DCist’s highly selective and subjective guide to some of the most interesting movies coming to town in the next seven days.
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Golshifteh Farahani and Mathieu Amalric (Patricia Khan/Sony Pictures Classics)A renowned Iranian violinist is so distraught after his precious instrument is shattered that he sits himself down to die. The plot is neatly contained in an introductory narration that teaches us the Persian version of “Once upon a time:” There was someone, there was no one.” Life is a story, Chicken with Plums suggests, whose magic and tragedy is up to the teller. This well-told tale stars a bug-eyed Mathieu Almaric (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) as musician Nasser Ali Khan. Based on Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel, Chicken with Plums is her second collaboration with co-director Vincent Paronnaud, but unlike the film of her graphic novel Persepolis, its visual flair is accomplished in live action, with various devices, from animation to sit-com interlude, suggesting the stylistic wanderings of a kinder, gentler Natural Born Killers.
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at Landmark Bethesda Row
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(Oscilliscope)Director Ron Fricke took his experience as cinematographer for the trippy Koyaanisqatsi to make his own 70mm tone poem Baraka in 1992. At the time, Baraka was the first motion picture in 20 years to use the 70mm Todd-AO format that was once used for such mass-market spectacles like Around the World in Eighty Days. Like Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, Fricke’s sequel to Baraka was filmed on high resolution 70mm film, but the results were output to a digital format. Which seems like a cheat. I admired the original Koyannisqatsi: Life out of Balance, whose 1988 run in DC included a stint at the Uptown. Now such things are left to art-houses. Samsara, whose title is sanskrit word meaning “the ever changing wheel of life,” has a titular verisimilitude, but not in the wheels which characterize film distribution: it’s a high-falutin’ sign of the digital times that even a prestige arthouse movie that claims to celebrate celluloid abandons it. Pretty! I missed out on the digital press screening, but reports are that this “guided meditation” is as heavy-handed as Baraka. But in case you didn’t know that the Buddhist monastic life was superior to American fast-food culture, you may learn something from these pretty pictures.
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at Landmark E Street Cinema.
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Benjamin R. Freed wrote of this film during it’s Silverdocs run in June:
Chrysler might have spun heads with that glossy 2-minute-30-second commercial during Super Bowl XLV in which Eminem drove a shiny, new sedan through downtown Detroit, but in Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s latest film, the Motor City is still anything but turned around. Lingering, narration-free sequences pummel us with dilapidated houses, condemned lots and the fallen relics of what was once a grand American city. Today, as we’ve known for several years now, the auto companies are long decamped and the city itself is broke, forced to shackle its put-upon residents with round after round of cuts in municipal services. But unlike Ewing and Grady’s previous outings—the deeply affecting Boys of Baraka or the truly frightening Jesus Camp—Detropia sags after a while, perhaps dwelling for too long on the individual bar owner rather than keeping on top of the macro problem. That shouldn’t unhinge the argument, though. Detroit isn’t just broke, it’s broken. The financial collapse arrived in Motown long before 2008 and no remedy attempted by any governor, president or corporation has been an effective salve. Detropia might be a little heavy-handed, but it’s a staggering reminder of how we’ve let one of our once-great cites turn to rubble.
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at West End Cinema.
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Film and Beer: Cutting it Short
The Mutual Inspirations Festival celebrates the 80th birthday of Czech filmmaker Miloš Forman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) with cinematic events around town. Bistro Bohem hosts an arthouse cinema drafthouse with a screening of the 1981 film Cutting It Short (Postřižiny) by Czech New Wave director Jiří Menzel. Based on the brewery experiences of writer Bohumil Hrabal, whose novel was the source for Menzel’s best known movie, 1967’s Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film, Closely Watched Trains.
View actress Magda Vásáryová chugging a cold one in the old country.
Tuesday, September 18 at 6:00 pm at Bistro Bohem, 600 Florida Avenue NW. Free.
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Thai director Kongdei Jaturanrasmee’s film is about a pair of young men who break into people’s homes. But this is no Funny Games — the home invaders borrow their victim’s lives, sipping wine and listening to Debussy before leaving without a trace. The movie was a minor sensation at the Venice and Losa Angeles Film Festivals, and is part of the Freer’s series Life Journeys: Four Thai Films.
View the trailer.
Friday, September 14, at 7:00 pm at the Freer. Free.
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Also, tonight is your last chance to see Branded at your local multiplex. There’s a reason it wasn’t screened for critics, and it’s not just because the movie rails against the advertising industry. It’s the best bad movie released this year, with a strange vision that almost redeems its ineptness. Read my full review here.
