DCist’s selective and subjective guide to some of the most interesting movies coming to town in the next week.
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(Kino Lorber)“Today I embrace illusion in order to find truth.” These words, which can apply to any fiction, are spoken in support of the real-life deception of Kumaré. But is there a truth to them? Like many children of immigrants, director Vikram Gandhi grew up in a family whose elders held on to tradition while the younger generation moved away from it. Gandhi admired the serenity of his grandmother as she performed sacred Hindu rituals, but at the same time he grew skeptical of opportunistic religious leaders who saw becoming a guru as a way of gaining rock star status, getting girls without having to play an instrument. The filmmaker appropriated his beloved grandmother’s voice to invent Kumaré: a character, a social experiment, and a fascinating and uncomfortable documentary. Think of Kumaré as a Sascha Baron Cohen stunt taken to a more serious and dedicated level — or Catfish writ large and with a conscience. Gandhi’s invented guru develops a real following in Arizona, and as his students begin to confide in him and he grows closer to them, he is startled to realize that he connects with people more as Kumaré than he ever did as Vikram. The fake guru aims to teach students that the guru is in themselves, which isn’t far from the teaching that everybody around us is a guru, in that the way we respond to them teaches us something about our own minds. Does Kumaré teach a more potent truth than he realizes? A fascinating study for the spiritual and skeptic alike.
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at West End Cinema.
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(Icarus Films)Vicious drug wars have left their mark on the Mexican landscape. This weekend the National Gallery presents the Washington premiere of Natalia Almada’s documentary, which looks at the night watchman (el velador) in charge of a place where repercussions match tragedy with a kind of majesty: the cemetery. From late-night parties filled with music, to construction of elaborate mausoleums, to the people who maintain the grounds and clean the massive structures, El Velador takes an observational and meditative look at a sensational subject.
View the trailer.
Screens Saturday, September 8 at 2:00 pm at the National Gallery of Art. Free.
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Daria Halprin and Mark FrechetteDeath Valley, teenagers, Pink Floyd and Jerry Garcia. It’s the end of the 1960s, full of indulgence and alienation, and who better to capture it then the auteur of the alone, Michelangelo Antonioni? The director brought his trademark alienation to the American counterculture but ended up with a critical and commercial failure. Zabriskie Point is not a good movie, but it’s an interesting one, and it’s not often projected. It doesn’t reach anywhere near the heights of Antonioni’s central trilogy, but I’d rather see it again than the facile “what is reality” tropes of the more celebrated Blow-Up.
View the trailer.
Monday, September 10 and Wednesday, September 12 at the AFI.
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(Bear Family Records)The !!!! Beat
WPFW host and Library of Congress Music Specialist Larry Appelbaum curated this film series dedicated to a little-remembered regional television program. Appelbaum writes that, “The !!!! Beat was a pioneering blues, soul and R&B television show broadcast from WFAA in Dallas, Texas and hosted by radio d.j. William “Hoss” Allen. The series, which began production in January 1966, ran for 26 episodes with stellar performances by national and regional stars, including Little Milton, Esther Phillips, Etta James, Gatemouth Brown, Louis Jordan, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave and Patti LaBelle, along with a rocking house band and go-go dancers. Every Friday night in September we’ll be showing four half-hour programs from this rarely seen music series.” The films are shown as part of a pilot program by the Library of Congress in conjunction with Hill Center at the Old Naval Hospital. This week’s program includes performances by Little Milton, Frank Howard & the Commanders, Esther Phillips, Gatemouth Brown, Joe Tex, Etta James, Lattimore Brown, Roscoe Shelton, Lee “Shot” Williams & Gerri Taylor, Carla Thomas, Art Grayson, Cleo Randle, Mighty Joe Young and Jimmy Church. Disclaimer: These opinions do not necessarily reflect those of my employer, the Library of Congress.
View a clip of Louis Jordan & The Tympany Five performing on The !!!! Beat in 1966.
Friday, September 7 at 7:00 pm at Hill Center at the Old Naval Hospital, 921 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE. Free, but reservations are suggested and can be made here.
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The Overture
This weekend the Freer launches the series Life Journeys: Four Thai Films, which samples recent independent and mainstream titles from a hotbed of cinematic activity. The Overture is “based on the life of Luang Pradit Phairao, master of the traditional Thai ranard-ek (wooden xylophone) … Its hero, Sorn, is a child prodigy who, forbidden from playing music by his family, practices in secret until his talent carries him all the way to the royal court.” Preceded by a live musical performance by traditional xylophone master Thaworn Sriphong, who worked on the film. Also screening this weekend is director Tongpong Chantarangkul’s debut feature I Carried You Home, which observes two estranged sisters who accompany their mother’s body on an ambulance ride from Bangkok to their rural homeland. “A quiet, melancholy film about the power of forgiveness.”
View the trailer for I Carried You Home.
I Carried You Home screens Friday, September 7 at 7:00 pm. The Overture screens Sunday, September 8 at 2:00 pm. At the Freer. Free.
Also opening this week, ensemble dramas, French and American style: Bradley Cooper leads the pack as a novelist in The Words; and a French take on The Big Chill in Little White Lies. We’ll have full reviews tomorrow.
