All films are shown at the Nerja Cultural Centre on Calle Granada
Sunday March 4th at 5 pm
Incendies – World Cinema – BAFTA & Oscar nominee
(Canada 2011) 130 min. Lubna Azabal, Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin, Maxim Gaudette. Dir. Denis Villeneuve
In the highly-acclaimed suspense thriller Incendies, a mother’s dying wish creates a painful puzzle her children are forced to solve. At the reading of their mother’s will, twins Jeanne and Simon are given instructions to locate the father they believed was dead and the brother neither knew existed. They travel to the Middle East, to piece together the story of the woman who brought them into the world only to make a shocking discovery. From its arresting opening to its shattering conclusion, the Canadian film Incendies is muscular, emotional film-making of the highest order, self-confident in its delivery yet always respectful of its characters’ plight.
Original Version (French) with English subtitles.
Wednesday March 7th at 7 pm
The Tree of Life – 2012 Oscar Nominee
(USA 2011) 139 min. Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain. Dir. Terrence Malick.
The Tree of Life is the impressionistic story of a Midwestern family in the 1950’s. The film follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father (Brad Pitt). Jack (played as an adult by Sean Penn) finds himself a lost soul in the modern world, seeking answers to the origins and meaning of life while questioning the existence of faith. Through Malick’s signature imagery, we see how both brute nature and spiritual grace shape not only our lives as individuals and families, but all life.
Original Version (English) with German subtitles.
Saturday March 10th at 5 pm
Hugo – 2012 Oscar & BAFTA nominee
(USA 2011) 126 min. Ben Kingsley, Jude Law, Christopher Lee, Asa Butterfield. Dir. Martin Scorsese
In resourceful orphan Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield, an Oliver Twist-like charmer), Martin Scorsese finds the perfect vessel for his silver-screen passion: this is a movie about movies. Based on Brian Selznick’s captivating and imaginative New York Times bestseller “The Invention of Hugo Cabret”, Hugo tells the tale of an orphan boy living a secret life in the walls of a Paris train station. When Hugo encounters a broken machine, an eccentric girl, and the cold, reserved man who runs the toy shop, he is caught up in a magical, mysterious adventure that could put all of his secrets in jeopardy. Hugo was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, making it the most nominated film of year, which include a Best Picture nomination and a Best Director nomination for Martin Scorsese. Original Version (English) with Spanish subtitles.
Wednesday March 14th 7 pm Wolfgang Petersen Birthday
Das Boot
(Germany 1981) 149 min Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, Klaus Wennemann. Dir. Wolfgang Petersen
It is 1942 and the German submarine fleet is heavily engaged in the so-called “Battle of the Atlantic” to harass and destroy English shipping. With better escorts of the Destroyer Class, however, German U-Boats have begun to take heavy losses. Das Boot is the story of one such U-Boat crew, with the film examining how these submariners maintained their professionalism as soldiers, attempted to accomplish impossible missions, while all the time attempting to understand and obey the ideology of the government under which they served. Cinematographer Jost Vacano makes the sub’s grimy, claustrophobic interior come to vivid life, as his camera follows the crew through hatches, up ladders, into bunks, and under pipes, creating a palpable sense of claustrophobia while injecting it with movement.
Original Version (German) with English subtitles.
Saturday March 17th at 5 pm
The Ides of March
(USA 2011) 101 min. Ryan Gosling, George Clooney, Philip Seymour Hoffman. Dir. George Clooney
Written and directed by Academy Award winner George Clooney, The Ides of March is an electrifying tale of ambition, betrayal and revenge. Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling) is an idealist who’s brilliant at communications: he’s second in command of Governor Mike Morris’s (George Clooney) presidential campaign, and he’s a true believer. In the middle of the Ohio primary, the campaign manager of Morris’s opponent asks Meyers to meet: he offers him a job. At the same time, Morris’s negotiations for the endorsement of the man in third place, a North Carolina Senator, hit a snag. A young campaign intern, Molly Stearns (Even Rachel Wood), gets Stephen’s romantic attention. Republicans have a trick up their sleeves, Stephen may be too trusting, and Molly has a secret. What’s most important: career, victory, or virtue?
Orignal Version (English) with Spanish subtitles.
Wednesday March 21st at 7 pm
We have to talk about Kevin – 2012 BAFTA & Golden Globe nominee
(UK 2011) 112 min. Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, Ezra Miller. Dir. Lynne Ramsay
A suspenseful and gripping psychological thriller, Lynne Ramsay’s We Need to Talk About Kevin explores the factious relationship between a mother and her son. Tilda Swinton, in a bracing, tour-de-force performance, plays the mother, Eva, as she contends for 15 years with the increasing malevolence of her first-born child, Kevin (Ezra Miller). Based on the best-selling novel of the same name, We Need to Talk About Kevin explores nature vs. nurture on a whole new level as Eva’s own culpability is measured against Kevin’s innate evilness.
Original Version (English) with French subtitles.
Sunday March 25th at 5 pm
Lawrence of Arabia – David Lean’s Birthday
(USA 1962) 216 min. Peter O’Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif. Dir. David Lean
Like the desert itself, in which most of the action in Lawrence of Arabia takes place, this much-heralded film about the famous British soldier-adventurer is vast, awe-inspiring, beautiful with ever-changing hues, exhausting and barren of humanity. An illuminating, intelligent script by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson, based in part on Lawrence’s wartime recollections, reveals the soldier as a tormented, sado-masochist with repressed homosexual urges who perceives himself as a warrior-king. Peter O’Toole, then the new boy among international stars (including Alec Guinness as a shrewd Prince Feisal and Jack Hawkins as the calculating General Allenby) gives his best ever performance as the enigmatic Lawrence. That other star of the film – the desert – is so magnificently captured in all its endless immensity that you’ll find sand between your toes when you take your socks off. In 1962, Lawrence of Arabia scooped another seven Oscars for David Lean and crew after his previous epic, The Bridge on the River Kwai, had performed exactly the same feat a few years earlier.
Original Version (English) with Spanish subtitles.
Wednesday March 28th at 5 pm
The Artist (Silent) – Winner of 5 Oscars 2012 including Best Picture
(France 2011) 100 min. Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, John Goodman. Dir. Michel Hazanavicius
Remember the old days, when movies were glorious, magical and mute? Neither do we. But the passing of the silent era from memory into myth is what The Artist, Michel Hazanavicius’s dazzling cinematic objet d’art, is all about. This is not a work of film history but rather a generous, touching and slightly daffy expression of unbridled movie love. The film is anchored by a charming performance from Jean Dujardin, as silent movie star George Valentin. In late-1920s Hollywood, as Valentin wonders if the arrival of talking pictures will cause him to fade into oblivion, he makes an intense connection with Peppy Miller, a young dancer set for a big break. As one career declines, another flourishes, and by channeling elements of A Star Is Born and Singing in the Rain, The Artist tells the engaging story with humor, melodrama, romance, and–most importantly–silence. As wonderful as the performances by Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo (Miller) are, the real star of The Artist is cinematographer Guillaume Schiffman. Visually, the film is stunning. Crisp and beautifully contrasted, each frame is so wonderfully constructed that this sweet and unique little movie is transformed from entertaining fluff to a profound cinematic achievement.
Silent film.
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