Tag Archives: ifc center

SICKS BY JOHN WATERS: POLYESTER

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.
Friday, April 19, and Saturday, April 20, midnight
Series continues through April 27
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com

Camp champ John Waters’s crudely rambunctious cult classic suburban satire Polyester, which underwent a 4K restoration in 2019, 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 son, Baltimore Foot Stomper Dexter Fishpaw (Ken King).

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.” More than 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. The film is screening April 19 and 20 — in Odorama — at midnight in the IFC Center series “Sicks by John Waters,” which concludes April 26-27 with Multiple Maniacs.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

ON THE ADAMANT

On the Adamant tells the story of a floating sanctuary for people with mental illness

ON THE ADAMANT (Nicolas Philibert, 2023)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, March 29
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
kinolorber.com

“Mentally sick people have no family,” François Gozlan says in Nicolas Philibert’s charming and heartwarming On the Adamant. Winner of the Golden Bear at the 2023 Berlinale, the documentary is set on board the Adamant, a beautiful floating sanctuary docked at the Quai de la Rapée on the Seine, where a community of men and women with mental illness voluntarily gather for meetings, workshops, and general camaraderie, forming their own kind of chosen family. Started in July 2010 by the Paris Central Psychiatric Group and affiliated with the Saint-Maurice hospital complex, the Adamant offers compassionate care while encouraging the patients to explore their social and artistic sides.

Over the course of seven months in 2021 during the Covid crisis, Philibert compiled one hundred hours of footage, filming the group going over their budget, welcoming new people, playing music, cooking, painting, and working behind a coffee counter. While there are various nurses, a psychiatrist or psychologist, occupational therapists, and hospital service agents present, they are not easy to identify; no one is wearing white lab coats or name cards, so it’s not always immediately clear who is the patient and who is the caregiver.

Director, cinematographer, and editor Philibert, with a crew of no more than four, alternates between being a fly on the wall at meetings and workshops and speaking with several of the patients, who are aware, for the most part, of their medical situations and share poignant details of their personal lives. One woman discusses how she misses her teenage son, who went into foster care when he was five because, as she explains, “My mind was a mess.” A man plays a lovely tune on the piano and sings, “Nobody’s perfect.” Another man who plays the electric guitar says, “Everyone has thought of a magic wand. ‘No more this, no more that, I’ll be different.’” The dapper Frédéric Prieur, who is obsessed with the tragic deaths of Jim Morrison, James Dean, and Gérard Philipe, points out that he writes stories and songs because “I want to understand at all costs why such things happened to us.”

One man talks about his violent tendencies and ravings, admitting that without his pills he has “acute fits and hallucinations”; when he says, “Lucky I’m not armed,” it’s hard not to be reminded of the controversy in the United States about gun control. Another declares, “The people here aren’t terrorists. . . . They’re very fragile people. I’m very fragile myself. People have image problems here. That’s because others can look at us . . . In the Metro, we have slightly broken faces, maybe. I don’t know. People always give us curious looks.” But there’s nothing political in Philibert’s film other than showing that there are benevolent, humane options for treating the mentally ill, which he lets us see for ourselves; he doesn’t have any experts lecturing about what is happening on board and outside the Adamant.

Meanwhile, others share their hopes and dreams, which are not always feasible, lost in fantasies that are disconnected to reality — and perhaps more relevant to each of us than we might be willing to admit.

“You have some real stars here. Better than movie actors,” one man proudly boasts, and he’s right. As On the Adamant continues, the patients develop as unique characters in their own way, not stereotypes or caricatures put on display.

The Adamant is a refuge for people with mental illness to explore their creative sides

The film opens with Gozlan performing a screeching version of Téléphone’s “Human Bomb,” shouting out with defiance, “I want to talk to you about me, about you / Inside I see images, colors / that aren’t mine / that sometimes scare me, / sensations that can drive us mad / Our senses are the strings of pathetic marionettes / Our senses are the path to our mind / The human bomb, you have it in your hand / The detonator’s there just next to your heart / The human bomb is you, it belongs to you / If you let anyone take over your destiny / it’s the end.”

The Adamant offers the patients on board the chance to control at least part of their destiny. But the film, the first of a trilogy Philibert is making in conjunction with the Paris Central Psychiatric Group, closes with the Adamant enveloped in fog, as the future of people with mental illness is far from clear.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

FAMILY PORTRAIT: JAPANESE FAMILY IN FLUX

Yoko is making its US premiere at in Japan Society / IFC Center series

FAMILY PORTRAIT: JAPANESE FAMILY IN FLUX
Japan Society, 333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
February 15 – March 22
www.ifccenter.com
japansociety.org

In February 2021, as part of the ACA Cinema Project, Japan Society and Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs teamed up for “21st Century Japan: Films from 2001-2020,” a three-week virtual festival of Japanese films from the previous twenty years, followed in December by “Flash Forward: Debut Works and Recent Films by Notable Japanese Directors,” a three-week hybrid series pairing directors’ most recent works with their debuts. Since then, they have also presented “Emerging Japanese Films” and “The Female Gaze: Women Filmmakers from Japan Cuts and Beyond.”

The festival is now back with “Family Portrait: Japanese Family in Flux,” ten films that explore familial bonds. The selections range from Yasujirō Ozu’s 1967 Tokyo Twilight and Kohei Oguri’s 1981 Muddy River to the New York premiere of Ryota Nakano’s 2019 A Long Goodbye and the US premieres of Teruaki Shoji’s Hoyaman and Keiko Tsuruoka’s Tsugaru Lacquer Girl. Nakano will take part in a Q&A and reception following the February 23 New York premiere of Her Love Boils Bathwater, and he will be on hand for a discussion after the February 24 showing of his latest work, The Asadas, which was inspired by real-life photographer Masashi Asada.

All screenings take place at Japan Society except for the February 22 US premiere of Kazuyoshi Kumakiri’s Yoko, which will be shown at IFC Center; the film stars Pistol Takehara, Jun Fubuki, Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi, and TV, film, and music favorite Joe Odagiri.

“‘Family Portrait: Japanese Family in Flux’ is a richly thematic series celebrating the rise, fall, and rebirth of the Japanese family,” Japan Society director of film Peter Tatara said in a statement. “Showcasing films from across the past sixty-five years, audiences will find an ever-evolving image of what family means in Japan, and the universally human sorrow and joys at its core.”

Below are select reviews from the series.

Hirokazu Kore-eda’s STILL WALKING is a special film about a dysfunctional family that should not be missed

Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Still Walking is a special film that honors such Japanese directors as Naruse, Ozu, and Imamura

STILL WALKING (ARUITEMO ARUITEMO) (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2008)
Japan Society
Thursday, February 15, 7:00
japansociety.org

Flawlessly written, directed, and edited by Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters, After Life), Still Walking follows a day in the life of the Yokoyama family, which gathers together once a year to remember Junpei, the eldest son who died tragically. The story is told through the eyes of the middle child, Ryota (Hiroshi Abe), a forty-year-old painting restorer who has recently married Yukari (Yui Natsukawa), a widow with a young son (Shohei Tanaka). Ryota dreads returning home because his father, Kyohei (Yoshio Harada), and mother, Toshiko (Kirin Kiki), are disappointed in the choices he’s made, both personally and professionally, and never let him escape from Junpei’s ever-widening shadow. Also at the reunion is Ryota’s chatty sister, Chinami (You), who, with her husband and children, is planning on moving in with her parents in order to take care of them in their old age (and save money as well).

Over the course of twenty-four hours, the history of the dysfunctional family and the deep emotions hidden just below the surface slowly simmer but never boil, resulting in a gentle, bittersweet narrative that is often very funny and always subtly powerful. The film is beautifully shot by Yutaka Yamazaki, who keeps the camera static during long interior takes — it moves only once inside the house — using doorways, short halls, and windows to frame scenes with a slightly claustrophobic feel, evoking how trapped the characters are by the world the parents have created. The scenes in which Kyohei walks with his cane ever so slowly up and down the endless outside steps are simple but unforgettable. Influenced by such Japanese directors as Mikio Naruse, Yasujiro Ozu, and Shohei Imamura, Kore-eda was inspired to make the film shortly after the death of his parents; although it is fiction, roughly half of Toshiko’s dialogue is taken directly from his own mother. Still Walking is a special film, a visual and psychological marvel that should not be missed.

Ryuhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa) has trouble facing his sudden unemployment in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Tokyo Sonata

TOKYO SONATA (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2008)
Japan Society
Sunday, February 18, 7:00
japansociety.org

Winner of the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at Cannes, Tokyo Sonata serves as a parable for modern-day Japan. Ryuhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa) is a simple family man, with a wife, Megumi (Kyōko Koizumi), two sons, Takashi (Yu Koyanagi) and Kenji (Kai Inowaki), and an honest job as an administration director for a major company. When Ryuhei is suddenly let go — he is being replaced by much cheaper Chinese labor — he is so ashamed, he doesn’t tell his family. Instead, he puts on his suit every day and, briefcase in hand, walks out the door, but instead of going to work, he first waits on line at the unemployment agency, then at an outdoor food kitchen for a free lunch with the homeless — and other businessmen in the same boat as he is. Taking out his anger on his family, Ryuhei refuses to allow Kenji to take piano lessons and protests strongly against Takashi’s desire to join the American military. But then, on one crazy night — which includes a shopping mall, a haphazard thief (Koji Yakusho), a convertible, and some unexpected violence — it all comes to a head, leading to a brilliant finale that makes you forget all of the uneven missteps in the middle of the film, which is warmly photographed by Akiko Ashizawa and about a half hour too long anyway.

Kagawa (Sukiyaki Western Django, Tokyo!) is outstanding as the sad-sack husband and father, matched note for note by the wonderful pop star Koizumi (Hanging Garden, Adrift in Tokyo), who searches for strength as everything around her is falling apart. And it’s always great to see Yakusho, the star of such films as Kurosawa’s Cure, Shohei Imamura’s The Eel, Rob Marshall’s Memoirs of a Geisha, and Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Babel, seen here as a wild-haired, wild-eyed wannabe burglar.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

DOC NYC 2023 CENTERPIECE: UNCROPPED

Photojournalist James Hamilton is the subject of fascinating documentary (photo by Jody Caravaglia)

UNCROPPED (D. W. Young, 2023)
Available online through November 26
Festival runs November 8-26 at IFC Center, SVA Theatre, Village East by Angelika, and Bar Veloce, $13-$30
www.docnyc.net
www.uncroppedfilm.com

Once upon a time, documentaries were primarily the purview of public television and a handful of small, independent theaters in big cities. But with the explosion of streaming services and technological improvements in camera phones, we now have the ability to see more nonfiction films than ever, taking us places we’ve never been before while introducing us to a wide range of sociopolitical issues and extraordinary, and nefarious, individuals. The fourteenth annual DOC NYC festival got underway November 8, kicking off nearly three weeks of more than two hundred films and special events, including thirty world premieres and twenty-six US debuts. It’s been exciting watching the growth of the festival itself, from its relatively humble beginnings in 2010.

The opening-night selection was Clair Titley’s The Contestant, about aspiring Japanese comedian Tomoaki Hamatsu, who, unbeknownst to him, becomes a reality-show star; Sam Pollard and Llewellyn Smith’s South to Black Power is the closing-night film, a look at controversial New York Times columnist Charles Blow, with Pollard, Smith, and Blow participating in a Q&A.

The centerpiece is the world premiere of D. W. Young’s warm and lovely Uncropped, which is as gentle and unassuming as its subject, photographer James Hamilton, who should be a household name. But fame and fortune are clearly not the point for Hamilton, who grew up in Westport, Connecticut, and didn’t own his own camera until he was twenty. He’s lived in the same cramped Greenwich Village apartment since 1966 and has little online presence, especially when compared to several other photographers named James Hamilton.

“James’s work is refreshingly devoid of ego,” Sonic Youth cofounder Thurston Moore says in the film, letting out a laugh. “Let’s put it that way.”

The soft-spoken, easygoing Hamilton notes, “My whole career was all about having fun.”

And what fun it’s been.

Patti Smith and Tom Verlaine are among the many famous and not-so-famous people photographed by James Hamilton (photo by James Hamilton)

Hamilton got his start by forging a press pass to gain entry to the Texas International Pop Festival in 1969 and used the shots to get a staff job at Crawdaddy magazine. He later took pictures for the Herald, Harper’s Bazaar, the Village Voice, New York magazine, the London Times, and the New York Observer. He photographed rock stars and fashion icons; joined with print journalists to cover local, national, and international news events, including wars; shot unique behind-the-scene footage on such film sets as Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums, Bill Paxton’s Frailty, and George A. Romero’s Knightriders; and captured life on the streets of New York City and elsewhere.

Among the people Young talks to are journalists Joe Conason, Alexandra Jacobs, Michael Daly, Thulani Davis, Richard Goldstein, Mark Jacobson, and Kathy Dobie, editors Eva Prinz and Susan Vermazen, and photographers David Lee and Sylvia Plachy. Young, who also edited the film and produced it with Judith Mizrachy, cuts in hundreds of Hamilton’s photos, which run the gamut from celebrities, politicians, and musicians to business leaders, kids playing, and brutal war scenes, accompanied by a jazzy score by David Ullmann, performed by Ullmann, Vincent Sperrazza, and others.

Hamilton, who has never been a fan of being interviewed, sits down and chats with Plachy, who shares fabulous stories of their time at the Voice; journalist and close friend Jacobson, who Hamilton took pictures for on numerous adventures; Conason, who discusses their transition from the Voice to the Observer; Dobie, who gets personal; and Prinz and Moore together. “We never crop James Hamilton’s photographs,” Prinz points out, raving about his remarkable eye for composition.

Uncropped, which will be available online through November 26, also serves as an insightful document of more than fifty years of New York City journalism, tracing the beginnings of underground coverage to today’s online culture where professional, highly qualified, experienced writers and photographers are having trouble getting published and paid. But through it all, Hamilton has persevered.

in his previous film, The Booksellers, Young focused on bibliophiles who treasure physical books as works of art even as the internet changes people’s relationships with books and how they read and purchase them. One of the experts Young meets with is Nancy Bass Wyden, owner of the Strand, an independent bookstore founded in 1927 and still hanging on against Amazon, B&N, and other chains and conglomerates.

Near the end of Uncropped, Young shows Hamilton and Dobie perusing the outdoor stacks of cheap books at the Strand, dinosaurs still relishing the perhaps-soon-to-be-gone days of print but always in search of more fun.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

JEREMY THOMAS PRESENTS: 13 ASSASSINS

A small group of samurai sets out to end a brutal madman’s tyranny in Takashi Miike’s brilliant 13 Assassins

13 ASSASSINS (JÛSAN-NIN NO SHIKAKU) (Takashi Miike, 2010)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Saturday, September 23, 4:00 & 7:00
Series runs September 18-28
212-255-2243
quadcinema.com
www.13assassins.com

Japanese director Takashi Miike’s first foray into the samurai epic is a nearly flawless film, perhaps his most accomplished work. Evoking such classics as Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, Mizoguchi’s 47 Ronin, Aldrich’s The Dirty Dozen, and Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter, 13 Assassins is a thrilling tale of honor and revenge, inspired by a true story. In mid-nineteenth-century feudal Japan, during a time of peace just prior to the Meiji Restoration, Lord Naritsugu (Gorô Inagaki), the son of the former shogun and half-brother to the current one, is abusing his power, raping and killing at will, even using his servants and their families as target practice with a bow and arrow. Because of his connections, he is officially untouchable, but Sir Doi (Mikijiro Hira) secretly hires Shinzaemon Shimada (Kôji Yakusho) to gather a small team and put an end to Naritsugu’s brutal tyranny. But the lord’s protector, Hanbei (Masachika Ichimura), a former nemesis of Shinzaemon’s, has vowed to defend his master to the death, even though he despises Naritsugu’s actions. As the thirteen samurai make a plan to get to Naritsugu, they are eager to finally break out their long-unused swords and do what they were born to do. “He who values his life dies a dog’s death,” Shinzaemon proclaims, knowing that the task is virtually impossible but willing to die for a just cause. Although there are occasional flashes of extreme gore in the first part of the film, Miike keeps the audience waiting until he unleashes the gripping battle, an extended scene of blood and violence that highlights death before dishonor.

Selected for the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and nominated for the Silver Lion at the 2010 Venice Film Festival, 13 Assassins is one of Miike’s best-crafted tales; nominated for ten Japanese Academy Prizes, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay (Daisuke Tengan), Best Editing (Kenji Yamashita), Best Original Score (Koji Endo), and Best Actor (Yakusho), it won awards for cinematography (Nobuyasu Kita), lighting direction (Yoshiya Watanabe), art direction (Yuji Hayashida), and sound recording (Jun Nakamura). It’s screening September 23 at 4:00 and 7:00 (with a prerecorded intro from Miike) in the Quad Cinema series “Jeremy Thomas Presents,” consisting of a wide range of films from British producer Thomas, who says of 13 Assassins, “I met Miike at the Venice Film Festival and proposed him a Tanizaki book I had, and he said to me, ‘Well, I’ve got this idea for a special samurai movie, and would you like to produce it?’ — which started this relationship of four movies with Miike. Three years later, we were back premiering the film at the festival. It’s truly an epic story with memorable characters, and the finale rivals anything we’ve ever seen, and everything was shot in-camera with a film camera. I was thrilled with the worldwide reception for this film. Really spectacular.”

The series, which runs at the Quad through September 28, includes such other works as Stephen Frears’s The Hit, Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor (followed by a Q&A with Thomas and Julian Schnabel), David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch (followed by a Q&A with Thomas and composer Howard Shore), Nagisa Ōshima’s Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast, and Jerzy Skolimowski’s The Shout, in conjunction with the September 21 theatrical release of Mark Cousins’s documentary The Storms of Jeremy Thomas, with Cousins and Thomas participating in a Q&A after the 7:15 show on September 22 to discuss their filmed trip to Cannes.

PATRICIO GUZMÁN, DREAMING OF UTOPIA: 50 YEARS OF REVOLUTIONARY HOPE AND MEMORY

Series explores the political documentaries of Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán

PATRICIO GUZMÁN, DREAMING OF UTOPIA: 50 YEARS OF REVOLUTIONARY HOPE AND MEMORY
Anthology Film Archives, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), IFC Center
September 7—15
www.cinematropical.com
www.patricioguzman.com

“A country without documentary cinema is like a family without a photo album,” Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán has said. In conjunction with the fiftieth anniversary of General Augusto Pinochet’s coup d’état on September 11, 1973, when the military overthrew the government of democratically elected Chilean president Salvador Allende, Icarus Films and Cinema Tropical are presenting “Patricio Guzmán, Dreaming of Utopia: 50 Years of Revolutionary Hope and Memory,” consisting of nine works by the award-winning eighty-two-year-old Santiago-born, France-based director. Screening at Anthology Film Archives, BAM, and IFC Center, the festival opens September 7-10 at Anthology with 2004’s Salvador Allende, followed September 8-15 by the US premiere of a new restoration of 1972’s The First Year, which documents Allende’s initial twelve months as president, with the 6:45 show of the latter on September 8 followed by a Q&A with Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña and Lehigh University professor of art history Florencia San Martín and a reception.

BAM highlights Guzmán’s three-part The Battle of Chile September 8-14, with filmmakers Pamela Yates, Paco de Onís, and Bernardita Llanos participating in a conversation after the 5:15 screening of part three on September 9 at 5:15. And on September 13-14, IFC screens Guzmán’s Chile Trilogy, consisting of 2010’s Nostalgia for the Light, 2015’s The Pearl Button, and 2019’s The Cordillera of Dreams, along with his latest film, 2022’s My Imaginary Country, about recent social unrest and protests. “A piano sonata cannot be heard in a large room. Documentary works need a different framework, a space and an intelligent programming formula,” Guzmán told Uruguayan critic Jorge Ruffinelli for a 2001 book. That’s just what Icarus Films and Cinema Tropical have given us with “Dreaming of Utopia.”

Nostalgia for the Light offers a breathtaking look at memory and the past, from above and below

NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT (NOSTALGIA DE LA LUZ) (Patricio Guzmán, 2010)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave.
Wednesday, September 13, 6:30
www.ifccenter.com
www.nostalgiaforthelight.com

Master documentarian Patricio Guzmán’s Nostalgia for the Light is a brilliant examination of memory and the past, one of the most intelligent and intellectual films you’re ever likely to see. But don’t let that scare you off — it is also a vastly entertaining, deeply emotional work that will blow you away with its stunning visuals and heartbreaking stories. Guzmán, who chronicled the assassination of Salvador Allende and the rise of Augusto Pinochet in the landmark three-part political documentary The Battle of Chile, this time visits the Atacama Desert in his native Chile, considered to be the driest place on Earth. Situated ten thousand feet above sea level, the desert is home to La Silla and Paranal Observatories, where astronomers come from all over the world to get unobstructed views of the stars and galaxies, unimpeded by pollution or electronic interference. However, it is also a place where women still desperately search for the remains of their loved ones murdered by Pinochet’s military regime and hidden away in mass graves. In addition, archaeologists have discovered mummies and other fossilized bones dating from pre-Columbian times there. Guzmán seamlessly weaves together these three journeys into the past — as astronomers such as Gaspar Galaz and Luis Hernandez note, by the time they see stars either with the naked eye or through the lens of their massive telescopes, the celestial bodies have been long dead — creating a fascinating narrative that is as thrilling as it is breathtaking.

Constructing a riveting tale of memory, Guzmán speaks with architect Miguel Lawner, who draws detailed maps of the Chacabuca desert concentration camp where he and so many other political prisoners were held; Valentina, a young astronomer whose grandparents had to give up her parents in order to save her when she was a baby; archaeologist Lautaro Nunez, who digs up mummies while trying to help the women find “los desaparecidos”; and Victoria and Violeta, who regularly comb the barren landscape in search of their relatives. “I wish the telescopes didn’t just look into the sky but could also see through the earth so that we could find them,” Violeta says at one point. Spectacularly photographed by Katell Dijan, Nostalgia for the Light is a modern masterpiece, an unparalleled cinematic experience that has to be seen to be believed. The screening will be introduced by San Francisco State University School of Cinema assistant professor Elizabeth Ramírez Soto, author of (Un)veiling Bodies: A Trajectory of Chilean Post-dictatorship Documentary.

[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]

PLAN 75

Michi Kakutani (Chieko Baisho) faces the end of her life sooner than she wants to in Plan 75

PLAN 75 (Chie Hayakawa, 2022)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, April 21
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.kimstim.com

In March 2020, at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, sixty-nine-year-old Texas lt. gov. Dan Patrick told Tucker Carlson on Fox News, “No one reached out to me and said, ‘As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?’ And if that’s the exchange, I’m all in.” Many people agreed that in order to protect the US economy, it was acceptable to let senior citizens die from the coronavirus.

Japanese writer-director Chie Hayakawa takes that concept to the next level in her debut feature, the melancholic, gorgeously photographed Plan 75, opening April 21 at IFC Center.

Expanded from a short film she made for the 2018 omnibus Ten Years Japan, in which five directors made works set ten years in the future, Plan 75 unfolds in a near dystopia where the Japanese government, in order to combat the inconvenient truth that the population is aging at a potentially unsustainable rate, offers all citizens seventy-five and older the opportunity to be euthanized, no questions asked, in exchange for one thousand dollars and free cremation, among other lures.

“The surplus of seniors is draining Japan’s economy and taking a heavy toll on the young generation,” a young man with a rifle narrates at the beginning of the film. “Surely the elderly don’t wish to be a blight on our lives. The Japanese have a long, proud history of sacrificing themselves to benefit the country. I pray that my courageous act will trigger discussion and a future that’s brighter for this nation.”

Yôko Narimiya (Yumi Kawai) takes a job at a government euthanasia company in Plan 75

Plan 75 evokes elements of Richard Fleischer’s 1973 thriller Soylent Green, in which the government provides extravagantly organized assisted suicide, and Michael Anderson’s 1976 sci-fi flick Logan’s Run, in which citizens are not permitted to live past the age of thirty.

Legendary actress and singer Chieko Baisho is mesmerizing as Michi Kakutani, an elegant seventy-eight-year-old woman with no family. After losing her job as a hotel maid, she tries to find other employment, but it’s difficult at her age. Running out of money, she worries that she might soon be homeless.

She then finds out about the government program called Plan 75; cheerful banners and television commercials are pervasive. Several of her friends, including Ineko (Hisako Ôkata), are interested in the proposition, especially the part that comes with a free stay in a resort. But Michi is not ready to die.

Hiromu Okabe (Hayato Isomura) is a bright and enthusiastic young man who is one of Plan 75’s leading salesmen. He eagerly signs up senior citizens for Plan 75 with a smile on his face, believing it is a good thing for everyone. But when his uncle, Yukio Okabe (Taka Takao), shows up to enroll in the program, he starts having second thoughts.

Meanwhile, fellow employee Yôko Narimiya (Yumi Kawai) is assigned to Michi’s case, quickly growing close with the older woman, which is against the rules. And Maria (Stefanie Arianne) is a Filipino caregiver who has come to Japan to make enough money to pay for her ailing daughter’s heart operation; instead of helping sick and elderly people survive, she is now processing their belongings after they are killed by the state, reminiscent of how the Nazis collected the possessions of victims of the gas chambers.

“Humans have no choice about whether to be born, but it would be a good thing if we were able to choose when it’s time to die,” an elderly woman says happily in a commercial in a Plan 75 waiting room that reverses our usual expectations; instead of waiting to see doctors to keep them healthy, these seniors are waiting to die. “Being able to decide how my life will end provided me peace of mind,” the spokeswoman adds.

Plan 75 is a chilling look at where we might be headed; at times it feels like a documentary, its narrative all too believable. Cinematographer Hideho Urata’s camera ranges from close-ups of Baishô’s face, both celebrating and mourning every deep wrinkle, to dark interiors where the elderly slowly go through their meager daily existence and bright exteriors where children play and trains speed by as Michi can only watch.

At one point, after reading a section of the Plan 75 manual, which purports to give older people the chance to die with dignity, Yôko stares accusingly at the audience, implicating us in this frightening example of elder abuse. Hayakawa and Urata then cut to a sunset peeking through a tree next to a bland housing complex, followed by a shot of Michi’s hand, held up to a fading light through the window, examining each bent and crooked finger as she lies on a futon, wondering if she’s made the right choice — or even was given much of one in the first place.

Winner of a Caméra d’Or Special Distinction at Cannes, Plan 75 is a haunting cautionary tale that speaks volumes as to how senior citizens are treated, or mistreated, whether during a global pandemic or just every day, in Japan or elsewhere, including right here in America, where too many politicians consider them excess baggage. And the stunning finale emphasizes that we need to do something about it, and fast.

Hayakawa (Bird, Niagara) will be at IFC Center opening weekend, participating in Q&As on April 21 at 7:00 with Reiko Tahara, April 22 at 7:10 with Risa Morimoto, and April 23 at 4:25 with Kris Montello.