Time Out review: First and foremost, an extremely uninhibited satire on American sexual
dreams and nightmares. Kathleen Turner, a career woman who doubles by night as
the ultra-hooker China Blue, acts out every male fantasy in the book
until she picks up a cop, sees him turn into a piece of meat beneath
her, and gets carried away with her stiletto heels and his nightstick.
She meets her Baudelairean match in Anthony Perkins, a deranged fundamentalist
consumed by lust and slowly mustering the energy to act out his own dark
fantasies. In between, the film lays into an 'average' suburban couple,
living a sexual fantasy of their own - of marital fulfilment. It relies
on sheer pace and stylistic bravura, and talks dirty more wittily than
anything since Bogart and Bacall. There are lapses, but this is in the
main a comedy so black that it recaptures some of the cinema's long-lost
power to shock. Tony Rayns
This is part of the ShÅhei Imamura season at the ICA. Full details here.
ICA Cinema introduction: Set on the fictional island of Kurage which, as an islander sings
throughout the film, is said to have been forged by discarded objects
thrown by incestuous brother and sister gods, Imamura’s final fiction
film for almost a decade builds upon many of the obsessions that
characterised his work throughout the 60s, namely the clash between the
primitive and the civilized.
At the heart of the film sits both the Futori family, outcast from the
rest of the islands inhabitants due a variety of indiscretions, ranging
from incest to infidelity, improper fishing practices to mental
instability, and Kariya, a Tokyo engineer sent to the island to oversee
the opening of a Sugar manufacturing facility.
From its lush tropical forests to its shining turquoise seas, all
captured in mesmerising technicolor, Kurage appears to be an island
paradise. However under its paradisiacal surface Kariya quickly
discovers that the island is not only teeming with the animals and
insects Imamura regularly trains his camera upon - but also with deep
rooted superstitions, privation, and duplicities. Despite his attempts
to complete his work, Kariya finds himself engulfed by the primal urges
of the Futori family, and as the months pass under the beating sun, he
slowly finds himself drawn into their way of life. Profound Desires of the Gods expands the obsessions that had
animated the first decade of Imamura’s work to his largest canvas yet
and in the island of Kurage (Okinawa in reality) he finds the means to
examine the entire strata of a society from its messy familial dramas to
its political machinations. However, the film is by no means an
exercise in intellectual study, whilst Imamura’s famous anthropological
outlook is ever-present, its blood, flesh, and feeling that sits at its
heart. A history of Japan made myth, Imamura traces the evolution of a
nation from the agrarian to the industrial, the primitive to the modern,
but all the while taking great pains to remind us that no matter how
things change our foundations are as desirous and ritualistic as ever.
Barbican Cinema introduction: This acclaimed experimental film follows William Greaves directing a screen test of a couple arguing in Central Park; questioning both the authenticity of what we see, and the act of filmmaking.Fascinated by sociology and philosophy,Greavescreated the hyper-metaSymbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take Oneto explore human behaviour through the lens of social roles and pressures. More of a psychological experiment than drama or doc, Greaves uses the pretence of making a film, to examine the dynamics of a crew. Playing out like a documentary about a documentary about making a film; all these ideas come together to reflect 1960s US counterculture, and playfully subvert audience expectations at every turn, set toIn A Silent WaybyMiles Davis. As we celebrate the centenary of both Davis and Greaves, the film brings together the musical language of the legendary musician with the complex rhythms and shifting perspectives of Greaves’ masterpiece.
Prince Charles Cinema introduction: It’s something we’ve been trying to make happen for years: Robert Altman's 1993 sprawling masterpieceSHORTCUTSis finally coming to the Prince Charles Cinema from an original 35mm print for three shows in November. Anytime you can experience Altman on the big screen is a great thing, but this one is particularly special! Adapted from nine short stories by renowned writer Raymond Carver,SHORTCUTSfollows 22 Los Angeles residents whose lives intersect over the course of a few days as they all struggle to find solace and meaning in life alongside heavy boozing, infidelity, tragedy and clowns. The extraordinary ensemble cast includes Tim Robbins, Julianne Moore, Robert Downey Jr., Jack Lemmon, Lily Tomlin, Andie MacDowell, Tom Waits, Fred Willard, Frances McDormand, Lili Taylor, Chris Penn and Jennifer Jason Leigh—all giving fearless performances in what is one of Altman’s most compassionate creations. Riding a high off a career resurgence in the early 1990s followingThe Player,Altman’s film was an ambitious feat, featuring a very large cast and intertwining stories similar to his films from the 1970s. While it wasn’t a hit at the box office, the industry and critics alike loved the film, with it picking up the Golden Lion at Venice, an Academy Award nomination for Best Director, and landing on many best films of 1993 lists. The film, along with countless other works by Robert Altman, would also play a part in influencing a young Paul Thomas Anderson. You can see elements of the film in many of PTA’s works, most notably inBoogie Nightsand his own Los Angeles-set sprawling epic,Magnolia. Altman developed a distinctive storytelling style that captured the intricacies of relationships and the contradictions of American life, an approach Anderson has carried forward since his death in 2006.
Time Out review: From the exhilarating opening, you know Altman's epic 'adaptation' of
eight stories and a poem by Raymond Carver is going to be special. Like Nashville,
it's a tragicomic kaleidoscope of numerous barely interlinked stories
(plus a similarly portentous ending). Here, the focus is on couples
whose relationships are, at one point or another, subjected to small,
seismic shudders of doubt, disappointment or, in a few cases, disaster. A
surgeon suspects his wife's fidelity; a pool-cleaner worries over his
partner's phone-sex job; a waitress is racked by guilt after running
down a child; a baker makes sinister phone calls to the injured boy's
parents; the discovery of a corpse threatens a fishing-trip...and a
marriage. The marvellous performances bear witness to Altman's
iconoclastic good sense, with Lili Tomlin, Tom Waits, Matthew Modine, Tim Robbins, Andi MacDowell
and the rest lending the film's mostly white, middle-class milieu an
authenticity seldom found in American cinema. But the real star is
Altman, whose fluid, clean camera style, free-and-easy editing, and
effortless organisation of a complex narrative are quite simply the mark
of a master. Geoff Andrew
This screening is part of the 'Collective Visions of Pleasure' season at the ICA Cinema. The short season brings together four transgressive works from Japan,
USA, Germany and Mexico to consider how group desire can become a
political, world-making force, is curated by Nico Hughes and presented in association with the National Film and Television School.
MUBI review: Using video
footage shot in 2004, Leilah Weinraub’s seductively illicit and frequently
joyous film lets us voyeuristically enter an underground black lesbian
strip club in the Mid-City neighborhood of Los Angeles and revel in the
frenzied atmosphere of exuberant nudity, physical prowess, and, above
all, black queer desire. Hassled occasionally by the L.A.P.D., who we
see often shut the club down for solicitation—which seems unlikely but
is neither confirmed nor defined by the film—the status of the club and
its dancers is shown to be always in danger of being illegal through the
sheer and wonderful audacity of running such a club, as one eager
attendee remarks, “in the hood.”Why this film was made now and
not around the time Weintraub shot it is not clear, nor, exactly, is its
story, which seems in-part a vivid snapshot of Weintraub’s archive of
footage while working at the club, and a slimmer effort at telling the
evolution and sudden shutdown of the Shakedown by catching up with some
of the dancers, the club’s founder, and a pioneering dancer and
organizer a decade later (though still not in the present). All this
material provides for tantalizing glimpses into the culture (including a
fabulous montage of cheap but wondrous promotional art for numerous
strip parties), the pressures, and reflections of participating in such a
radical enterprise. But the core of the film is its original footage,
which has the lustrously fogged texture of early 2000s consumer digital
photography, and which feels like a combination (at least for this
straight white male) of barely authorized voyeurism and an enthralled
and participatory queer gaze at the extraordinary bodies and efforts of
dancers like Egypt and the show's star, Jazmine. Their work at the club
seems to exist in a unique place between labor and pleasure, as the
tremendous erotic-gymnastic efforts required to dance are readily seen,
while in interviews they speak often of acting out and evolving their
public roles, as well as the passion of their fans.Shakedown’s
impeccable packaging, with stylish credits delineating club and dancer
encounters in chapter titles and a richly narcotic soundtrack by Tom
DeWitt (former drummer of tribal-psych band Gang Gang Dance) is a
reminder that Weintraub is now known for running the hip haute
streetwear brand Hood by Air. This slick wrapping combines with the
strange sense of time evoked in the picture, with its 2004 club footage
and 2014 interviews, to hit a tone of nostalgia for something seemingly
so close yet so far away, perhaps a kind of utopic space for performance
and desire. Suffice to say, this is not your average documentary. We
should be happy indeed for such a welcome revelation of a vivacious
sexualized and racialized side of work and play that is too often, even
now, relegated to a social underground. Daniel Kasman
Castle Cineme introduction: Join The Swinging Christies, aka "Christie Time" - Dr Mark Aldridge and Gray Robert Brown - for a special screening of this psychedelic, cult Agatha Christie classic. Ticket includes a 20-minute long live episode discussion after the film all about Endless Night!
When ambitious, salt-of-the-earth Mike (Hywel Bennett) meets refined heiress Ellie (Hayley Mills), sparks fly. They set about creating their dream marital home - but before long they discover it's cursed... Based on the fan-favourite Agatha Christie novel Endless Night (1968).
Mark is Associate Professor of Screen Histories at Solent University, and an Agatha Christie historian and speaker. His books include Agatha Christie's Marple: Expert on Wickedness, Agatha Christie's Poirot: The Greatest Detective in the World, and Agatha Christie on Screen. Gray is a lifelong Christie fan, podcaster, speaker and writer. He has been published by Puffin Audio and his plays have been read at the Southwark Playhouse, the Old Red Lion and The Place Bedford. Together as "Christie Time", their podcasts are The Swinging Christies and Westmapod. Their first book together, The Swinging Christies: How Agatha Christie Conquered the 1960s will be published by HarperCollins in 2027
