Greek, Latin, French, and German, have been adapted from classical literature by Sophocles, Euripedes, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Jean Racine, and Aeschylus, translated by Anne Carson, Bertolt Brecht, Ezra Pound, W. B. Yeats, Ted Hughes, Caryl Churchill, and others. Eight seminal tragic figures are represented: Medea (Katie Lee Hill), Thyestes (Jenny Ikeda), the Bacchae (Rocco Sisto), Phèdre (Kelley Curran), Oedipus (Howard Overshown), Antigone (Henry Jenkinson), Orestes (Jasai Chase Owens), and Hecuba (Rachel Christopher). Guides (Ahsan Ali, Maya Carte, ESJAE, Josh Fulton, ALEXA GRÆ, Chloé Worthington, Isabella Peterson, Milo Longenecker, and Aigner Mizzelle) carry lights as they lead the groups through narrow hallways, up and down stairs, and into various rooms; they also serve as a Greek chorus, singing in unison in the background. Along the way, white sheets with the title of the show written in what looks like blood hover. Curiously, there are not enough chairs to seat everyone at each stop, so if you can stand, let the elderly, infirm, or pregnant sit down.

Immersive production at Skirball Center warns of impending doom (photo by Ian Douglas)

As you watch one section, you can clearly hear snippets from at least one other part (the first four scenes run concurrently and can be seen in any order), creating a cacophony of bad news, as if you’re being overwhelmed by social media and television reports. (Julie Archer designed the sets and costumes, with lighting by Jennifer Tipton and sound by Odland.) It all culminates in a grand finale that brings all four groups together, making one last stand. Created and directed by Akalaitis, the cofounder of Mabou Mines and former head of the New York Shakespeare Festival, BAD NEWS! is about bearing witness, in the past and the present; it asks us to pay attention to what is going on across the globe and to speak up when we see danger. “I was there and I will tell you everything” is the play’s constant refrain. (For example, when no Holocaust survivors are left on earth, what happens to their stories, especially with so many conspiracy theorists claiming it’s a hoax, and so many people on the internet believing them?) The show is accompanied by a multimedia lobby installation on Greek tragedy, supplemented with articles on the refugee crisis, Donald Trump, neo-Nazis, and other current events, and the audience is asked to write down their own personal bad news on a sheet of paper. After the performance, you’re encouraged to have a free drink, talk about what you just experienced, and read aloud one of the anonymous pieces of bad news. “I speak the truth. All evils are revealed,” one character says early on. The actors are not just delivering tragic news from ancient tales; they’re warning us about today, and tomorrow. And that’s a good thing, if only more people would listen.

PLAY IT LOUD: INSTRUMENTS OF ROCK AND ROLL

Joan Jett Melody Maker, 1977 Gibson (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Joan Jett’s 1977 Melody Maker Gibson is part of Met exhibition “Play It Loud” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Metropolitan Museum of Art, Met Fifth Ave.
Gallery 199
1000 Fifth Ave. at 82nd St.
Through Through October 1, $25 suggested admission
212-535-7710
www.metmuseum.org

In 2011, the Met hosted “Guitar Heroes: Legendary Craftsmen from Italy to New York,” focusing on the lutherie tradition of Italian Americans in New York and New Jersey, artisans making violins, mandolins, guitars, and other stringed instruments. In the current exhibition “Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock & Roll,” the Met turns it up to eleven, celebrating the stringed and nonstringed apparatus of rock and pop music since the 1950s. In Mott the Hoople’s 1973 staple “All the Way from Memphis,” Ian Hunter refers to his guitar as a “six-string razor,” an “axe,” and “electric junk.” He continues: “Some dude said, ‘Rock ’n’ rollers, you’re all the same / Man, that’s your instrument.’ / I felt so ashamed.” Ian and Mott might not be represented in the Met exhibit — or in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — but there’s nothing for anyone to be ashamed of regarding this exciting collection of nearly two hundred items, with most of the instruments displayed in vitrines, like sculptural works of art, which of course they are.

Keith Emerson’s 1960s Modified Hammond L-100 organ features two knives Emerson would stab the keys with (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Don’t go straight to the labels, which contain information about who made the instrument and who played it on what songs; it’s a lot of fun trying to figure out whose instrument it is. You’re likely to guess twangers by Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick, Prince, Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly, Ravi Shankar, and Bruce Springsteen, but others will surprise and delight you. One of the first items you’ll encounter is Jerry Lee Lewis’s 1955 Petite Grand Piano; for some reason, the signage refers to Lewis, who is eighty-three, in the past tense. Among the many gems are Chuck Berry’s 1958 Gibson, Louis Jordan’s 1954 Mark VI alto saxophone, Muddy Waters’s 1958 Telecaster known as “the Hoss,” Les Paul’s 1942 “Klunker,” Jimi Hendrix’s 1967 “Love Drops” Flying V, Joni Mitchell’s 1978 GB10NT George Benson Signature, Jack White’s 1964 Airline Res-O-Glas, Joe Perry’s 1985-86 X-100 Blade Runner, Stevie Ray Vaughan’s 1963 “Number One” composite Stratocaster, Robert Trujillo’s 2007–08 “Aztec De La Chloe” five-string bass, Keith Emerson’s 1968 Customized Moog Modular Synthesizer with keyboard, ribbon controllers, and stand, Ian Anderson’s 1975 Model 18-0 flute, Lady Gaga’s 2014 ARTPOP piano with custom housing, and Paul Stanley’s 1979–80 Cracked Mirror Iceman in addition to instruments played by Duane Allman, the Edge, Angus Young, Jeff Beck, Flea, Patti Smith, Ray Manzarek, Paul Butterfield, Nancy Wilson, Clarence Clemons, Steve Vai, Neil Young, Tina Weymouth, Bob Dylan, and dozens more.

Met exhibition is not just about classic guitars (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

These are not mere artifacts; Jerry Garcia’s Wolf was taken out of the museum so John Mayer could play it at a recent Dead & Co. show at CitiField, and a Stones guitar is out on the road with the band right now. There are several striking guitars from Met fave Steve Miller, who will playing a show in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium on September 28 and contributed to the 2011 “Guitar Heroes” exhibit. Don’t miss Kurt Cobain’s destroyed 1993 left-handed Fender Stratocaster, Eric Clapton’s trippy 1964 “The Fool” SG (and the original headstock, which earns its own vitrine), Pete Townshend’s 1973 Gibson SG Special (which he smashed during a photo shoot and is now encased in Lucite), and a fragment of Hendrix’s 1967 Monterey Pop Fender Stratocaster, which he famously lit on fire. Four guitar greats tell their stories in a circular case that houses their gear and video monitors: Jimmy Page, Keith Richards, Eddie Van Halen, and Tom Morello. (Having seen Morello shred live, I understand exactly why he’s part of this elite quartet.) Several bands display their stage setup, including the Beatles, the Who, Metallica, and the Roots. The exhibition, which was inspired by Brad Tolinski and Alan di Perna’s book Play It Loud: An Epic History of the Style, Sound, and Revolution of the Electric Guitar and is co-organized by the Met’s Jayson Kerr Dobney and the Hall of Fame’s Craig J. Inciardi, is supplemented by vintage concert posters by Lee Conklin, Bonnie MacLean, Rick Griffin, and others. It’s easy to argue why certain musicians are not part of the show (What, no Richard Thompson or Lou Reed?!? Where’s Ritchie Blackmore, Bob Mould, and Johnny Ramone?), but it’s better to just enjoy who is in it. Below are the remaining special events being held in conjunction with the exhibition, which runs through October 1.

Prince’s 1993 Love Symbol captures his trademark glyph (photo by Cathy Hapka for twi-ny)

Saturday, September 7
Black Rock Coalition: History of Our Future, with the BRC Orchestra, Fantastic Negrito, Nona Hendryx, Vernon Reid, Corey Glover, and Will Calhoun, “Captain” Kirk Douglas, Stew, the Family Stand, Carl Hancock Rux, and Toshi Reagon, Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, $25, 7:00

Sunday, September 8
Sunday at the Met — Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock and Roll, panel discussion with Anthony DeCurtis, David Fricke, Holly George-Warren, Jayson Dobney, and Craig J. Inciardi, Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, free with Museum admission, 2:00

Friday, September 13
MetFridays: Play It Loud — ETHEL and Friends: Four for Fighting, Great Hall Balcony Bar, 5:00–8:00; screening of Woodstock (Michael Wadleigh, 1970), Bonnie J. Sacerdote Lecture Hall, 6:00; Conversations with . . . curators Jayson Dobney and Craig J. Inciardi, Gallery 199, 6:00; Signs and Symbols of Rock and Roll, with designers from ThoughtMatter, a band-name generator, and a button workshop, Great Hall, 6:00; Building Instruments with Atelier Rosenkrantz, Gallery 681, 6:00; Tie-Dye Workshop, Carroll Classroom, 6:00; Reflections on Woodstock with Chris Molanphy, Art Study Room, 6:30; Lez Zeppelin Live, preceded by discussion with Steph Paynes and Brad Tolinski, free with advance RSVP, Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, 7:15; all free with museum admission, 5:00–9:00

Saturday, September 28
Steve Miller Band and Jimmie Vaughan Band in Concert, Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium, 7:00

NYU SKIRBALL FALL 2019 SEASON

Joanne Akalaitis’s site-specific Bad News! I Was There . . . leads small audiences through the Skirball Center

NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
566 La Guardia Pl.
September 6 – December 9
212-992-8484
nyuskirball.org

NYU Skirball’s mission is to “present work that inspires yet frustrates, confirms yet confounds, entertains yet upends.” They are staying true to their goals with an extremely impressive and daring fall season of music, theater, dance, literature, and talks. The season gets under way September 6-8 ($40) with the New York City premiere of former New York Shakespeare Festival head and five-time Obie winner Joanne Akalaitis’s Bad News! I Was There . . . , a site-specific performance in English, Greek, French, and German that takes four groups through the lobby, dressing room, and backstage area of the theater, mixing in sung and spoken excerpts from classic Greek tragedy. “‘I was there’ is a refrain heard every day on the news, often followed by ‘How can this happen? What’s wrong here? What should we do?’” Akailitis says about the show.

Philippe Quesne’s The Moles, set in a world without humans and words, consists of four presentation September 12-14: “Parade of the Moles,” a free tour of Greenwich Village on Thursday at 2:00; “Night of the Moles” on Friday and Saturday night ($30, 7:30), taking place in a burrow; and the family-friendly “Afternoon of the Moles” on Saturday afternoon ($20, 7:30), as the Moles form a punk band. If you missed Sam Mendes’s brilliant production of The Lehman Trilogy at the Park Avenue Armory, you can catch one of two “National Theatre Live” screenings at the Skirball on September 15 ($25, 2:00 & 7:00) On September 16, “NYU Writes: A Celebration of Writers and Writing at NYU” brings together Jeffrey Eugenides, Jonathan Safran Foer, Terrance Hayes, Yusef Komunyakaa, Nick Laird, Sharon Olds, and Zadie Smith, hosted by Deborah Landau (free with advance RSVP, 7:00).

Daniel Fish reimagines Don DeLillo’s White Noise in multimedia production (photo by Andrew Lieberman)

Tony nominee Daniel Fish follows up his controversial reimagining of Oklahoma! with White Noise, a seventy-minute multimedia show “freely inspired” by Don DeLillo’s 1985 National Book Award-winning novel. Zoe Coombs Marr, Ursula Martinez, and Adrienne Truscott take on critics in Wild Bore September 27-28 ($35-$45, 7:30). And that just takes us through September; below are some of the highlights from October to December:

Sunday, October 6
National Theatre Live: Fleabag, $25, 7:00

Friday, October 11
and
Saturday, October 12
John Kelly: Underneath the Skin, $35-$45, 7:30

John Kelly channels Samuel Steward in show at Skirball

Friday, October 18
and
Saturday, October 19
ICE: George Lewis’s Soundlines — A Dreaming Track, $35-$45, 7:30

Friday, October 25
and
Saturday, October 26
Mette Ingvartsen: to come (extended), US premiere, $35-$45, 7:30

Friday, November 8
and
Saturday, November 9
Big Dance Theater: The Road Awaits Us, Ballet, Cage Shuffle: Redux, $35-$45, 7:30

Friday, December 7
and
Saturday, December 8
The Builders Association: Elements of Oz, $20-$25, 7:30

POLYESTER WITH JOHN WATERS AND KEN KING

Francine Fishpaw (Divine) faces a series of suburban dilemmas in John Waters’s odoriferous Polyester

POLYESTER (John Waters, 1981)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Thursday, September 5, 7:00 & 9:15
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com

Camp champ John Waters will be at IFC Center on September 5 for a Q&A and extended introduction at two screenings of a new 4K restoration of his cult classic suburban satire Polyester, joined by costar Ken King, who plays Baltimore Foot Stomper Dexter Fishpaw. The crudely rambunctious film follows the misadventures of the Job-like Francine Fishpaw, ravishingly portrayed by drag queen extraordinaire Divine. Her God-fearing life takes a bitter turn when she catches her nasty, demanding husband, porn purveyor Elmer (David Samson), with his sexpot secretary, Sandra Sullivan (Mink Stole). Her status in the community, so precious to her, is ruined as she becomes an alcoholic, unable to rein in her wildly promiscuous daughter, Lu-Lu (Mary Garlington) — who has the hots for bad boy Bo-Bo Belsinger, played by Dead Boys frontman Stiv Bators!! — or her inhalant-abusing foot-fetishist son. She also receives no emotional or financial support from her skunk of a mother, La Rue (Joni Ruth White). The only one who stands by her is her ultra-strange, simple-minded bestie, the Baby Jane-like although kindhearted Cuddles Kovinsky (Edith Massey), but she finds a glimmer of hope in a handsome hunk of a he-man (Hollywood heartthrob Tab Hunter!!) who tantalizingly keeps showing up on her radar in a flashy white sports car, like Suzanne Somers does to Richard Dreyfuss in American Graffiti.

Francine (Divine) falls for the hunky Todd (Tab Hunter) in Polyester

When the Douglas Sirk-inspired Polyester premiered in May 1981 at the old Waverly, which became the IFC in 2005, it was shown in Odorama — each moviegoer was given a scratch-and-sniff card of ten smells that were signaled by the corresponding number blinking on the screen. (I unfortunately still remember number nine all too well.) It’s not just a gimmick; in the movie, Francine is constantly sniffing around like an animal, though she is not so much hunting prey as being prey. The acting is about as over the top as it gets and the editing and camerawork DIY sloppy as writer, producer, and director Waters, who had previously made such films as Pink Flamingos and Female Troubles and would go on to make Cry-Baby, Serial Mom, and Hairspray, addresses such issues as pornography, abortion, religion, addiction, marriage, class, fat shaming, parenting, and the movies themselves with a brash sense of humor that can never go too low. Baltimore native Waters fills the film, his first major hit, with his usual Dreamlanders cast of oddball actors; in addition to Divine, Massey, and Stole, you’ll find Susan Lowe, Cookie Mueller, George Hulse, Mary Vivian Pearce, Sharon Niesp, Jean Hill, George Figgs, and Marina Melin in small roles. The score features a trio of songs — Hunter sings the title track, written by Chris Stein and Debbie Harry of Blondie, while Bill Murray warbles Harry and Michael Kamen’s “The Best Thing.” Nearly forty years later, Polyester is still like nothing you’ve ever seen before, a wacky work that established Waters in popular culture as a unique auteur with his own unique cinematic language.

WHITNEY BIENNIAL 2019

Nicole Eisenman’s aptly named Procession nearly proceeded out of the Whitney Biennial (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Whitney Museum of American Art
99 Gansevoort St.
Wednesday – Monday through September 22, $18-$25 (eighteen and under free; pay-what-you-wish Fridays 7:00 – 9:30)
Some programs require advance registration and/or tickets
212-570-3600
whitney.org

The most viscerally entertaining work at the 2019 Whitney Biennial is Nicole Eisenman’s aptly named Procession, which first proceeded onto the sixth floor terrace, then nearly proceeded out of the building. The France-born, Brooklyn-based artist was part of a protest against the Whitney’s vice chairman, Warren Kanders, whose Safariland company makes tear-gas canisters, among other items used by security forces on civilians around the world. Eight artists — Eisenman, Michael Rakowitz, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Meriem Bennani, Nicholas Galanin, Eddie Arroyo, Agustina Woodgate, and Christine Sun Kim — demanded their work be removed from the biennial as long as Kanders remained on the board; they were responding to an original call for a boycott made by Hannah Black, Ciarán Finlayson, and Tobi Haslett. Two years ago, artist and writer Black argued that Dana Schutz’s painting Open Casket, depicting Emmett Till in his coffin, “must go,” claiming it was cultural appropriation. The Whitney decided to add signage to Schutz’s canvas, explaining the controversy and letting viewers decide for themselves. But this time around, the Whitney agreed to pull the contributions from the eight artists — only to stop when Kanders resigned from the board, not admitting any guilt but not wanting the story to “undermine the important work of the Whitney.”

Agustina Woodgate’s National Times erases “master/slave” time (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The site-specific Procession is an oddball collection of near-mythical bronze and plaster figures trudging along, a mix of classical and contemporary styles. Visitors are allowed to walk on the platform and get up close to the individual elements, which contain plenty of humor; watch out for the gaseous release. If you’d like to comment on the piece, Eisenman has a message for you: “How’s my sculpting? Call 1-800-EAT-SHIT.” Meanwhile, after much consternation, Marcus Fischer opted to keep his audio installation, Ascent/Dissent, in the Allison and Warren Kanders Stairway as a tribute to Felix Gonzalez Torres’s Untitled (America) string of lightbulbs that hang down the center of the stairwell. For more on the Kanders situation, Forensic Architecture’s eye-opening Triple-Chaser digs deep into the making and distribution of tear-gas canisters using an AI algorithm.

Joe Minter’s ’63 Foot Soldiers is composed of found objects (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

The rest of the survey of twenty-first-century American art is, as always, a hit-or-miss affair, with many works dealing with international sociopolitical issues. Alexandra Bell’s Friday, April 21, 1989 — Front Page looks at how the New York Daily News reported the Central Park Five case. Bennani’s Mission Teens invites viewers to sit in a tropical “video viewing garden” to experience her films on colonialism. Robert Bittenbender uses garbage he collected in Long Island City to create wall sculptures that comment on gentrification. Kota Ezawa’s large-scale animation National Anthem was made from smaller watercolors of football players taking a knee during “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Sofía Gallisá Muriente explores the fraught relationship between mainland America and Puerto Rico in Lluvia con Nieve (Rain with Snow), as does Daniel Lind-Ramos in his found-object sculptures Sentinels and Maria-Maria; the latter reimagines the Virgin Mary through Hurricane Maria, which devastated his homeland.

Calvin Marcus (1988-), Los Angeles Painting, 2018. Watercolor and vinyl paint on linen, 79 x 101 5/8 in. (200 x 258 cm). Image courtesy the artist; Clearing, New York and Brussels; and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles

Calvin Marcus, Los Angeles Painting, watercolor and vinyl paint on linen, 2018 (image courtesy the artist; Clearing, New York and Brussels; and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles)

Three videos by Ilana Harris-Babou take on such issues as reparations and redlining. Joe Minter’s ’63 Foot Soldiers uses found materials, including license plates, signs, helmets, sneakers, and a small flag, to reference the civil rights movement and the current state of wealth and class inequality. Woodgate’s National Times consists of clocks keeping “master/slave” time, the minute hand equipped with sandpaper that slowly erases the numbers. In My Soul Remainer, ballet star Jock Soto dances to Laura Ortman’s violin, playing a combination of musical notes and environmental sounds amid a mountain landscape. On select Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, five dancers (Hector Cerna, Tiffany Mangulabnan, Charles Gowin, Violetta Komyshan, Josep Maria Monreal Vidal, Amy Saunder, Mauricio Vera, Allison Walsh, Jennifer Whalen, Tyler Zydel) move within Brendan Fernandes’s The Master and Form scaffold-like installation, in which the performers get ready at individual spots where they interact with ash wood and leather works on black carpets, their bodies mimicking the shape of the sculpture, then inhabit a central scaffold-like installation that looks like it belongs in a children’s playground before grabbing on to floor-to-ceiling ropes lined up in front of full-length windows.

Brendan Fernandes’s The Master and Form is performed Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Two of the most striking images in the show are Curran Hatleberg’s Untitled (Camaro), a photograph of a red Camaro stuck on top of two dumpsters in a junkyard, and Calvin Marcus’s gorgeous Los Angeles Painting, a fiery red future visible through a car windshield; both can be seen as harbingers of doom, a theme that hovers over this biennial, though the exhibit, curated by Jane Panetta and Rujeko Hockley, is not without hope. Also keep an eye out for impressive works by Simone Leigh, Brian Belott, Todd Gray, Maia Ruth Lee, and the late Barbara Hammer. Below are the remaining special screenings and live performances; some require advance tickets or RSVP.

Thursday, September 5
and
Saturday, September 7
Autumn Knight: Sanity TV, third floor, Susan and John Hess Family Theater, $10, 7:30

Saturday, September 7
Whitney Block Walk, free with advance RSVP, 4:30, 5:00, 5:30, 6:00

Friday, September 13
Steffani Jemison with Garrett Gray: On Similitude, third floor, Susan and John Hess Family Theater, $10, 7:30

Saturday, September 14
Whitney Block Walk, free with advance RSVP, 4:30, 5:30

Sunday, September 15
From Seneca Village to Brooklyn: A Conversation with Tomashi Jackson, with Tourmaline, Tsubasa Berg, Diana diZerega, Jonathan Kuhn, Meredith B. Linn, Kelly Mena, K-Sue Park, Nan Rothschild, Marie Warsh, and Stephen Witt, third floor, Susan and John Hess Family Theater, free with advance RSVP, 7:30

Thursday, September 19
Madeline Hollander — Ouroboros: Gs, Pamella and Daniel DeVos Family Outdoor Largo, free with museum admission, 5:00 – 9:00

Friday, September 20, 7:00
and
Saturday, September 21, 4:00
What Was Always Yours and Never Lost, short films followed by a Q&A with curator Sky Hopinka and some of the filmmakers, Susan and John Hess Family Theater, $10

THE LOAD

Leon Lučev stars as a man just trying to get by during the Kosovo war in The Load

THE LOAD (TERET) (Ognjen Glavonić, 2018)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Francesca Beale Theater
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Aves.
Opens Friday, August 30
212-875-5600
grasshopperfilm.com
www.filmlinc.org

Eight years in the making, Ognjen Glavonić’s narrative feature debut, The Load, is a tense, gripping drama set amid the NATO bombings during the Kosovo war in Yugoslavia in 1999. After the factory where he worked closes down, Vlada Stefanovic (Leon Lučev) takes a job driving a truck from the countryside to Belgrade. The mission is reminiscent of the ones in Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear and William Friedkin’s underrated remake, Sorcerer, except in those films, the drivers, played by Yves Montand and Roy Scheider, respectively, knew they were transporting dangerous cargoes of nitroglycerin and dynamite. Not only won’t his facilitators tell Vlada what’s in the back of the truck, but it’s padlocked so he can’t look inside. He just has to follow two very basic rules: “Once you start driving, there’s no stopping” and “Avoid traffic and don’t attract attention.”

The film, inspired by real events that Glavonić documented in 2016’s Depth Two, opens with a dark, beautiful shot of a vast mountain landscape, bombs going off in the distance while a van slowly moves down a winding path. Vlada is first shown from outside the vehicle, his head leaning against the window, a forest and a burning house reflected in the glass; he appears to be trapped inside, resigned to his fate. This is not the life he has chosen, risking everything so he can bring home money to his wife and son. For much of the movie, he is in the claustrophobic cab of his truck or in corners of small rooms, as if there is no way out. He reluctantly picks up a young hitchhiker, Paja (Pavle Čemerikić), who says he knows the way to Belgrade, avoiding roads and bridges that have been bombed.

Paja (Pavle Čemerikić) hitches a ride in Ognjen Glavonić’s suspenseful road movie

Glavonić occasionally strays from the central narrative, temporarily following the stories of minor, peripheral characters — the director has said that he structured the film like a tree, with many branches representing various aspects of everyday life at that harsh time — but he always returns to Vlada, the tree’s trunk, who smokes cigarette after cigarette, using his father’s lighter, an engraved memento from the 1943 Battle of Sutjeska. He doesn’t say much, rarely smiles, just forges ahead. When he walks into the middle of a party, the first words sung by the band are “like a wounded bird”; he is a victim of war, collateral damage. “Take me away from here,” the song continues, but there is nowhere to go but to his mysterious destination.

A coproduction of Serbia, Croatia, France, Qatar, and Iran, The Load is a masterpiece of suspense, a caustic thriller gorgeously photographed by Tatjana Krstevski, often with a roaming, off-balance handheld camera, with subtly immersive sound design by Jakov Munižaba, making it feel like you’re on the road with Vlada, seeing and hearing what he’s experiencing. Croatian actor Lučev (Silent Sonata, I Can Barely Remember the Day) is magnetic as Vlada, a kind of everyman caught up in a terrible situation that he can do nothing about. The Load opens August 30 at Lincoln Center, with Krstevski and producer Stefan Ivančić introducing the 7:15 screening that night; Ivančić will also introduce the 5:00 show on August 31.

A POSSIBILITY THAT EXISTS ALONGSIDE: MELANIE CREAN AND JESS SALDAÑA GALLERY TOUR AND POETRY READING

Cover Image: Left: Melanie Crean. Photo: Jordan Parnass; right: Jess Saldaña. Photo: Jess Saldaña

Melanie Crean and Jess Saldaña will team up for the latest “A Possibility that Exists Alongside” at the New Museum (photos by Jordan Parnass, Jess Saldaña)

Who: Melanie Crean, Jess Saldaña
What: Free gallery tour and poetry reading
Where: New Museum of Contemporary Art, 235 Bowery at Prince St., 212-219-1222
When: Thursday, August 22, free with advance RSVP, 6:00
Why: On August 22, artist, educator and filmmaker Melanie Crean will lead a special tour of the New Museum exhibition “Mirror/Echo/Tilt,” a multichannel video installation by Crean, Shaun Leonardo, and Sable Elyse Smith that examines arrest and incarceration, made in conjunction with participants with firsthand experience. The tour will be followed by a poetry reading by Chicanx muralist, poet, performer, and analogue film photographer Jess Saldaña, the founder and curator of the Brooklyn performance space Affections. The event, free with advance RSVP, is part of the New Museum program “A Possibility that Exists Alongside,” which last month featured a gallery tour by Leonardo and a poetry reading by Nicole Sealey and continues September 12 with a tour and reading by Smith; the exhibit runs through October 6.