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CHARLOTTE RAMPLING: HEADING SOUTH

Charlotte Rampling stars in Laurent Cantet’s sexually charged postcolonial drama, HEADING SOUTH

WEEKEND CLASSICS: HEADING SOUTH (VERS LE SUD) (Laurent Cantet, 2005)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
February 12-15, 11:00 am
Series runs through March 6
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com

Winner of the Golden Lion at the 2005 Venice Film Festival, Laurent Cantet’s Heading South is a captivating, disturbing look at misguided passion in a postcolonial world. Based on three short stories by Dany Lafèrriere, the film is set in late 1970s Haiti, at a resort where wealthy white women come to be served — in all possible ways — by the local black men. Karen Young stars as Brenda, a troubled woman who returns to the beach resort for the first time in three years, seeking to find the sexual release with Legba (Ménothy Cesar) that changed her life. But she has a rival in Ellen (Charlotte Rampling), a longtime island regular who has taken Legba under her wing (and under her sheets). Sue (Louise Portal) tries to maintain the peace while dallying with her own boy toy, Neptune (Wilfried Paul). And observing it all from a cold distance is the resort manager, Albert (Lys Ambroise), a proud, distinguished gentleman who resents having to serve white people almost as much as he resents the black escorts who sell their bodies. As the three women convince themselves that they are truly in love, danger lurks from the nearby city, as Port-Au-Prince is about to explode. And yet no matter what happens, things are bound to continue as is, with young Eddy (Jackenson Pierre Olmo Diaz) ready to take over for the next generation. Heading South is a well-acted, well-written examination of sex and love, power and poverty, and race and politics, with trouble and turmoil seething beneath virtually every scene. It’s screening at eleven o’clock in the morning February 12-14 as part of the IFC Center’s eight-film Weekend Classics tribute to Rampling, being held on the occasion of the release of her latest movie, 45 Years, which has earned the British actress, model, and singer her first Oscar nomination; the series continues through March 6 with François Ozon’s Under the Sand, Michael Cacoyannis’s The Cherry Orchard, and Dick Richards’s Farewell, My Lovely.

CHARLOTTE RAMPLING: THE NIGHT PORTER

Lucia (Charlotte Rampling) and Max (Dirk Bogarde) relive their Holocaust experience in THE NIGHT PORTER

WEEKEND CLASSICS: THE NIGHT PORTER (Liliana Cavani, 1974)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
February 5-7, 11:00 am
Series runs through March 6
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com

Disgraceful Nazi porn or searing allegory about the devastating after-effects of the Holocaust on victims as well as Europe as a whole? Lurid exploitation or sensitively drawn, poignant exploration of a severe case of Stockholm syndrome? You can decide for yourself when Liliana Cavani’s ever-so-kinky, extremely controversial 1974 drama, The Night Porter, screens at the very strange time of eleven o’clock in the morning February 5-7 as part of the IFC Center’s eight-film tribute to Charlotte Rampling, being held on the occasion of the release of her latest movie, 45 Years, which has earned the British actress, model, and singer her first Oscar nomination. Rampling is downright frightening as Lucia, a young woman who was tortured as a sex slave by SS officer Maximilian Theo Aldorfer (Dirk Bogarde) in a Nazi concentration camp. It’s now 1957, and Lucia has arrived in Vienna with her husband (Marino Masé), a prominent American conductor. Lucia and Max, who is the night porter at the fashionable Hotel zur Oper, instantly recognize each other, and the moment hangs in the air, neither sure what the other will do. They say nothing, and soon the two of them have seemingly journeyed back to the camp, involved in a dangerous descent into sex and violence behind closed doors. But a small group of Max’s Nazi friends, including Klaus (Philippe Leroy), Hans Folger (Gabriele Ferzetti), and Stumm (Giuseppe Addobbati), who have dedicated themselves to destroying documents — and witnesses — as former members of the SS are brought to trial, become suspicious of Max’s bizarre relationship with Lucia, who could make trouble for them all.

THE NIGHT PORTER is part of eight-film Charlotte Rampling tribute at IFC Center

Cavani (The Berlin Affair, Ripley’s Game), er, takes no prisoners in The Night Porter, holding nothing back as Max and Lucia grow closer and closer, eventually isolating themselves from the rest of the world. Rampling plays Lucia like a caged animal, her penetrating eyes bathed in mystery; we never know what she’s going to do next, and still we’re continually shocked by her actions. Bogarde plays Max with a grim elegance; he believes that he truly loves Lucia, and that she loves him. He uses his body, and especially his hands, with an eerie grace that is both complicated and scary. The film is very much about performance and voyeurism, about the relationship between creator, performer, and audience. When Max first sees Lucia in the concentration camp, he is instantly taken with her, and he begins filming her with his camera. In one of the movie’s most provocative and titillating scenes, Max and other Nazis watch the young Lucia, wearing an SS outfit but with only suspenders on top, sing “Wenn ich mir was wünschen dürfte” (“If I Could Wish for Something”), a German song made famous by Marlene Dietrich (and originally written by Friedrich Hollaender for the 1931 film The Man in Search of His Murderer). It’s a mesmerizing few minutes that takes the sadomasochism to a whole new psychological level. Max is also still taking care of Bert (Amedeo Amodio), another survivor who has been dancing for Max and other SS officers since the war. So it is not surprising that Lucia has married a conductor, a man with the power to control others. The film has holes you can drive a Panzer through, but it’s impossible to take your eyes off of Rampling (Georgy Girl, Stardust Memories, The Verdict), who will turn seventy on February 5, and Bogarde (The Servant, Darling, Death in Venice), two beautiful actors locked in a grotesque game of cat and mouse. The Rampling series continues at IFC through March 6 with Heading South, Under the Sand, The Cherry Orchard, and Farewell, My Lovely.

MATTHEW BARNEY AND JONATHAN BEPLER: RIVER OF FUNDAMENT

Matthew Barney’s five-and-a-half-hour epic makes its Manhattan debut this weekend (photo by Hugo Glendinning)

RIVER OF FUNDAMENT (Matthew Barney & Jonathan Bepler, 2014)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
December 4-10, $14 per act, $40 series pass
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com

In February 2014, I experienced the entirety of Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler’s fecal epic, River of Fundament, in one marathon evening at the BAM Harvey, coming away impressed, confused, exhausted, and in need of a long, hot shower. And now you can feel the same as the bizarrely mesmerizing and surreal five-and-a-half-hour adventure flows into the IFC Center for a one-week engagement. Fortunately, you have the choice of seeing the cinematic journey in three acts on different days, or you can just check them out back-to-back-to-back, depending on your general level of comfort for these kinds of things. To help you make sense of it, Barney will be at the IFC Center for a Q&A following the 7:20 screening of act three on December 6; of course, that also has the potential to, er, clog your mind even further.

RIVER OF FUNDAMENT is built around episodes in Los Angeles, Brooklyn, and Detroit (photo by Ivano Grasso)

“Crude thoughts and fierce forces are my state. I do not know who I am. Nor what I was. I cannot hear a sound. Pain is near that will be like no pain felt before,” Norman Mailer writes at the beginning of his 1983 novel, Ancient Evenings. “Is this the fear that holds the universe? Is pain the fundament? All the rivers veins of pain? The oceans my mind awash? I have a thirst like the heat of earth on fire. Mountains writhe. I see waves of flame. Washes, flashes, flashes, waves of flame.” New York-based visual artist Barney and Berlin-based composer and musician Bepler have transformed Mailer’s seven-hundred-page epic about death and rebirth in Egypt into quite the cinematic spectacle. In his five-part, seven-hour Cremaster Cycle, Barney explored the ascension and descension of the cremaster muscle, which determines sexual differentiation, with a cast that included Mailer as Harry Houdini and Barney as Gary Gilmore in a section inspired by Mailer’s book The Executioner’s Song while focusing on cars and petroleum jelly in others. River of Fundament begins with Mailer’s wake at an intricate reconstruction of his Brooklyn Heights home, with Mailer’s son John Buffalo Mailer playing his father’s spirit. The second act follows the reincarnation of Mailer (Milford Graves) as he is born in the River of Feces and meets medium Hathfertiti (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and a gold 1979 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. The third act returns to Brooklyn, with Mailer’s next reincarnation played by a 2001 Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor and Ellen Burstyn taking over as Hathfertiti. The primary cast also features Paul Giamatti, Cremaster star Aimee Mullins, Elaine Stritch, Lila Downs, Chief Dave Beautiful Bald Eagle, Joan La Barbara, and Madyn G. Coakley, with a multitude of cameos by Dick Cavett, Luc Sante, Larry Holmes, Salman Rushdie, Lawrence Weiner, Fran Lebowitz, Marti Domination, James Toback, David Amram, and dozens of others as the myth of Isis, Osiris, Nephthys, Set, and Horus plays out as well.

Cars once again are featured prominently in epic new Matthew Barney film (photo by Ivano Grasso)

The action, much of which consists of filmed performance art presentations that were held in public spaces, moves from New York City to Los Angeles to Detroit as Egyptian mythology and ritual play out in unusual ways. Barney, whose multidisciplinary Cremaster exhibition at the Guggenheim in 2002-3 was one of the best of the decade, gave New Yorkers an advance sneak peek at the making of River of Fundament via the ”DJED” show at the Gladstone Gallery in the fall of 2011 and the wide-ranging “Subliming Vessel” at the Morgan Library in 2013. Not that they gave any real indication of what to expect, because with Barney, the only thing to expect is the unexpected. And even then, don’t expect to understand what is unfurling before you. Just know that once you take it all in, you will never be able to flush it out of your mind, where it will simmer and stew most likely for the rest of your natural life.

STRANGER THAN FICTION: MARWENCOL

Mark Hogancamp tries to rebuild his life in a carefully constructed alternate reality using dolls

MARWENCOL (Jeff Malmberg, 2010)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at Third St.
Tuesday, November 10, 8:00
Series continues through November 24
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.marwencol.com

Named Best Documentary at numerous film festivals across the country, Marwencol offers a surprising look inside the creative process and the fine line that exists between art and reality. On April 8, 2000, Mark Hogancamp was nearly beaten to death outside a bar in his hometown of Kingston, New York. He spent nine days in a coma and more than a month in the hospital before being released, suffering severe brain damage that has left his memory a blur. To help put his life back together, he began using toys and dolls — Barbies, celebrity replicas, army men — to re-create his personal journey. He makes dolls of his friends and relatives, the people he works with, and others, constructing an alternate WWII-era universe he calls Marwencol, complete with numerous buildings and plenty of Nazis. He captures the detailed story in photographs that are not only fascinating to look at but that also help him figure out who he was and who he can be. This miniature three-dimensional world is reminiscent of the two-dimensional one carefully fashioned by outsider artist Henry Darger in his fifteen-thousand-page manuscript, The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinnian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, which also features an alternate reality involving military battles set amid stunning artwork. Director, producer, and editor Jeff Malmberg makes no judgments about Hogancamp, and asks the same of the audience. In his first full-length film, Malmberg shares the compelling story of a deeply troubled, flawed man suddenly forced to begin again, using art and creativity to bring himself back to life. He speaks with Hogancamp’s mother, his old roommate, the prosecutor who handled his case, and others who are first seen proudly holding the doll Hogancamp made of them. And Malmberg doesn’t turn away from the more frightening aspects of Hogancamp’s daily existence. Marwencol is an unforgettable portrait of lost identity and the long road to redemption. The film is screening November 10 at 8:00 as part of the IFC Center series “Stranger Than Fiction” and will be followed by a Q&A and book signing with Hogancamp and producer Chris Shellen, who collaborated on the new book Welcome to Marwencol (November 3, Princeton Architectural Press, $29.95).

(T)ERROR

Documentary sheds light on curious side of FBI counterterrorism efforts

(T)ERROR (Lyric R. Cabral & David Felix Sutcliffe, 2015)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at Third St.
Opens Wednesday, October 7
212-924-7771
www.terrordocumentary.org
www.ifccenter.com

(T)error is a great name for a horror movie, but even though it turns out that Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe’s debut is not part of that genre, there still is plenty scary about it. Winner of the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Break Out First Feature at Sundance, (T)error is a surprising look inside one aspect of the FBI’s counterterrorism program. Shortly after Saeed “Shariff” Torres, a friend and neighbor of filmmaker and photojournalist Cabral’s, suddenly disappeared, he contacted her, eventually letting her inside his secret career as a longtime FBI informant. A Muslim and former Black Panther revolutionary, the sixty-three-year-old school kitchen employee and father of a young son goes on camera as he takes on what he claims will be his final assignment, cozying up to a Pittsburgh man named Khalifa Ali Al-Akili, previously known as James Marvin Thomas Jr., who the FBI thinks might be involved in terrorist plots. It’s not exactly the most thrilling game of cat and mouse; Cabral and codirector Sutcliffe (Adama) follow Shariff as he goes about a lot of mundane business, arguing over how much money the FBI gave him, text-messaging back and forth with agents and his prey, examining Facebook pages, and Skyping with his son, whose face is blurred for protection. And Sharrif is not quite the kind of well-trained operative you read about in books or see in action-packed movies, making one wonder just what the FBI is thinking — and how it’s spending our money — especially after a major twist occurs about halfway through the film, turning everything around and inside out, providing a new vantage point that makes the whole sting operation even more bizarre and surreal. But it’s all too real, and rather frightening in its own very strange way. After playing multiple film festivals, including Tribeca, Human Rights Watch, Sundance, and Full Frame, (T)error is getting its theatrical release beginning October 7 at the IFC Center.

NEW YORK SUPER WEEK

Multiple locations in Brooklyn and Manhattan
October 5-12, free – $249
www.newyorksuperweek.com

Fretting because you didn’t get your New York Comic-Con tickets in time and it’s completely sold out now? The vast popularity of NYCC has led to New York Super Week, with related special events beginning on Monday and running for eight days. There are more than eighty panels, concerts, trivia contests, movie screenings, comedy shows, social media parties, and other geek gatherings, with appearances by the likes of Kevin Smith, Masashi Kishimoto, Seth Green, Janeane Garofalo, Kristian Nairn, Finn Jones, Danny Fingeroth, Justin Guarini, Larry Fessenden, and John Hodgman. Below are only some of the many highlights.

Monday, October 5
Celebrity Karaoke: An Epic Evening with the Stars, with Deborah Cox, Justin Guarini, Tony Vincent, and Alex Brightman, Hard Rock Café, $25-$40, 7:00

Playing a Superhero: Privilege or Curse?, with Mark Editz, author of How to Be a Superhero, the Learning and Media Center at the DiMenna Center, $8, 7:15

Star Wars vs. Star Trek: Attack of the Khan, with DJ Benhameen, Tatiana King Jones, Jean Grae, Pharoahe Monch, and Quelle Chris, Benzaquen Hall at the DiMenna Center, 410, 7:15

Tuesday, October 6
The Best American Comics 2015, with Bill Kartalopoulus, the Strand, free with suggested purchase of book or $15 gift card, 7:00

Running Late with Scott Rogowsky: Brooklyn’s Live Late Night Comedy Talk Show, with Horatio Sanz, Impractical Jokers “Sal” Vulcano & Brian “Q” Quinn, Budd Mishkin, Dale Seever, and Here We Go Magic, Littlefield, $10-$20, 9:00

Wednesday, October 7
Comics and Jews: Panel and Auction, with Danny Fingeroth, Paul Levitz, Arie Kaplan, and Paul Kupperberg, hosted by Karen Green, Center for Jewish History, $10, 6:30

Meet the Creator of Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto, discussion, Q&A, and signing with Masashi Kushimoto, Apple Store SoHo, free, 7:00

Thursday, October 8
Robot Chicken Season 8 Party, with Seth Green and Matt Senreich, Brooklyn Bowl, free with RSVP, 6:00 – 10:00

Uptown Showdown: Superheroes vs. Villains, with Janeane Garofalo, Travon Free, Jessica Delfino, Michael Hartney, Nick Turner, and Joe Garden, Symphony Space, $15, 8:00

Twentieth anniversary screening of Habit (Larry Fessenden, 1985), with Larry Fessenden and cast members in person, part of weeklong thirtieth anniversary celebration of Glass Eye Pix, IFC Center, $14, 9:00

Friday, October 9
A Night of Ice and Fire, Featuring Kristian Nairn, Finn Jones, and More, Hard Rock Café, $45, 8:00

The Thrilling Adventure Hour Presents: POW! Sparks Nevada Live, with Marc Evan Jackson, Mark Gagliardi, Hal Lublin, Janet Varney, Scott Adsit, and special guests, Littlefield, $15-$50, 10:00

Saturday, October 10
Hollywood Babble On Live! with Ralph Garman and Kevin Smith, Hammerstein Ballroom, $20-$60, 7:30

Comic Con Vixens II, with Topher Bousquet, Hazel Honeysuckle, Dangrrr Doll, Bastard Keith, Tiger Bay, Rosey la Rouge, Puss N’ Boots, and Lux La Croix, Hard Rock Café, $25-$75, 10:00

Sunday, October 11
PressPlayNYC, with Christian Leave, Tina Woods, Sigh Mike, Drew Phillips, Joey Kidney, Taylor Baxter, Chase Goehring, Alex Reininga, Pierson Oglesby, Tyler White, Dakota Brooks, Wes Finn, Chris O’Flyng, Cody Ryle, and Steffan Argus, Hammerstein Ballroom, $35-$249, 12 noon – 6:00 pm

We Got This Live! with Mark Gagliardi, Hal Lublin, John Hodgman, and Carter Parton Rogers, (le) poisson rouge, $15, 8:00

Monday, October 12
New York premiere of Wagakkiband Concert Movie (avex music creative, 2014), IFC Center, $14, 7:30

WIM WENDERS — PORTRAITS ALONG THE ROAD: A TRICK OF THE LIGHT

The Skladanowsky brothers attempt to please the demanding Gertrud in Wim Wenders’s affectionate early-cinema tribute, A TRICK OF THE LIGHT

A TRICK OF THE LIGHT (DIE GEBRÜDER SKLADANOWSKY) (Wim Wenders, 1995)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at Third St.
Through September 24
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.wim-wenders.com

German director Wim Wenders pays tribute to the invention of cinema in the charming, delightful, yet bittersweet 1995 film A Trick of the Light, finally getting its long-overdue U.S. theatrical premiere engagement at the IFC Center. Using a vintage 1920s hand-crank camera for the old-fashioned black-and-white silent flashback scenes (shot at eighteen frames per second) that make up the bulk of the film, Wenders and cinematographer Jürgen Jürges iris in and out to tell the story of the real-life Skladanowsky brothers, who were inventing a mechanism to project moving pictures in the late nineteenth century, only to have their work, the bioskop, overshadowed by the Lumière brothers’ cinématographe. The technical genius is Max Skladanowsky (Udo Kier), who films the comic exploits of his brother, Eugen (Christoph Merg), while sibling and ladies’ man Emil (Otto Kuhnle) does the editing and runs the projector. Cheering them on is Max’s demanding young daughter, Gertrud (Nadine Büttner), who wants her father and uncles to capture a more precise depiction of reality. Meanwhile, a spy (Alfred Szczot) keeps a close eye on what they are doing. Working with students from his University of Television and Film Munich class, Wenders occasionally intercuts scenes in almost garish full color in which he interviews Max’s last surviving daughter, ninety-one-year-old Lucie Hürtgen-Skladanowsky, in the same house the family has owned since 1907.

Lucie Hürtgen-Skladanowsky shares fond memories of her father and uncles in A TRICK OF THE LIGHT

Hürtgen-Skladanowsky shares fond memories while examining old photo albums, hand-colored glass plates, and other artifacts from her father’s and uncles’ heyday; she also shares her thoughts on the flashback scenes with Wenders and his small crew. Wenders, Jürges, camera assistant German Kral, soundwoman Barbara Rohm, and sound assistant Florian Gallenberger are shown sitting across the table from Lucie, who entertains them with her comments and recollections. Wenders adds a nostalgic touch by having Gertrud and Eugen occasionally enter the modern-day scenes, turning the film back into black-and-white. Also deserving of praise is Peter Przygodda’s editing and Laurent Petitgand’s lovely carnivalesque score, which help beautifully capture the look, feel, and sound of early cinema. The main film is only about an hour long, but fifteen minutes of credits include fun bonuses. A Trick of the Light, which is “dedicated to the many forgotten pioneers of film,” is part of the IFC Center’s “Wim Wenders: Portraits Along the Road” tribute to the iconoclastic director, playwright, and photographer on the occasion of his seventieth birthday; the series continues through September 24 with such other works as Buena Vista Social Club, Nick’s Film: Lightning over Water, The Soul of a Man, Tokyo-Ga, Pina, and a sneak preview of Every Thing Will Be Fine in 3D.