Tag Archives: film society of lincoln center

11 FLOWERS

Four friends grow up during the end of the Cultural Revolution in Wang Xiaoshuai’s 11 FLOWERS

11 FLOWERS (Wang Xiaoshuai, 2011)
Quad Cinema, 34 West 13th St., 212-255-2243
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
Francesca Beale Theater, 144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave., 212-875-5601
Opens Friday, February 22
firstrunfeatures.com/11flowers

Sixth Generation Chinese director Wang Xiaoshuai (Beijing Bicycle, Shanghai Dreams) reaches back into his childhood in the poignant, autobiographical 11 Flowers. Set in 1975 near the end of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, the film is seen through the eyes of eleven-year-old Wang Han (Liu Wenquing), who lives with his family in a poor, remote village in Guizhou province as part of the Third Front movement, in which the nation moved industry inland to protect it from possible Soviet attack. Wang’s father (Wang Jingchun) spends the week away from his wife (Yan Ni), son, and young daughter (Zhao Shiqi), working at an opera house in town. When one of Wang’s teachers, Miss Zhou (Yu Yue), tells Wang that he should get a clean shirt so he can look good as the new class gym leader, his mother at first is mad at him for even asking for such a luxury item but ultimately makes him one. However, while fooling around with his friends, Louse (Zhang Kexuan), Mouse (Zhong Guo Liuxing), and Wei Jun (Lou Yihao), something happens to the shirt, which soon winds up in the hands of a possible murderer (Wang Ziyi) on the run from the police. Based on actual events that happened to him as a child, Wang’s 11 Flowers is a beautifully crafted coming-of-age film, reminiscent of Rob Reiner’s Stand by Me. Wang, who was known as Wang Han when he was a boy, narrates the opening and closing himself, adding yet more personal touches to the tale. Hovering over the work is the specter of the Cultural Revolution; in one moving scene, adults have gathered for a small dinner party, but when one of them starts singing an old favorite tune, Wang’s father quickly changes it to a Mao-endorsed propaganda song for fear of being caught doing something against the government’s wishes. Much like Wang’s father teaches his son how to paint, interpreting reality on canvas, director Wang interprets his childhood reality onscreen in this small gem of a film.

LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE

The lives of three very different individuals intertwine in Abbas Kiarostami’s remarkable LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE

LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE (Abbas Kiarostami, 2012)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave., 718-636-4100
Landmark Sunshine Cinema, 143 East Houston St. between First & Second Aves., 212-330-8182
Opens Friday, February 15
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.

A CLOSE-UP OF ABBAS KIAROSTAMI: FIVE DEDICATED TO OZU / ROADS OF KIAROSTAMI

FIVE DEDICATED TO OZU is screening as part of tribute to Abbas Kiarostami at Lincoln Center

FIVE DEDICATED TO OZU (Abbas Kiarostami, 2003)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Thursday, February 14, $13, 8:45
Series continues through February 17
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com

We first saw Abbas Kiarostami’s gorgeous five-part film Five Dedicated to Ozu at the Iranian director’s 2007 multidimensional MoMA exhibit, “Image Maker,” where all five segments ran continuously and simultaneously in five semiprivate partitioned spaces, each with its own comfy bench. The film as a whole, which is composed of static shots on a beach in Galicia, are dedicated to Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, whose films attempted to catch the reality of human existence in all its simplicity. In the first episode, the coming waves threaten a piece of driftwood; we dare you not to create your own narrative in your head once the wood is split apart. (By the way, this is the only part of the film that includes any camera movement at all, as Kiarostami opts to follow the driftwood for one short moment.) For the second scene, the camera is moved to the boardwalk, with people passing to the right and left as the surf continues to crash onto the shore; this is the least compelling of the five pieces. Back on the beach for the third part, the camera finds a group of stray dogs in the distance, nestled together by the water; again, as one dog gets up and moves away, left to himself, you’ll create your own ideas about what is really happening. Next is the funniest section of the movie, as a long line of ducks don’t know whether they’re coming or going, but they do so determinedly. Finally, the last scene takes place at night, as the moon glistens in a dark sky as the sounds of frogs and nature envelop this small part of the earth. Relax and let your mind wander during this fascinating and fun cinematic experience that we found exhilarating as a single work — but we also loved how it was installed at MoMA, where you could sit down with any of the films at any time and just let them take you away. Five Dedicated to Ozu is screening Thursday, February 14, at 8:45 with Kiarostami’s 2006 short Roads of Kiarostami at the Walter Reade Theater as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center series “A Close-Up of Abbas Kiarostami,” which continues through February 17 with such other films as 10 on Ten, Fellow Citizen, Life and Nothing More, Through the Olive Trees, and more works by the master Iranian director in celebration of his latest, Like Someone in Love, which opens theatrically February 15.

NIGHT ACROSS THE STREET

Raúl Ruiz’s final film, NIGHT ACROSS THE STREET, is an abstract, surreal examination of time and memory

THE NIGHT ACROSS THE STREET (LA NOCHE DE ENFRENTE) (Raúl Ruiz, 2012)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center: Francesca Beale Theater
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
February 8-14
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com

Raúl Ruiz’s last film, Night Across the Street, proves to be a fitting finale for the long career of the Chilean-French auteur, who died at the age of seventy in August 2011, leaving behind a legacy of more than one hundred movies and one hundred plays. An adaptation — or as Ruiz explained it, “adoption” — from a pair of short stories by Imaginist writer Hernán del Solar Night Across the Street follows the odd meanderings of Don Celso (Sergio Hernandez), an old man about to retire from his office job. Past, present, and future, the real and the imagined, merge in abstract, surreal ways as Don Celso goes back to his childhood, where he (played as a boy by Santiago Figueroa) takes his idol, Beethoven (Sergio Schmied), to the movies and gets life lessons from Long John Silver (Pedro Villagra). As an adult, he hangs out with the fictional version of French teacher and writer Jean Giono (Christian Vadim), whose real self and family appear to be elsewhere. And he visits a haunted hotel run by Nigilda (Valentina Vargad) where he believes he will meet his doom. Memories and hallucinations mingle in front of obviously fake backgrounds, strange, unexplained characters appear then disappear, and Don Celso (and Ruiz, of course) has fun with such words as “Antofagasta” and “rhododendron” in a film that Ruiz created to be shown only after his death. (He made the film after being diagnosed with liver cancer, which he survived by getting a transplant, only to die shortly thereafter of a lung infection.) And at the center of it all is one of Ruiz’s favorite themes, time — Don Celso is regularly interrupted by an annoying alarm clock that signals him to take unidentified medication, keeping him alive even as the end beckons. Night Across the Street is an elegiac swan song by a master filmmaker.

NEW RELEASES AT THE FILM SOCIETY: HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE

HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE provides a fascinating inside look at AIDS activists fighting the power

HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE (David France, 2012)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center: Francesca Beale Theater
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Through Thursday, January 24
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
www.surviveaplague.com

Contemporary activists stand to learn a lot from the gripping documentary How to Survive a Plague. For his directorial debut, longtime journalist David France, one of the first reporters to cover the AIDS crisis that began in the early 1980s, scoured through more than seven hundred hours of mostly never-before-seen archival footage and home movies of protests, meetings, public actions, and other elements of the concerted effort to get politicians and the pharmaceutical industry to recognize the growing health epidemic and do something as the death toll quickly rose into the millions. Focusing on radical groups ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group), France follows such activist leaders as Peter Staley, Mark Harrington, Larry Kramer, Bob Rafsky, and Dr. Iris Long as they attack the policies of President George H. W. Bush, famously heckle presidential candidate Bill Clinton, and battle to get drug companies to create affordable, effective AIDS medicine, all while continuing to bury loved ones in both public and private ceremonies. France includes new interviews with many key activists who reveal surprising details about the movement, providing a sort of fight-the-power primer about how to get things done. The film also shines a light on lesser-known heroes, several filled with anger and rage, others much calmer, who fought through tremendous adversity to make a difference and ultimately save millions of lives. How to Survive a Plague is screening at the Film Society of Lincoln Center through January 24, celebrating its Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature.

NEW RELEASES AT THE FILM SOCIETY: THE INVISIBLE WAR

Kori Cioca shares her shocking story in THE INVISIBLE WAR

THE INVISIBLE WAR (Kirby Dick, 2011)
Film Society of Lincoln Center
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center: Francesca Beale Theater
144 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
Through Thursday, January 24
212-875-5601
www.filmlinc.com
www.invisiblewarmovie.com

Kirby Dick’s The Invisible War is one of the bravest, most explosive investigative documentaries you’re ever likely to see. Dick (This Film Is Not Yet Rated) busts open the military’s dirty little secret, revealing that episodes of horrific sexual abuse such as the Tailhook scandal are not an aberration but a prime example of a rape epidemic that seems to an accepted part of military culture. Dick speaks with many women and one man who share their incredible stories, describing in often graphic detail the sexual abuse they suffered, then faced further abuse when they reported what had happened. Their superiors, some of whom were the rapists themselves, either looked the other way, laughed off their allegations as no big deal, or threatened the victims’ careers. Dick includes remarkable Defense Department statistics — the government admits that approximately one out of every five female soldiers suffers sexual abuse and that there were nineteen thousand violent sex crimes in 2010 alone — even as such military officials as Dr. Kaye Whitley, Rear Admiral Anthony Kurta, and Brigadier General Mary Kay Hertog make absurd claims that they are satisfied with the way they are handling the alarming trend. The central figure in the film is Kori Cioca, a former member of the Coast Guard whose face was broken when she was raped by a superior and now keeps getting denied necessary medical services from the VA. Such courageous women as USAF Airman 1st Class Jessica Hinves, former Marine Officer Ariana Klay, USN veteran Trina McDonald, USMC Lieutenant Elle Helmer, USN Lieutenant Paula Coughlin, and even Special Agent Myla Haider of the Army Criminal Investigation Command also open up about the physical and psychological damage the abuse has left on their lives and careers. Inspired by Helen Benedict’s 2007 Salon.com article “The Private War of Women Soldiers,” Dick and producer Amy Ziering (The Memory Thief) have presented a searing indictment of an endemic military culture that has to come to an end, and fast. The Invisible War, which earned Dick and Ziering last year’s Nestor Almendros Award for courage in filmmaking at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival at Lincoln Center, is back at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center for a brief run through January 24, celebrating its Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature.

NEW YORK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL: HAVA NAGILA

Documentary delves into the fascinating history behind traditional Jewish song that became an international sensation

HAVA NAGILA (THE MOVIE) (Roberta Grossman, 2012)
Film Society of Lincoln Center, Walter Reade Theater
70 Lincoln Center Plaza, 65th St. at Amsterdam Ave.
Tuesday, January 15, 6:00
Festival runs January 9-24
212-875-5601
www.thejewishmuseum.org
www.havanagilamovie.com
www.filmlinc.com

“What’s up with this song? So kitschy, yet so profound,” director and narrator Roberta Grossman says at the beginning of her rollicking documentary, Hava Nagila (The Movie). “And what’s the deal with the chair?” A staple at Jewish celebrations, primarily weddings and bar/bat mitzvahs, “Hava Nagila” instantly gets friends and family members out on the dance floor, forming a circle and doing the Hora. Grossman delves into the history and mystery of the catchy song, which over the years has been performed by an unlikely crew that has included Harry Belafonte, Connie Francis, Glen Campbell, Johnny Yune, and Regina Spektor, all of whom appear in the film and discuss the tune’s popularity. (There are also archival performances from all around the world as well as an anti-“Hava” song from Bob Dylan.) Also putting “Hava Nagila” into perspective are Yiddish theater veteran Leonard Nimoy, communications professor Josh Kun, and KlezKamp founder Henry Sapoznik, a “Hava” hater who says with a more than a touch of cynicism, “It’s relentless. It’s resilient. But then again, so are cockroaches,” a statement that exemplifies Grossman’s playful attitude, exemplified by her corny captioning and clever clips from such TV shows and movies as Laugh-In, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Thoroughly Modern Millie, The Danny Kaye Show, A Serious Man, Wedding Crashers, History of the World Part I, and Fiddler on the Roof. But she also reveals another side to the song, as described by professor James Loeffler, who explains, “‘Hava’ is a portal into a century and a half of Jewish history.” Grossman ( Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh) sets off on what she calls a “Hava Quest,” venturing to the village of Sadagora in Ukraine, the birthplace of the song, and later meeting with two warring families battling over authorship of the words and music. She traces its impact on the development of the State of Israel and the Jewish migration to suburban America, and, yes, she lays out precisely what the words of the song mean. Like the song itself, Hava Nagila (The Movie) is a fun and fanciful frolic into the fascinating story behind one of the most famous songs that so many know so little about. Hava Nagila, which opens March 1 at Lincoln Plaza, is screening January 15 at the twenty-second annual New York Jewish Film Festival, presented by the Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, with Grossman on hand to participate in a Q&A following the show.