Film
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Hiroshima Mon Amour The great French director Alain Resnais died in March, after 60 years of filmmaking. His very last feature, Life of Reilly, just played the New York Film Festival and will eventually reach one of our repertory houses. In the meantime, his 1959 feature debut, written by Marguerite Duras, has been given a spiffy new 4K digital restoration, meaning that the voluptuous black-and-white cinematography of Sacha Vierny will be that much more exquisite. Hiroshima is both a dreamy meditation on that destroyed city and the ruins of love. In never-ending, overlapping flashbacks, we learn how the postwar affair between a Japanese architect and a visiting French actress (Eiji Okada and Emmanuelle Riva of the recent Amour) is informed by her prior World War II romance with a German soldier. Duras’ poetic dialogue and voiceovers can seem a bit pretentious to modern ears, but this beautiful, timeless film was a revelation to its original U.S. audiences. Resnais and fellow travelers in the nouvelle vague swept through American arthouses-along with the new postwar cinema from Japan and Italy-just as the old Hollywood genres and formulas were growing stale. There’s a frankness here about female desire, and an insoluble dramatic situation (who can ever reconcile present and past? who can ever explain an affair?), that beguiled viewers then as today. (Also plays SIFF Film Center, see siff.net for showtimes.) BRIAN MILLER SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave. N., Seattle, WA 98109 $7-$12 Monday, November 3, 2014
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N-E-X D-O-C-S Fall is the season when serious documentary contenders begin to show their hand for the Oscar nomination shortlist, e.g., this week’s Citizenfour. But a whole lot of worthwhile nonfiction filmmaking is being done without benefit of theatrical releases, HBO backing, or national publicity. This five-night, five-title documentary series samples the global zeitgeist, ranging from Ukrainian protesters to Portuguese architecture. Somewhere in the middle is the Appalachian poverty belt visited in Surviving Cliffside (5 p.m. Sun.), which director Jon Matthews, a former ACLU lawyer, will introduce. Matthews once attended summer camp in the West Virginia community of Cliffside, where his drug-addicted, petty-thievin’ cousin E.J. now resides with his wife and two young daughters (one recently recovered from leukemia). Cliffside is something of a freak show, like Werner Herzog-meets-Honey Boo Boo, but Matthews doesn’t condescend to his country cousins-even while accompanying E.J. on drug runs and shoplifting errands. And if the little cancer-survivor girl wants to compete in pee-wee beauty pageants, fine; Matthews doesn’t poke fun at the sequins and glitter. Poverty and drug use are the real pathologies here, and when Matthews interviews a sad, spastic junkie trying to dance himself awake-i.e., stay out of a drug coma-you feel those crushing burdens upon the rural populace. The series begins (5 p.m. Sat.) with Jessica Oreck’s exploration of Eastern European folklore, The Vanquishing of the Witch Baba Yaga. BRIAN MILLER Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 $6-$12 Monday, November 3, 2014
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Hiroshima Mon Amour The great French director Alain Resnais died in March, after 60 years of filmmaking. His very last feature, Life of Reilly, just played the New York Film Festival and will eventually reach one of our repertory houses. In the meantime, his 1959 feature debut, written by Marguerite Duras, has been given a spiffy new 4K digital restoration, meaning that the voluptuous black-and-white cinematography of Sacha Vierny will be that much more exquisite. Hiroshima is both a dreamy meditation on that destroyed city and the ruins of love. In never-ending, overlapping flashbacks, we learn how the postwar affair between a Japanese architect and a visiting French actress (Eiji Okada and Emmanuelle Riva of the recent Amour) is informed by her prior World War II romance with a German soldier. Duras’ poetic dialogue and voiceovers can seem a bit pretentious to modern ears, but this beautiful, timeless film was a revelation to its original U.S. audiences. Resnais and fellow travelers in the nouvelle vague swept through American arthouses-along with the new postwar cinema from Japan and Italy-just as the old Hollywood genres and formulas were growing stale. There’s a frankness here about female desire, and an insoluble dramatic situation (who can ever reconcile present and past? who can ever explain an affair?), that beguiled viewers then as today. (Also plays SIFF Film Center, see siff.net for showtimes.) BRIAN MILLER SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave. N., Seattle, WA 98109 $7-$12 Tuesday, November 4, 2014
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N-E-X D-O-C-S Fall is the season when serious documentary contenders begin to show their hand for the Oscar nomination shortlist, e.g., this week’s Citizenfour. But a whole lot of worthwhile nonfiction filmmaking is being done without benefit of theatrical releases, HBO backing, or national publicity. This five-night, five-title documentary series samples the global zeitgeist, ranging from Ukrainian protesters to Portuguese architecture. Somewhere in the middle is the Appalachian poverty belt visited in Surviving Cliffside (5 p.m. Sun.), which director Jon Matthews, a former ACLU lawyer, will introduce. Matthews once attended summer camp in the West Virginia community of Cliffside, where his drug-addicted, petty-thievin’ cousin E.J. now resides with his wife and two young daughters (one recently recovered from leukemia). Cliffside is something of a freak show, like Werner Herzog-meets-Honey Boo Boo, but Matthews doesn’t condescend to his country cousins-even while accompanying E.J. on drug runs and shoplifting errands. And if the little cancer-survivor girl wants to compete in pee-wee beauty pageants, fine; Matthews doesn’t poke fun at the sequins and glitter. Poverty and drug use are the real pathologies here, and when Matthews interviews a sad, spastic junkie trying to dance himself awake-i.e., stay out of a drug coma-you feel those crushing burdens upon the rural populace. The series begins (5 p.m. Sat.) with Jessica Oreck’s exploration of Eastern European folklore, The Vanquishing of the Witch Baba Yaga. BRIAN MILLER Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 $6-$12 Tuesday, November 4, 2014
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Hiroshima Mon Amour The great French director Alain Resnais died in March, after 60 years of filmmaking. His very last feature, Life of Reilly, just played the New York Film Festival and will eventually reach one of our repertory houses. In the meantime, his 1959 feature debut, written by Marguerite Duras, has been given a spiffy new 4K digital restoration, meaning that the voluptuous black-and-white cinematography of Sacha Vierny will be that much more exquisite. Hiroshima is both a dreamy meditation on that destroyed city and the ruins of love. In never-ending, overlapping flashbacks, we learn how the postwar affair between a Japanese architect and a visiting French actress (Eiji Okada and Emmanuelle Riva of the recent Amour) is informed by her prior World War II romance with a German soldier. Duras’ poetic dialogue and voiceovers can seem a bit pretentious to modern ears, but this beautiful, timeless film was a revelation to its original U.S. audiences. Resnais and fellow travelers in the nouvelle vague swept through American arthouses-along with the new postwar cinema from Japan and Italy-just as the old Hollywood genres and formulas were growing stale. There’s a frankness here about female desire, and an insoluble dramatic situation (who can ever reconcile present and past? who can ever explain an affair?), that beguiled viewers then as today. (Also plays SIFF Film Center, see siff.net for showtimes.) BRIAN MILLER SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave. N., Seattle, WA 98109 $7-$12 Wednesday, November 5, 2014
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N-E-X D-O-C-S Fall is the season when serious documentary contenders begin to show their hand for the Oscar nomination shortlist, e.g., this week’s Citizenfour. But a whole lot of worthwhile nonfiction filmmaking is being done without benefit of theatrical releases, HBO backing, or national publicity. This five-night, five-title documentary series samples the global zeitgeist, ranging from Ukrainian protesters to Portuguese architecture. Somewhere in the middle is the Appalachian poverty belt visited in Surviving Cliffside (5 p.m. Sun.), which director Jon Matthews, a former ACLU lawyer, will introduce. Matthews once attended summer camp in the West Virginia community of Cliffside, where his drug-addicted, petty-thievin’ cousin E.J. now resides with his wife and two young daughters (one recently recovered from leukemia). Cliffside is something of a freak show, like Werner Herzog-meets-Honey Boo Boo, but Matthews doesn’t condescend to his country cousins-even while accompanying E.J. on drug runs and shoplifting errands. And if the little cancer-survivor girl wants to compete in pee-wee beauty pageants, fine; Matthews doesn’t poke fun at the sequins and glitter. Poverty and drug use are the real pathologies here, and when Matthews interviews a sad, spastic junkie trying to dance himself awake-i.e., stay out of a drug coma-you feel those crushing burdens upon the rural populace. The series begins (5 p.m. Sat.) with Jessica Oreck’s exploration of Eastern European folklore, The Vanquishing of the Witch Baba Yaga. BRIAN MILLER Northwest Film Forum, 1515 12th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 $6-$12 Wednesday, November 5, 2014
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The Last Patrol The author (The Perfect Storm) turned film director (Korengal and Restrepo) has now made his third documentary about the war in Afghanistan, though it takes place on East Coast railway lines and in the Allegheny Mountains. Produced for HBO, The Last Patrol documents Junger’s 300-mile trek, originally planned for his filmmaking partner Tim Hetherington, the famed photojournalist who was killed covering the Libyan revolution. Joining him instead are a couple of war vets (including Brendan O’Byrne from Restrepo) on a hobo-style march along an active railway line. Why take that route from New York to Washington, D.C.? Junger has said that “the railroad tracks go straight through the middle of everything-ghettos, suburbs, crumbling industry, farms, and swamps. You see America from the inside out.” The trek becomes the basis for Junger’s reporting on this forlorn corridor and the people he encounters along the way. It’s not without its dangers, but at least no one is shooting at his small company of hikers. The film debuts Nov. 10 on HBO. Junger will appear for a post-film Q&A tonight with local actor Tom Skerritt, founder of The Red Badge Project, which supports wounded vets. (Free, but RSVP at siff.net.) BRIAN MILLER SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave. N., Seattle, WA 98109 Free Wednesday, November 5, 2014, 7 – 8pm
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Hiroshima Mon Amour The great French director Alain Resnais died in March, after 60 years of filmmaking. His very last feature, Life of Reilly, just played the New York Film Festival and will eventually reach one of our repertory houses. In the meantime, his 1959 feature debut, written by Marguerite Duras, has been given a spiffy new 4K digital restoration, meaning that the voluptuous black-and-white cinematography of Sacha Vierny will be that much more exquisite. Hiroshima is both a dreamy meditation on that destroyed city and the ruins of love. In never-ending, overlapping flashbacks, we learn how the postwar affair between a Japanese architect and a visiting French actress (Eiji Okada and Emmanuelle Riva of the recent Amour) is informed by her prior World War II romance with a German soldier. Duras’ poetic dialogue and voiceovers can seem a bit pretentious to modern ears, but this beautiful, timeless film was a revelation to its original U.S. audiences. Resnais and fellow travelers in the nouvelle vague swept through American arthouses-along with the new postwar cinema from Japan and Italy-just as the old Hollywood genres and formulas were growing stale. There’s a frankness here about female desire, and an insoluble dramatic situation (who can ever reconcile present and past? who can ever explain an affair?), that beguiled viewers then as today. (Also plays SIFF Film Center, see siff.net for showtimes.) BRIAN MILLER SIFF Cinema Uptown, 511 Queen Anne Ave. N., Seattle, WA 98109 $7-$12 Thursday, November 6, 2014
