No 1: Sisters (De Palma, 1972): Prince Charles Cinema, 6.15pm
This screening, presented in partnership with the National Film & Television School, is part of Gynophobia: A Film Season Exploring the Monstrous-Feminine. Gynophobia is dedicated to exploring representations of monstrous women in horror, inspired by Barbara Creed’s concept of the ‘Monstrous-Feminine’. This season looks to embody the specific formal and stylistic properties of 70s horror, with introductions before each film prompting analysis and questioning of the societal attitudes inherent in their production and exhibition. Gynophobia is both an appreciation of the horror genre and a feminist retrospective, examining the roles and representations of women in this pivotal era of film history. The season aims to highlight how these films reflect and challenge the cultural shifts of their time, offering a thought-provoking experience that celebrates and critiques the portrayal of the monstrous-feminine in horror cinema.
Try not to miss this ultra-rare screening of a key early Brian de Palma film which the late, great critic Robin Wood described as “one of the key American films of the 1970s”.
After ten years and a number of ambitious works (commercially successful and critically controversial) such as Carrie, Dressed to Kill and Blow Out, Sisters arguably remains Brian de Palma's most completely satisfying film. Like Dressed to Kill, it is an elaborate variation on Psycho; unlike it, its attachment to the feminine viewpoint is much less compromised. Like all de Palma's films, it invites a psychoanalytic reading (‘the wound' as symbolic castration). Few Hollywood films (and perhaps no other horror film) have explored so rigorously the oppression of women under patriarchy and its appalling consequences for both sexes. Robin Wood
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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No 2: Kuichisan (Endo, 2011): ICA Cinema, 6.30pm
This 35mm presentation (also screening on October 26th and 27th) is part of the Maiko Endo season at the ICA Cinema. Full details here.
ICA introduction:
A young boy (Raizo Ishihara) in Okinawa searches for an outlet for his spirituality, encountering the magical force of Nature and the history behind the creation of a place that is not quite American yet not Japanese. The boy, who seems to live on the outskirts of an already outsider society, likes to get a cola float and watch the American soldiers get their tacos. People around the town prepare for summertime festivals, welcoming ancestors and ghosts. A gang of abandoned children, barefoot and homeless, wreaks havoc amid the ruins of the once prosperous city. As reality seems to melt and drift, the boy sips his cola float and waits for the end of the world.
The screening on 22 October will be followed by an in-person Q&A with filmmaker Maiko Endo, hosted by curator, Hyun Jin Cho.
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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