Chicago Reader review: George Romero's gory, style-setting 1968 horror film, made for pennies
in Pittsburgh. Its premise—the unburied dead arise and eat the living—is
a powerful combination of the fantastic and the dumbly literal. Over
its short, furious course, the picture violates so many strong
taboos—cannibalism, incest, necrophilia—that it leaves audiences giddy
and hysterical. Romero's sequel, Dawn of the Dead, displays a much-matured technique and greater thematic complexity, but Night retains its raw power.
Dave Kehr
This film is part of the 'Rewriting the Rules: Pioneering Indian Cinema after 1970' season at Barbican Cinema. Full details here.
Barbican introduction: A visually stunning and poetic exploration of the inner lives of a
travelling circus trope in which old age, loneliness and regret becomes
magnified through Govindan Aravindan’s salient observation. In the dialogue-free opening to The Circus Tent, we
follow a truck as it meanders its way through the costal landscape of
Kerala, coming to a stop at a local town where the children come running
excitedly to greet the travelling circus. The arrival of the
circus feels ritualistic, celebratory, but more importantly an outlet
for the local people, an enthralling spectacle they can escape into for a
short time. The Circus Tent is hailed by many as Keralan filmmakerGovindan Aravindan’s masterpiece. The restoration of The Circus Tent in 2021 by the Film Heritage Foundation, India,
brings to life the extraordinary pictorial sensibilities of a film that
has thankfully been reclaimed and is now being rediscovered by a new
generation of filmgoers.
Time Out review:
When Gilda was released in 1946,
striking redhead Rita Hayworth had already starred in a series of
musicals that made her America’s pin-up, yet here she delivers the same
va-voom (in sundry shoulderpad-tastic Jean Louis outfits) while always
hinting at the anxieties beneath the ‘love goddess’ surface. It was
the defining role of her career, yet it says a lot about the rest of
the movie that Hayworth’s fire never overwhelms it.
There’s an element of ‘Casablanca’ exoticism in the Buenos Aires setting, where moody leading man Glenn Ford plays a drifter taken under the wing of casino owner George Macready
– a silky-voiced character actor who always brought an element of
sexual ambiguity to the screen. When the latter marries Hayworth on the
spur of the moment, Ford bristles because he has previous with this
femme fatale and is still feeling it. ‘Hate,’ as the pearly dialogue has
it, ‘can be a very exciting emotion.’ From then on, homoerotic
undertones, atmospheric black-and-white camerawork, Ford’s fight not to
let bitterness get the better of decency and Hayworth’s ever-present
heat combine in one of the great films noirs, softened just a little by
the moralising censorship strictures of the time. See it. Trevor Johnston
This is Hayworth's extraordinary first appearance in the movie.
This screening will be followed by Dr. Elena Gorfinkel and Stephen Thrower in conversation with BFI National Archive curator William Fowler.
BFI introduction: It was a surprising moment when, in the 1980s, long-term sexploitation legend Doris Wishman made a slasher. It’s just a shame things didn’t go better – the processing lab destroyed the film reels. As a solution, Wishman incorporated found footage to paper over the cracks. Released from hospital, back into the family home, psychotic Vicki struggles to resists the powers of a sinister ancestral curse. The public greeted the film with disinterest. But the public can be wrong! Jagged, cut-up, even post-modern in shape, the incredibly weird, psychotronic A Night to Dismember distils the core tropes of the slasher genre while appearing hallucinogenically avant-garde. Dr. Gorfinkel, Thrower and Fowler discuss Wishman, her film and the links between horror and experimental film as part of the event.
Chicago Reader review: Exploitation filmmaker Doris Wishman made her first foray into slasher flicks with this bloody, incoherent, but sometimes quite funny 1983 feature starring soft-core porn star Samantha Fox. Reportedly assembled from outtakes after a disgruntled employee destroyed the negative, it flirts with self-parody, incorporating every horror cliche from the not-very-scary graveyard scenes of Ed Wood to the unconvincing bloodbaths of Herschell Gordon Lewis. The story, recounted in flashback by a deep-voiced private detective, involves a great many knives, axes, and ice picks but never manages to be very frightening; the awful dubbing and numerous mismatched shots are hilarious, but whether that’s intentional is a matter of debate. Jack Heilberg
Chicago Reader review: This genre-busting 2003 debut feature by writer-director Jang Jun-hwan
flopped in his native South Korea, where it was misleadingly pitched as a
date movie. Convinced the earth is under siege by extraterrestrials, a
troubled young man and his acrobat girlfriend abduct a corporate
executive they believe to be an undercover alien and set about torturing
him at a mountain hideaway; meanwhile an over-the-hill cop and an eager
rookie are closing in. Punk graphics and a snaking camera add zest to
the story, which is alternately heartbreaking, suspenseful, and darkly
funny. Andrea Gronvall
The film will be introduced by season programmer Goran Topalovic.
BFI introduction:
Before he worked for the Shaw Brothers in Hong Kong, kick-starting the martial arts movie craze in the West with 1972’s The King Boxer, Chung Chang-wha laid the groundwork for Korean action cinema. A Swordsman in the Twilight tells the story of a mysterious swordsman in a lawless village during the Joseon Dynasty. The film’s action is marked by graceful and restrained action.
Tonight's screening will be introduced by season programmer Young Jin Eric Choi.
BFI introduction: The second Korean feature by a female director, the drama portrays the
struggles of a newly appointed judge, who faces mounting pressure from
her jealous husband and his family to conform to the traditional
expectations of a housewife. Considered lost for more than 50 years,
this story of a fearless woman who fights against societal norms
reflects the career of the director, who broke through many boundaries
at the time. It has lost none of its resonance or relevance.
