DCist’s highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
Foreign: Stalker
Revered in his prime as perhaps one of the best filmmakers Russia ever produced, Andrei Tarkovsky built his reputation on just seven feature films. As is so often the case, some of the most poignant art comes from those artists who must fight to bring their vision to an audience. Tarkovsky’s films, often restless examinations of spirituality and the search for God, constantly clashed with a Soviet government that was made uncomfortable by religious discussions of any sort. His films can be arduous affairs, typified by long stretches of quiet, and takes that stretch on and on, refusing to cut away. Stalker, the director’s second adaptation of a science fiction novel (after his earlier Solaris) follows a writer and a professor as they search through a post-apocalyptic and purportedly dangerous land for a room that is said to grant wishes. Leading them there is the Stalker, a translation that is closer to “guide” or “tracker” than “creepy guy with dangerous obsessive crushes.” As with Solaris, the sci-fi plotline is peripheral. It’s mainly a framework around which Tarkovsky can build a philosophical discussion of the differing worldviews maintained by each of his main characters. The result is both difficult and hypnotic, but richly rewarding.
Saturday afternoon at 2:30 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art‘s East Building Auditorium. Free admission.
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Special Event: DC Shorts Film Festival
Always feel left out while watching the Academy Awards as they announce the winners for best short subject films? OK, so there’s no guarantee that any of the shorts screening at this week’s DC Shorts Film Festival will be represented at the Kodak Theatre in February. But there are precious few opportunities to see short films in a theatrical setting, so we’ll welcome the chance to catch dozens of works in the under-represented form when they come.
Runs from today through September 20, with all screenings at E Street Cinema. A full schedule can be found here.
