Capital Celluloid 2013 - Day 185: Thu Jul 4

TAKE YOUR PICK

1 Leones (Lopez, 2012): Rich Mix Cinema, 9pm

This movie screens as part of the East End Film Festival, which runs from June 25 to July 10. Here are the details of the full programme.

Here is the East End Film Festival introduction: Jazmín López’s captivating debut feature is an elliptical meditation on social frameworks, human nature and the desperation to escape a mapped-out future. Five young friends descend into the forest. They immerse themselves in word games, play and seduction. Mysterious and elemental, López’s debut owes much to Borges and earns her comparisons with Terrence Malick, Gaspar Noe and, in the use of that auteur’s Steadicam operator, Gus Van Sant.

Here is the trailer.

**********************

2 Fitzcarraldo (Herzog, 1982): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 5.50pm

This film, part of the Werner Herzog season at the BFI Southbank, also screens at the cinema on July 4th and 8th. You can find the details here.

Little White Lies review:
If fate conspires that you're only able to watch one Werner Herzog film in your lifetime, probably best to make it 1982's operatic downstream fantasia, Fitzcarraldo, a film whose own logistically tortuous production perfectly mirrored the designs of its fanatical lead character. Donning a white linen suit for the long haul, Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald, AKA Fitzcarraldo (Klaus Kinski) packs up his gramophone and decides to take a steam ship down some of the most treacherous stretches of the Amazon with a view to bringing opera to the as-yet-uncivilised tribes of the deepest South American jungles. Although operating as a withering metaphor for extreme cultural subjugation, the film also works as an affirmative, yes-we-can odyssey which stands as a physical testament to the idea that even the most absurd folly can be achieved if you've got the mind and moxie to pull it off.
David Jenkins

Jenkins has picked his best ten Herzog movies for Little White Lies. You can read the article here.

Here is the trailer.

No comments: