The Wall

Last week Silk Screen showed Julian Polster's The Wall

A film of the novel by Marlen Haushofer from the 1960's and a study of nature and our relationship to it. A wonderful performance by Martina Gedeck ('The Lives of Others'). Nature photography, the animals, the mountains, solitude and focus. There were echoes for me of Winterreise - the crow combining that song and der greise kopf it's a white crow. A solitary tramping though a wilderness. Was the novel written with the Berlin Wall in mind?

The Wave

The last Silkscreen film was The Wave based on the story of a simulation where students are asked to cause pain to someone else but because they're asked by an authority figure - an apparent scientist - it must be ok. This film places the action in a school where the students are undertaking a political studies course where things become rather too real.

I found it very difficult to suspend my disbelief - the group coalescing in less than a week, but maybe I'm sceptical about group think! Or maybe like the students at the start of the film I also think we're beyond than? Here's a review.
I was reminded - at a certain point - of the scene in 'The White Rose' where other students put subversive literature in a university..

Monsieur Lazhar

Silkscreen showed Monsieur Lazhar last week - similar in styl to 'Etre et Avoir' from the point of view of primary schoolchildren - but here dealing with the death of a teacher and their handling of the emotional trauma with a new rather unconventional M Lazhar. A very powerful film which engages with wonderful performances by the children and you gradually realise that the pain of the children and the new teacher are one. Here's a review.

About Elly

On Wednesday, Silkscreen showed the Iranian file About Elly - last year they had Asghar Farhadi's 'A Separation'and as that was popular they decided to programme another of his works. It tells of a group of friends going to the Caspian sea for a break but the female school teacher of one of their children has also been invited as has a recently divorced man. As the film progresses the original simple lies become ever more complex giving a real insight into the nature of Iranian society.

I thought it was very involving - even for so different a culture, I spent sometime trying to work out why it felt different and only at the end when the music started did I remember the spoken introduction (by the presenter) mentioning the lack of background music to that point. You didn't feel it was a film and the tension was suddenly ratcheted up and never let go. The Guardian's review is here, much of it felt improvised but there was a very clear direction.

Revenge!

The last film at Silkscreen was Susanne Bier's In a Better World, here's the trailer:

As the introducer said the Danish title is revenge and that's probably a better title as it is a study of revenge and bullying and the effect of violence on both sides. Very powerful and thought provoking with its two stories running alongside each other of family and school tensions and those in an African refugee camp. Not a comfortable watch but well worth it!

Incendies

It's a little time ago now but the first showing of Macclesfield silk screen's 2012-2013 season was Denis Villeneuve's Incendies

Incendies Trailer HD by eOneFilms
Here's a review a film telling of a family caught up in civil war in a Lebanon like country, told partially in flashback partially as the children discover the history of their mother. Raw and emotionally gruelling but strongly recommended! At the quiet day we attended the weekend after, somone was saying from a reading of Lucy Winkett's Our Sound is our Wound that for humans singing may have predated speech this, for me gave an added edge to the character of 'The Woman who Sings' in the film.

Politics and the Family - i

Earlier this month we saw the last film of Silkscreen's season - Blame it on Fidel, here's the trailer:

A tale of children growing up in a left-wing activist household in 1970's France. It probably helps to be to some extent left-winged and have a sense of humour, otherwise it becomes a joyless exposé of the trauma that the children suffered. Here's the Guardian review - I loved the way the children felt their way into relationship with a variety of child-minders by the sharing of creation myths. We bought the copy of the dvd at the end of the Silkscreen evening so a re-watch is lined up!

Another Year

The Silk Screen's film on Wednesday was Mike Leigh's another year - here's the trailer:

I thought it was a very gentle film, viewing relationships between the central couple and their friends through the seasons - lots of horticulture and horticultural metaphors! There was maybe not so much a sense of charicature as in some of Leigh's films affectionate without guying too much (cf Happy Go Lucky). Here's Peter Bradshaw's review from the Guardian. (The review says that the funeral takes place in a Lancashire town - I thought it was meant to be Hull, was I confused or not concentrating?) Lots of wine drinking - recommended!

Growing old (dis)-gracefully

On Wednesday was the second film of this season't Silkscreen - Chega de Saudade (Ballroom) of Lais Bodanzky, an affectionate study of growing old set in a São Paulo down-at-heel ballroom

I couldn't find a trailer with subtitles but this isn't the official trailer and has very little spoken dialogue! No punches pulled in its depiction of ageing and growth. Great fun! I was in charge of projection for the first time - so an apprehensive occasion - but all seems to have gone off smoothly!

Branches..and birds

Last night was the first evening of the Silk Screen's new season which opened with Xavier Beauvois' Of Gods and Men (Des Hommes et des Dieux - Of Men and Gods - the director isn't happy at the transposition!).
An intense, slow moving film, it tells the true story of a small Cistercian (I think that's right rather than Trappist which some reviews have) monastery in Algeria and the monks struggle of faith and commitment to their community and to the local community in the face of a corrupt government and on the other hand of local Islamic extremists who see them as Western interlopers. The film gets inside the interior life of the monastery showing the liturgical life of faith as well as the interior struggle of the monks - being offered an easy exit by the government - but there is their long history of being there for their Muslim neighbours.I'd guess that being familiar with both faiths helps in understanding the film's journey. There's many very moving moments both in dialogue and in silence, a scene herding sheep comes to my mind, as well as the set-piece towards the end of the monks listening to Swan Lake and drinking wine together - I was reminded of Jean Renoir's film Au Revoir les Enfants - and it's use of Schubert - another example of a religious community under attack. This review is worth a read:

These Christians mean different things to people near them. To Algerian neighbors in their small town, they’re a source of free medicine and advice, not to mention homemade jam (looked like honey to me! (ed)) sold at a local market. To a government official who’s supposed to protect them, they’re a headache.
To the local army captain, who knows they succour anyone in need, they’re an aid to terrorism. And to the fundamentalist jihadists, these monks become many things: a willing or unwilling source of supplies, a mysterious force to be respected, a bargaining tool in times of war.

The above is a clip of the first contact between the monks and the jihadists - you'll find a link to the trailer for the film on the Silk Screen site (link at top of this posting - but not any more!) - I thought that trailer gave meaning to my title but it only includes fragments of the exchange so here's the full (but very short!) clip!
Here's a link to the Guardian review.

An Education

The final film of Silk Screen's 2010-2011 season was Nick Hornby's adaption of Lynn Barber's book 'An Education', here's the trailer:

some wonderful scenes and details, funny and yet there's the emotional punch hiding in the background of a 16 year old being seduced (in many ways) by an older man. Carey Mulligan is wonderful as the youngster, but Molina is excellent as the father also seduced by Peter Sarsgaard's winning ways. I intend to read the book and here's the Guardian review and here's another which is worth the read:

An Education plays out rather like a diary read. When you write of exciting moments in your life, you don’t need to elaborate on certain things, like best friends’ names or schoolwork, and this film doesn’t bother to either.

The showing was followed by the society's AGM - the most highly rated - by the audiences - film of the season was In the Valley of Elah, which, alas, we didn't see with the events of last year. Before it I was educated in the ways of projecting the films - so future reviews here maybe less impartial!
Back on 'An Education' both of us bridled at the letter from Oxford University - obviously the college system was thought to be too complicated for viewers - I also spotted a cup design in one of the scenes of which I still have a piece (I bought mine in the 70's).

Samson & Delilah

Last night's film said very little but it said an awful lot. What happens when the language you have belongs to the community which cages and keeps you in check. A film of the aboriginal community in Australia. The images and sounds will live with you. A review here

The White Ribbon

Last night's film at the Silk Screen was Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon as the linked review puts it:

..a ghost story without a ghost, a whodunnit without a denouement, a historical parable without a lesson..

A tale of Germany just before the First World War where everyone (almost) knew their place, a peaceful rural cummunity where the unsettling and nightmarish is only just below the surface. 143 minutes - but it gripped and carried you along with the narration of one looking back from a perspective of one looking back across even more nightmarish events. It will unsettle you - but do see it! I was reminded of last seasons El Orfanato (the Orphanage) another film placing innocence and threat of the young alongside each other.
Here's the trailer to the White Ribbon:

Maybe you'll feel frustrated at the end of the film but the images and story will live with you!

Chancing your luck

This evening at the SilkScreen was Jessica Hausner's film Lourdes, starting off with a documentary feel it tells the tale of a group visit to the pilgrimage centre. Gradually you are drawn in - I felt very disengaged until well into the film but Sylvie Testud's performance as a woman with MS is mesmeric. Questions are raised as to the nature of miracle what if the miracle doesn't last and of healing in all ways. Hausner stands back and lets you see what's going on - the Guardian review refers to the miracle thus:

It is a moment of astonishment that punctures the rational fabric of the film – there is no clearly comparable sense here, but certainly a batsqueak of anxiety that the miraculous might be real, and that it is therefore just as alarming, unsettling and threatening – and perhaps, also, just as absurd and banal – as everything else in the real world.

That review also suggests irritation with the final scene - I found myself more absorbed by the tension at that moment.
Here's the trailer:

yes it's the Spanish version of the trailer, I can't find a French one or the English at the moment...if I do I'll replace it! This mini-documentary also looks worth a watch.

A Prophet

We saw Jacques Audiard's A Prophet at the SilkScreen on Wednesday. I was prepared not to like it, billed as violent..., but I really enjoyed it (if that's the right word!). Summoning up the claustrophobia of prison from the start it tells of vulnerable young man 'graduating' from a juvenile offenders to an adult prison and his struggle for safety and an education. Yes there's pretty up-front violence but what I will remember are the silences, the points where the sound track virtually disappeared, the moments when you see through Malik's eyes.

And then there's the playing out to Mack the Knife, maybe open ended but, to my mind the intent is clear. Recommended!

Still Walking (Aruitemo aruitemo)

The Silkscreen showed Hirokazu Koreeda's film Still Walking last night, here's a clip:

A very gentle film, no great drama but the undercurrents of what isn't said in family relationships are always there. It tells of a family reunion to mark the anniversary of the death of the sons, the individuals have changed aged since then and the extent to which they are willing to recognise that, is the plot. There's the trailer on youtube too but I liked these two scenes!

2 days in Paris

The final SilkScreen of the season, last night, was Julie Delpy's 2 days in Paris. You probably needed to like Woody Allen's work to enjoy this evisceration of certain attitudes and styles. Funny, bawdy and a delight. It took me a little time to get into - and that was combined with the SilkScreen's twitchy sound system and some projection issues but it is a lovely frothy comedy of manners - it had its dead moments - that argument by the canal just didn't work for me at all - but I would otherwise recommend it. I didn't realise until afterwards that Delpy's father, in the film, is her real father, their interaction is wonderful. Here's the trailer:

Mouths and eyes

The Silkscreen - our local world cinema club - showed Susanne Biel's 'after the wedding' this week.
Here's the trailer:

A Danish charity worker returns from his work at an Indian orphanage in order to seek much needed funding from a wealthy potential donor. He is then invited to the daughter’s wedding held at a beautiful house outside Copenhagen. Your prejudices are engaged and overturned again and again, I thought it a wonderful film though there were times when I felt beaten over the head to emote. Powerful though and the concentration upon eyes (human and animal) and mouths as a means of carrying the drama lends it a certain atmosphere. I did spend some time in the early part of the film thinking 'must suspend disbelief' but it is definitely worth it! See it before they release the English language re-make! Here's the Guardian review - this one is ok but some reviews and the wikipedia page contain major spoilers!

An evening with the photograph album

On Wednesday we went to the Silk Screen to see Terence Davies' 'of time and the city' his affectionate hymn to Liverpool of days gone by. At one point there was film of New Brighton and I was reminded of a photo in my archives of me on the beach there in the 50's.

On the beach wearing a bow-tie??!!
Of the film, it was very self indulgent but wonderful nostalgia, insights into deprivation and community. Here's the trailer (there's another slightly different one also on youTube)

Wanted to link to this one though for the final Bernard Fallon shot.
The film tells of Davies' youth his (obviously failed in some sense) attempt to kick over the traces of his Catholic upbringing and his deep affection for place and memory.
I loved the cutting of the finale of the Mahler Resurrection Symphony into those last minutes, here's part of the text: (Mahler using Klopstock)

O believe,
You were not born for nothing!
Have not for nothing, lived, suffered!

What was created
Must perish,
What perished, rise again!
Cease from trembling!
Prepare yourself to live!

Davies prayer for his home city. He also quotes Eliot's Four Quartets hence the blog post title!
I was born and spent my first 10 years along the coast in the far more respectable Birkdale but the twinges of awoken memory were most welcome.

Quatre cents coups

Last night we went to the Silk Screen to see Truffaut's Quatre cents coups.

I'd not seen this film for many years and for some reason it was the memory of the humourous scenes which stuck in the mind from then, but it's a tragic story from a lonely childhood lit by wonderful sometimes funny observation. The above clip is the final scene, audaciously daring, and unforgettable (though my mind was playing tricks!).