20th Chicago European Union Film Festival (March 3-31, 2017), Report No. 3 (STEFAN ZWEIG: FAREWELL TO EUROPE, THE ORNITHOLOGIST, and THE OLIVE TREE)

Some of the best shows in town can be found at the Gene Siskel Film Center, as we enter the third week of the Chicago European Union Film Festival. Here are three good bets. For the full slate, go to www.siskelfilmcenter.org.

 

Maria Schrader's STEFAN ZWEIG: FAREWELL TO EUROPE (Austria/Germany, 2016)

Austrian writer Stefan Zweig (Josef Hader) was hugely popular in his day, and his work was grist for multiple movie treasures: Max Ophüls's Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948); Robert Siodmak's The Burning Secret (1933); Roberto Rosselini's Fear (1954); all the way up to Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), which was inspired by his memoir, “The World of Yesterday." It's interesting to think about what Maria Schrader's stimulating, talky, sometimes beautiful biopic leaves out and what it leaves in. There's nothing of Zweig's time in fin-de-siècle Vienna, or the traumas he witnessed in World War I. As the title implies, it is about the Jewish Zweig's peripatetic years in exile in the 30s and 40s. He settled for a time in New York, where this remarried man was welcomed, movingly, into the home of his first wife, played by the great Barbara Sukowa of Berlin Alexanderplatz. His last stop was his beloved Petrópolis in Brazil. Schrader begins and closes her film with a scene-encompassing extended shot. The first lingers on the pageantry of servants putting the finishing touches on a beautiful dining room table. As the elegant, white-columned room fills with guests, Zweig expresses to the gala his hopes for a world based on peaceful coexistence. The last shows the discovery of the bodies of Zweig and his second wife (Aenne Schwarz) in their Petrópolis bedroom, where, running out of hope, they famously committed suicide in 1942. An early scene, in which a man pressures Zweig to speak out for the Jews dying back in Europe, rings false, in that biopic-y way that virtually of of Jackie rang false. These are not real people talking to each other, but vessels for a screenwriter talking to the audience. In subsequent scenes, we feel we are overhearing real conversations--the movie lets us read between the lines, showing rather than telling of the deep sadness underneath all that talk of ideas and moment. (106 min, DCP digital widescreen)

Friday, March 17th at 8pm and Saturday, March 18th at 4pm

  

João Pedro Rodrigues's THE ORNITHOLOGIST (Portugal/France, 2016)

Now this you've got to see. What a strange, scandalous, surreal experience. A birdwatcher kayaks in a Portuguese valley with a superabundance of beautiful rare birds. After he gets swept under the rapids and almost dies, he is rescued by two female Chinese travelers who've lost their way while doing a pilgrimage to Padua. They prove to be as insane as they are giggly. That's just the beginning. On his quest, he has dreamlike experiences which parallel the life of St. Anthony, but as cagily as the events of "Ulysses" transpose that hero's journey. From moment to moment, this feels like a horror film or a western; João Pedro Rodrigues spoke in Film Comment about the influence of Anthony Mann and Budd Boetticher on his work. It's a scary, comic picaresque. Like Pasolini, Rodrigues's approach to Biblical themes, symbols, and mythology is devout and sacrilegious at the same time. Here, the saints are gay, and they have sexual equipment. If you like the dangerous visions of Alain Guiraudie or Apichatpong Weerasethakul, I think you'll dig this. On a personal note, I've been to Padua and I've seen St. Anthony's tomb. He's the saint of lost things; whatever my own faith or absence thereof, it was deeply moving to observe pilgrims lay their hands and rest their heads on his tomb.    

(118 min, DCP digital widescreen)

Saturday, March 18th at 4pm and Thursday, March 23rd at 6pm

 

For CINE-FILE Chicago, I wrote about Icíar Bollaín's recommended and touching THE OLIVE TREE. It's playing Sunday, March 19th at 5:15pm and Monday, March 20th at 8pm. It's sentimental, yes, but sentimental is not always a pejorative term for me, and this one got me good. You may read my write-up by going here and scrolling down to the "European Union Film Festival" section.  

 

20th Chicago European Union Film Festival (March 3-31, 2017), Report No. 2 (SLACK BAY and THE UNKNOWN GIRL)

What's on this week at the 20th Chicago European Union Film Festival? For the full slate, head to the Gene Siskel Film Center's website at www.siskelfilmcenter.org. Here are two not to miss.  

Bruno Dumont's SLACK BAY (France, 2016) (Saturday, March 11th at 4pm and Thursday, March 16th at 6pm)

If "dark" and "sick" aren't pejorative adjectives for you, then you'll likely have a blast with this mad, bracing satire. Bruno Dumont's welcome turn to comedy continues in the deadpan vein of LI'L QUINQUIN, but ratcheting up the slapstick. Thus, the usual Dumont horrors are here, but in the service of laughs. An uncouth family living hand-to-mouth on the northern coast of France circa 1910 picks up extra change by carrying rich vacationers across the bay. Among the brood is jug-eared young "Ma Loute" (Brandon Lavieville) a shy, taciturn, seething lad. They collide with an astounding family of oblivious, inbred upperclass twits on their annual holiday, who consider them quite picturesque, with a kind of condescending, touristic admiration. Alas, the bay is plagued by the mysterious disappearances of holidayers. (Word of warning: "Who wants more foot?" is a line of dialogue here.) Not to worry: two extremely silly inspectors are on the case--the intrepid Machin and Malfoy (portrayed, respectively, by Didier Després, as bloated as Monty Python's Mr. Creosote, and Cyril Rigaux). Meanwhile, Ma Loute enters into an inter-class romance with androgynous Billie (Raph), who self-identifies as a cross-dressing girl, though her loopy mother seems uncertain. She's played by Juliette Binoche, having a tremendous amount of fun. (I knew she could do anything, but I didn't know she could work this broad). I won't soon forget Fabrice Luchini as Binoche's dimwitted, hunchbacked brother, or Valeria Bruni Tedeschi as his equally clueless wife. Cineastes will enjoy spotting homages to Fellini aplenty amid Dumont's typically extraordinary faces and landscapes. (122 min, DCP Digital widescreen) 

For this week's CINE-FILE Chicago, I wrote about the Dardenne Brothers new film THE UNKNOWN GIRL, playing Sunday, March 12th at 3pm and Wednesday, March 15th at 6pm. An honest movie, it is also (at least by my lights) more of a roller coaster than most big budget entertainments. My writeup is here under the "European Union Film Festival" section.  

20th Chicago European Union Film Festival (March 3-31, 2017), Report No. 1 (THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIV, PERSONAL SHOPPER, and JUST DROP DEAD!)

The month of March is always sunny for Chicago's cinephiles, in that it brings the Gene Siskel Film Center's signature Chicago European Union Film Festival. For this, its 20th season, the fest offers 62 features hand-curated by ace programmers Barbara Scharres and Martin Rubin. Exploring Europe is one of my very favorite things to do. If the same is true for you, grab your passport and hie for the Siskel. (For more info, go to www.siskelfilmcenter.org). I'll be bringing you communiqués throughout the month; here's the first. 

 

Over at CINE-FILE Chicago, I wrote about Albert Serra's bold and beautiful THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIV (France, 2016), playing Sunday, March 5th at 3pm. To check out my capsule review, go here and scroll down, down, down to the "European Union Film Festival" section.

 

Olivier Assayas' PERSONAL SHOPPER (France/Germany, 2016)

The thematic scope of this haunting, fascinating film encompasses grief, fear, forbidden desire, shame, technology, fame, suspense films, and the brother-sister bond. Kristen Stewart gives a furtive, conflicted performance as the titular Paris-based personal shopper. She and her recently-deceased twin brother were mediums: whoever died first was to send the other a sign. In her brother's tenebrous house, she finds a portal into the spirt world. An anonymous texting partner suddenly appears, becoming both her incubus and confidante. When asked what scares her, she texts: being alone...and horror movies. Soon, she's living one. Assayas's parts may not add up to a sum, here. I've seen this twice, and I'm still left with much to mull over. It's a moving, riddling thriller and an Antonioni-esque metaphysical mystery: expertly choreographed, subtly erotic, and scary. Stewart makes her acting choices like a good short-story writer chooses words.

(105 min, DCP Digital) 

Saturday, March 4th at 4pm and Wednesday, March 8th at 6pm 

 

Zoltán Kamondi's JUST DROP DEAD! (Hungary, 2016)

Here's a playful, razzle-dazzle trifle, a crime comedy in a flavor I associate fondly with CEUFF: the Hungarian romp. A newly-widowed middle-aged woman confronts her husband's mistress, and meets the estranged, punk-rock teenager he fathered. Turns out their guy, a conductor on the high-speed trains out of Budapest, was also a smuggler: soon, the three women are in big trouble with colorful gangsters. Bedecked with cinematic bells and whistles, the film is colorful itself, and fast. Much of it even takes place in the characters' imaginations and their tricky memories of the communist era. It was the last work of Zoltán Kamondi, who died last March at the age of 55. He had fun with the camera. If you've had your fill of realism, this is a nice change of pace. See it if you have extra time after taking in the festival's essential sights.

(105 min, DCP Digital widescreen)

Saturday, March 4th at 4pm and Tuesday, March 7th at 8:15pm

JEAN DE FLORETTE and MANON OF THE SPRING (on CINE-FILE Chicago)

This week at CINE-FILE Chicago, I wrote about Claude Berri's pair of French classics, JEAN DE FLORETTE and MANON OF THE SPRINGS. To check it out, go here and scroll down to the "Crucial Viewing" section.

STARLESS DREAMS (on CINE-FILE Chicago)

This week on CINE-FILE Chicago I wrote about a new Iranian documentary by Mehrdad Oskouei, STARLESS DREAMS, a fascinating look inside a female juvenile-detention ward near Tehran. You may read my review here, under the "Oppositional Viewing" section.