Tag Archives: film society of lincoln center

HIMIZU

Yuichi Sumida (Shota Sometani) and Keiko Chazawa (Fumi Nikaido) face similar situations in different ways in Sion Sono’s HIMIZU

HIMIZU (Sion Sono, 2011)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
March 14-20
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
www.sonosion.com

“I know all things. I know pink cheeks from wan. I know death, who devours all. I know everything. Everything but myself,” Keiko Chazawa (Fumi Nikaido) says at the beginning of Himizu over a sweeping shot of the destruction wrought by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and Fukushima nuclear meltdown. Keiko is a strange, deeply troubled teen stalking another strange, deeply troubled teen, Yuichi Sumida (Shota Sometani), following him around school, covering her bedroom walls with things he has said, and hanging out at his family’s extremely low rent boat basin. Yuichi’s mother (Makiko Watanabe) tramps herself out while his father (Ken Mitsuishi), who owes money to yakuza boss Kaneko (Denden), regularly shows up drunk and tells Yuichi that he blames his terrible life on his son, that he wishes Yuichi were never born. Meanwhile, Keiko’s mother (Asuka Kurosawa) is building a gallows in her house, hoping that her daughter will use it to kill herself. Somehow, amid all this craziness and pain — and extreme violence — writer-director Sion Sono (Bad Film, Suicide Club) manages to tell a poignant tale of adolescence as the older generation in Japan is leaving a discouraging future for the younger generation, which is fraught with hopelessness and fear of what will be left for them. The horribly abused Yuichi walks through life like a zombie, not fighting back as he is beaten up by his father and the yakuza. He is surrounded by an unusual group of adults who he allows to live on his property in tents, as they have lost everything in the economic crisis. They’re a wacky bunch, led by the somewhat sage Yoruno (Tetsu Watanabe), that serves as a kind of surrogate family for both Yuichi and Keiko, wanting only the best for them despite Yuichi’s coldness and unwillingness to accept any kind of help. But Yuichi soon simmers until he ultimately explodes, and when he does, everyone had better watch out.

Teens face an uncertain future in HIMIZU

Himizu, the title of which refers to a species of Japanese mole, is based on Minoru Furuya’s manga, with Sono making major changes to the script after the earthquake, incorporating yet more disaster into the lives of Yuichi and Keiko. Sometani (Parasyte) and Nikaido (Sono’s Why Don’t You Play in Hell?) excel as the teens, her character’s obsessiveness working well against his laissez-faire attitude; the two were named Best New Actors at the Venice Film Festival for their performances. The supporting cast, which also includes Mitsuru Fukikoshi, Megumi Kagurazaka, Yosuke Kubozuka, Taro Suwa, and Setchin Kawaya, contributes to the film’s cultlike charm, although it is too long, with several false endings, and Tomohide Harada’s score tends to be overly sentimental. But those drawbacks are more than offset by Sôhei Tanikawa’s beautiful cinematography, which is filled with lasting images, perhaps none so memorable as the tilted shack that sticks out from the middle of the lake, a constant reminder of what was — and perhaps what will be. Himizu is having a special engagement March 14-20 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, accompanied by Sono’s Guilty of Romance, the conclusion of his Hate trilogy, which began with Love Exposure and continued with Cold Fish.

PATRICE CHÉREAU — THE LOVE THAT DARES: GABRIELLE

Gabrielle (Isabelle Huppert) reevaluates her life with her husband in Patrice Chereau drama

Gabrielle (Isabelle Huppert) reevaluates her life with her husband (Pascal Greggory) in exquisite Chéreau drama

GABRIELLE (Patrice Chéreau, 2005)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Aves.
Sunday, March 2, 3:20
Series runs February 28 – March 5
212-875-5600
www.filmlinc.com

Jean Hervey (Pascal Greggory) thinks he has the perfect life. He is a wealthy businessman with a beautiful home and a gorgeous wife, Gabrielle (Isabelle Huppert). At their fancy Thursday-night dinner parties, he gets to show off everything he has to all the right people. But then one day he comes home from work to find a letter waiting for him: Gabrielle has left him for another man. Suddenly his carefully constructed world — including a sexless marriage and servants who dress and undress him — comes tumbling down in an instant, only to be turned upside down again when Gabrielle immediately returns, having changed her mind, but not necessarily for the most loving of reasons. For the rest of the film, Greggory and Huppert act up a storm as they try to deal with the tragic consequences both publicly and privately. Based on the Joseph Conrad short story “The Return,” Gabrielle is a powerful, gripping turn-of-the-century drama that is staged theatrically by director and cowriter Patrice Chéreau, who knows how to get inside his characters (see Intimacy, Queen Margot, or The Wounded Man). While Hervey delivers monotone voice-over monologues in black-and-white, the more lively Gabrielle is depicted in color, her red hair a striking contrast to her bland, brown-gray husband. Most of the film takes place within the confines of their fabulous home, which becomes more and more like a prison as they fight for survival. A stunning achievement — though not an easy film to watch — Gabrielle is screening March 2 at 3:20 as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “Patrice Chéreau: The Love That Dares,” which pays tribute to the stage and film director, who passed away in October at the age of sixty-eight. The festival continues through March 5 with such other Chéreau works as Intimacy, Queen Margot, The Flesh of the Orchid, and The Wounded Man.

FATAL ASSISTANCE

Documentary reveals that there’s still a whole lot to be done in Haitian recovery effort as organizations fight over details

FATAL ASSISTANCE (ASSISTANCE MORTELLE) (Raoul Peck, 2012)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Aves.
February 28 – March 6
212-875-5600
www.filmlinc.com

Award-winning Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck’s Fatal Assistance begins by posting remarkable numbers onscreen: In the wake of the devastating earthquake that hit his native country on January 12, 2010, there were 230,000 deaths, 300,000 wounded, and 1.5 million people homeless, with some 4,000 NGOs coming to Haiti to make use of a promised $11 billion in relief over a five-year period. But as Peck reveals, there is significant controversy over where the money is and how it’s being spent as the troubled Haitian people are still seeking proper health care and a place to live. “The line between intrusion, support, and aid is very fine,” says Jean-Max Bellerive, the Haitian prime minister at the time of the disaster, explaining that too many of the donors want to cherry-pick how their money is used. Bill Vastine, senior “debris” adviser for the Interim Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti (CIRH), which was co-chaired by Bellerive and President Bill Clinton, responds, “The international community said they were gonna grant so many billions of dollars to Haiti. That didn’t mean we were gonna send so many billions of dollars to a bank account and let the Haitian government do with it as they will.” Somewhere in the middle is CIRH senior housing adviser Priscilla Phelps, who seems to be the only person who recognizes why the relief effort has turned into a disaster all its own; by the end of the film, she is struggling to hold back tears.

There’s a lot of talk but not nearly as much action in Haitian recovery from devastating earthquake

A self-described “political radical,” Peck doesn’t play it neutral in Fatal Assistance, instead adding mournful music by Alexei Aigui, somber English narration by a male voice (Peck narrates the French-language version), and a female voice-over reading melodramatic “Dear friend” letters that poetically trash what is happening in Haiti. “Every few decades, the rich promise everything to the poor,” the male voice-over says. “The dream of eradication of poverty, disease, death remains a perpetual fantasy.” Even though Peck (Lumumba, 2010 Human Rights Watch Film Festival centerpiece Moloch Tropical) attacks the agendas of the donors and NGOs while pushing an agenda of his own, Fatal Assistance is an important document that shows that just because money pours in to help in a crisis situation doesn’t mean that the things that need to be done are being taken care of properly. The centerpiece selection of the 2013 Human Rights Watch Film Festival, Fatal Assistance is back at the Film Society of Lincoln Center for its week-long U.S. theatrical release February 28 – March 6 with Peck, the former Haitian minister of culture, the 1994 winner of the HRWFF’s Nestor Almendros Award for courage in filmmaking, and the 2001 HRWFF Lifetime Achievement Award winner, on hand for Q&As after several screenings.

JIMMY P.: PSYCHOTHERAPY OF A PLAINS INDIAN

Georges Devereux (Mathieu Amalric) and James Picard (Benicio del Toro) are both looking for answers in Arnaud Desplechin’s JIMMY P.

JIMMY P.: PSYCHOTHERAPY OF A PLAINS INDIAN (Arnaud Desplechin, 2013)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
February 14-20
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
www.ifcfilms.com

Based on a true story documented in Georges Devereux’s 1951 book, Reality and Dream: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian, which features an introduction by Margaret Mead, Palme d’Or nominee Jimmy P. details the fascinating relationship between French-Hungarian ethnologist, anthropologist, and psychoanalyst Devereux (Mathieu Amalric) and Native American Blackfoot James Picard (Benicio del Toro). A WWII veteran living in Montana in 1948, Picard is taken to Topeka Winter Hospital after suffering from debilitating headaches and temporary blindness. When doctors Menninger (Larry Pine), Holt (Joseph Cross), Braatoy (Ricky Wayne), and Jokl (Elya Baskin) can’t find anything physically wrong with Picard — and wonder whether their unfamiliarity with Indians is limiting their understanding of his problems — Menninger calls in his colleague Devereux, a Freudian who is having difficulty getting a full-time position because of some of the unusual methods he employs. An excited Devereux immerses himself in Picard’s case, getting the direct, not-very-talkative Blackfoot to soon start opening up about his personal life, share his dreams, and discuss his military experiences. While the other doctors disagree with one another on what Devereux is doing, he and Jimmy develop a unique friendship, two very different men trying to find their place in life. Director Arnaud Desplechin wrote the screenplay (with Julie Peyr and Kent Jones) specifically for Amalric and del Toro, and it’s a terrific pairing, the former, who has previously starred in Desplechin’s
A Christmas Tale and Kings and Queen, playing Devereux with a childlike, wide-eyed wonder, the latter portraying Jimmy with dark, brooding, penetrating eyes while also exuding an inner peace and poetry. The film slows down and gets off track when it strays from its main storyline, particularly when Devereux is visited by his married girlfriend, Madeleine (Gina McKee), and the reenacted dream sequences and past memories are hit or miss, some boasting a surreal beauty, others unnecessarily confusing, but when Amalric (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) and del Toro (Traffic) are on-screen together, Jimmy P. is mesmerizing.

AFTERNOON OF A FAUN: TANAQUIL LE CLERCQ

The tragic career of dancer Tanaquil Le Clercq is examined in documentary about Balanchine and Robbins muse

AFTERNOON OF A FAUN: TANAQUIL LE CLERCQ (Nancy Buirski, 2013)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
February 5-13
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
www.facebook.com/tannyfilm

“Tanny’s body created inspiration for choreographers,” one of the interviewees says in Nancy Buirski’s documentary Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq. “They could do things that they hadn’t seen before.” The American Masters presentation examines the life and career of prima ballerina Tanaquil Le Clercq, affectionately known as Tanny, who took the dance world by storm in the 1940s and ’50s before tragically being struck down by polio in 1956 at the age of twenty-seven. Le Clercq served as muse to both Jerome Robbins, who made Afternoon of a Faun for her, and George Balanchine, who created such seminal works as Western Symphony, La Valse, and Symphony in C for Le Clercq — and married Tanny in 1952. In the documentary, Buirski (The Loving Story) speaks with Arthur Mitchell and Jacques D’Amboise, who both danced with Le Clercq, her childhood friend Pat McBride Lousada, and Barbara Horgan, Balanchine’s longtime assistant, while also including an old interview with Robbins, who deeply loved Le Clercq as well. The film features spectacular, rarely seen archival footage of Le Clercq performing many of the New York City Ballet’s classic works, both onstage and even on The Red Skelton Show. The name Tanaquil relates to the word “omen” — in history, Tanaquil, the wife of the fifth king of Rome, was somewhat of a prophetess who believed in omens — and the film details several shocking omens surrounding her contracting polio. The film would benefit from sharing more information about Le Clercq’s life post-1957 — she died on New Year’s Eve in 2000 at the age of seventy-one — but Afternoon of a Faun is still a lovely, compassionate, and heartbreaking look at a one-of-a-kind performer. A selection of the 2013 New York Film Festival, Afternoon of a Faun returns to the Film Society of Lincoln Center for its official theatrical release February 5-13, with Q&As following the 6:45 screenings on February 5 with D’Amboise and former Alliance of the Arts president Randall Bourscheidt, moderated by producer Ric Burns, on February 7 with Mitchell and Bourscheidt, and on February 8 with Mitchell.

DANCE ON CAMERA 2014: “ONE DAY PINA ASKED…”

Rarely screened 1983 documentary delves into Pina Bausch’s creative process (photo courtesy Icarus Films)

“ONE DAY PINA ASKED…” (UN JOUR PINA A DEMANDÉ) (Chantal Akerman, 1983)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. between Eighth Ave. & Broadway
Saturday, February 1, 11:00 am
Series runs January 31 – February 4
212-875-5050
www.filmlinc.com

In 1982, Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman followed Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal on a five-week tour of Europe as the cutting-edge troupe traveled to Milan, Venice, and Avignon. “I was deeply touched by her lengthy performances that mingle in your head,” Akerman says at the beginning of the resulting documentary, “One Day Pina Asked…,” continuing, “I have the feeling that the images we brought back do not convey this very much and often betray it.” Akerman (Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles; Je tu il elle) needn’t have worried; her fifty-seven-minute film, made for the Repères sur la Modern Dance French television series, is filled with memorable moments that more than do justice to Bausch’s unique form of dance theater. From 1973 up to her death in 2009 at the age of sixty-eight, Bausch created compelling works that examined the male-female dynamic and the concepts of love and connection with revolutionary stagings that included spoken word, unusual costuming, an unpredictable movement vocabulary, and performers of all shapes, sizes, and ages. Akerman captures the troupe, consisting of twenty-six dancers from thirteen countries, in run-throughs, rehearsals, and live presentations of Komm Tanz Mit Mir (Come Dance with Me), Nelken (Carnations), 1980, Kontakthof, and Walzer, often focusing in on individual dancers in extreme close-ups that reveal their relationship with their performance. Although Bausch, forty at the time, is seen only at the beginning and end of the documentary, her creative process is always at center stage. At one point, dancer Lutz Förster tells a story of performing Gershwin’s “The Man I Love” in sign language in response to Bausch’s asking the troupe to name something they’re proud of. Förster, who took over as artistic director in April 2013, first performs the song for Akerman, then later is shown performing it in Nelken. (Bausch fans will also recognize such longtime company members as Héléna Pikon, Nazareth Panadero, and Dominique Mercy.)

Documentary includes inside look at such Tanztheater Wuppertal productions as CARNATIONS (photo courtesy Icarus Films)

Documentary includes inside look at such Tanztheater Wuppertal productions as NELKEN (photo courtesy Icarus Films)

Akerman often leaves her camera static, letting the action unfold on its own, which is particularly beautiful when she films a dance through a faraway door as shadowy figures circle around the other side. It’s all surprisingly intimate, not showy, rewarding viewers with the feeling that they are just next to the dancers, backstage or in the wings, unnoticed, as the process unfolds, the camera serving as their surrogate. And it works whether you’re a longtime fan of Bausch, only discovered her by seeing Wim Wenders’s Oscar-nominated 3D film Pina, or never heard of her. “This film is more than a documentary on Pina Bausch’s work,” a narrator says introducing the film. “It is a journey through her world, through her unwavering quest for love.” ”One Day Pina Asked…” is screening February 1 at 11:00 am as part of the 2014 edition of the annual Film Society of Lincoln Center series “Dance on Camera,” which runs January 31 to February 4 and includes such other works as Kate Geis’s Paul Taylor: Creative Domain, Toa Fraser’s Giselle, and Jackie Paré’s Tap or Die in addition to a talk with British photographer Sebastian Rich and a Meet the Artist event with Jonathan Demme and Annie-B Parson, both of which are free.

BIG BAD WOLVES

Cop (Lior Ashkenazi) must determine how far he will go to get the truth out of suspected child killer (Rotem Keinan) in brutal black comedy

BIG BAD WOLVES (Navot Papushado & Aharon Keshales, 2013)
Cinema Village, 22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave., 212-924-3363
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Aves., 212-875-5600
Opens Friday, January 17
www.magnetreleasing.com

Israeli film critic Aharon Keshales and his former student Navot Papushado follow up their 2011 Israeli slasher flick, Rabies, with the gory, ultraviolent black-comedy thriller Big Bad Wolves. Award-winning actor Lior Ashkenazi stars as Miki, a cop who is sure that Bible teacher Dror (Rotem Keinan) is behind the grisly kidnap, rape, and murder of a young girl. Miki and his partner, Rami (Menashe Noy), and two thugs try to beat the truth out of Dror, against the direct orders of their commanding officer, Zvika (Dvir Benedek). When the illegal interrogation winds up on YouTube, Miki is relieved of duty — with Zvika’s blessing to continue to go after Dror. But when Gidi (Tzahi Grad), the father of the dead girl, joins the chase, things threaten to get out of control — and quickly become even crazier. Big Bad Wolves is a sly, smart take on such genre pictures as Oldboy, Se7en, and Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Inglourious Basterds, featuring generous amounts of brutal torture along with some very funny bits involving Jewish mothers. Writer-directors Keshales and Papushado keep the audience guessing right up to the very end as the main characters rarely do what is expected and hysterical comic scenes show up at rather inopportune moments. While playing with the standard elements of the revenge flick and the cop-on-the-edge tale, the dark, atmospheric Big Bad Wolves also explores the unbreakable bond between parents and children, lending more than a touch of gravitas to the wild, unpredictable proceedings, which are not for the faint of heart.