4 Months, 3 Weeks + 2 Days

Sunday 7 April – 5 pm
World Cinema
(Romania 2007) 113 min. Anamaria Marinca, Laura Vasiliu, Vlad Ivanov. Dir: Cristian Mungie.This movie is a haunting and harrowing tale set in Ceaucescu’s Romania. centered on a pair of college dorm mates, Gabita and Otilia, who we encounter on the day Gabita, with Otilia’s help, seeks to terminate her unwanted pregnancy. This is a bleak and disturbing film tackling a very emotional subject. Cristian Mungiu has delivered a masterpiece, a film so powerful it will leave the viewer thinking long after watching it. The material is raw, filmed beautifully to capture the raw feelings and emotions of the characters, the ugly and drab feel of a communist country and the ever present authoritarian hand of the state. Some of the scenes are unnerving, especially the hotel scene when Gabita and Otilia are “negotiating” with the man who will perform the abortion. In any society, the choice to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is not one that is positive or cause for happiness. The reality of facing this reality in the society that Mungiu brings to life is even more dispiriting. There are no good choices for Gabita and Otilia and one cannot begin to imagine the mental wounds that they will be left with for the rest of their lives.
Original Version (Rumanian) with English subtitles.

The Virgin Spring

Wednesday 10 April – 7 pm
Max Von Sydow’s Birthday
(Sweden 1960) 89 min. Max von Sydow, Brigitta Valberg, Gunnel Lindblom. Dir: Ingmar Bergman. Made in 1960 and set in medieval Sweden, Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring is based on a folk ballad. It also examines a society in transition from Norse pantheism to Christianity. The film starkly contrasts Ingeri–a dark, feral, Odin-worshipping foster daughter to a Christian family headed by Max Von Sydow–and their own daughter, a pretty and blond but also vain and naïve girl named Karin, whom Ingeri resents. They travel out together to a distant church where Karin is to offer votive candles to the Virgin Mary. However, en route, Karin is raped and murdered by two desperate goatherds, accompanied by a 13-year-old boy. By coincidence, the goatherds then seek refuge with Karin’s parents and even try to sell them her clothes, which proves to be a mortal error. Striking is Bergman’s ominous use of dark and shade and lengthy sequences without dialogue. A dark, beautiful entry in Bergman’s body of work.
Original Version (Swedish) with English subtitles.

Tambien la Lluvia

Sunday 14 April – 5 pm
Cinema Español
(Spain 2011) 99 min. Gael Garcia Bernal, Luis Tosar, Juan Carlos Aduviri. Dir: Icíar Bollaín. Mexican director Sebastián (Gael García Bernal) and executive producer Costa (Luis Tosar) travel to Latin America to shoot a revisionist film about Christopher Columbus’s conquest. Sebastián and Costa unexpectedly land themselves in a moral crisis when they and their crew arrive at Cochabamba, Bolivia, during the intensifying 2000 Cochabamba protests. Their lead actor, Daniel (Juan Carlos Aduviri), is a local cast as a 15th century native in the film. But when the make-up and loin cloth come off, he sails into action protesting his community’s deprivation of water at the hands of the government. Meanwhile, Sebastian is as relentless as Werner Herzog infamously was in making Fitzcaraldo, pushing ahead against all odds, ignoring the prevailing danger about to disrupt at any moment. The film reflexively blurs the line between fiction and reality in what Variety calls “a powerful, richly layered indictment of the plight of Latin America’s dispossessed.”
Original Version (Spanish) with English subtitles.

Flight

Wednesday 17 April – 7 pm
(USA 2012) 138 min. Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle, Melissa Leo. Dir: Robert Zemeckis. In this action-packed mystery thriller, Academy Award winner, Denzel Washington stars as Whip Whitaker, a seasoned airline pilot, who miraculously crash lands his plane after a mid-air catastrophe, saving nearly every soul on board. After the crash, Whip is hailed as a hero, but as more is learned, more questions than answers arise as to who or what was really at fault and what really happened on that plane? “Flight segues into a brave and tortured performance by Denzel Washington — one of his very best. Not often does a movie character make such a harrowing personal journey that keeps us in deep sympathy all of the way.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times.
Original version (English) with Spanish subtitles.

Argo

Sunday 21 April – 5 pm
Best Picture Oscar Winner
(USA 2012) 96 min. Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin, John Goodman. Dir: Ben Affleck. Based on true events, Argo chronicles the life-or-death covert operation to rescue six Americans, which unfolded behind the scenes of the Iran hostage crisis-the truth of which was unknown by the public for decades. On November 4, 1979, as the Iranian revolution reaches its boiling point, militants storm the U.S. embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans hostage. But, in the midst of the chaos, six Americans manage to slip away and find refuge in the home of the Canadian ambassador. Knowing it is only a matter of time before the six are found out and likely killed, a CIA “exfiltration” specialist named Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) comes up with a risky plan to get them safely out of the country. A plan so incredible, it could only happen in the movies.
Original Version (English) with Spanish subtitles.

The Master

Wednesday 24 April – 7 pm
(USA 2012) 138 min. Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams. Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson. A striking portrait of drifters and seekers in post World War II America, Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master unfolds the journey of a Naval veteran (Joaquin Phoenix) who arrives home from war unsettled and uncertain of his future – until he is tantalized by The Cause and its charismatic leader (Philip Seymour Hoffman). “Written, directed, acted, shot, edited and scored with a bracing vibrancy that restores your faith in film as an art form, The Master is nirvana for movie lovers.” – Rolling Stone.
Original Version (English) with Spanish subtitles.

Hope Springs

Sunday 28 April – 5 pm
(USA 2012) 100 min. Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, Steve Carell. Dir: David Frankel. Kay (Meryl Streep) and Arnold (Tommy Lee Jones) are a devoted couple, but decades of marriage have left Kay wanting to spice things up and reconnect with her husband. When she hears of a renowned couple’s specialist (Steve Carell) in the small town of Great Hope Springs, she attempts to persuade her skeptical husband, a steadfast man of routine, to get on a plane for a week of marriage therapy. Just convincing the stubborn Arnold to go on the retreat is hard enough – the real challenge for both of them comes as they shed their bedroom hang-ups and try to re-ignite the spark that caused them to fall for each other in the first place. Led by a pair of mesmerizing performances from Streep and Jones, Hope Springs offers film goers some grown-up laughs — and a thoughtful look at mature relationships.
Original Version (English) with Spanish subtitles.

Bookmark Or Email This Page