Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 55: Tue Feb 24

Ashes and Diamonds (Wajda, 1958): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 8.50pm

This presentation is part of the Andrzej Wajda season at BFI Southbank and also screens on February 15th. You can find the full details here.

Chicago Reader review:
One of the first works of the Polish New Wave, Andrzej Wajda's 1958 film is a compelling piece, although it's been somewhat overrated by critics who considered its story of a resistance fighter's ideological struggle as a cagey bit of anti-Soviet propaganda, and hence automatically admirable. Following the art cinema technique of the time, Wajda tends toward harsh and overstated imagery, but he achieves a fascinating psychological rapport with his lead actor, Zbigniew Cybulski—who was known as Poland's James Dean.
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 54: Mon Feb 23

Blue Steel (Bigelow, 1990): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 8.55pm

This 35mm presentation, also screening on February 7th, is part of the Kathryn Bigelow season. Full details here.

Time Out review:
On her first day of active duty, rookie NY cop Megan Turner (Jamie Lee Curtis) surprises a supermarket robber and blows him away. Suspended for shooting an unarmed suspect (his gun has mysteriously disappeared), Megan is later seducedby charming commodities-broker Eugene Hunt (Ron Silver). Then dead bodies start turning up all over town, killed with bullets fired from her gun and etched with her name. Detective Nick Mann (Clancy Brown) takes Megan under his wing, but even when Hunt virtually confesses to the crimes, the disturbing cat-and-mouse games have just begun. Curtis gives her most complex performance to date as the reckless Megan, whose obsessive behaviour and over-reactions have more to do with turning the tables on violent men than balancing the scales of justice. Short on plausibility but preserving the psycho-sexual ambiguities throughout, Kathryn Bigelow's seductively stylish, wildy fetishistic thriller is proof that a woman can enter a traditionally male world and, like Megan, beat men at their own game.
Nigel Floyd

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 53: Sun Feb 22

West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty (Hondo, 1979): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 3.10pm

This film, part of the 'World of Black Film Weekend' at BFI Southbank, is introduced by Ashley Clark. The writer, broadcaster, and film programmer presents an eclectic selection of films featured in his new book The World of Black Film: A Journey Through Cinematic Blackness in 100 Films (Laurence King). He will also be in attendance to sign copies of his book.

BFI introduction: On paper, Mauritanian director Med Hondo’s film seems difficult to believe: a single-set song-and-dance voyage through four centuries of colonialism, enslavement, liberation struggles and modern immigration – in just 110 minutes. On screen, it’s astonishing to behold the successful realisation of such an ambitious project. One of the greatest movies ever made, Hondo’s thrillingly passionate cri de coeur remains a troubling, resonant work.

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 52: Sat Feb 21

Mandingo (Fleischer, 1975): Nickel Cinema, 6pm

Chicago Reader review:
One of the most neglected and underrated Hollywood films of its era, Richard Fleischer's blistering 1975 melodrama about a slave-breeding plantation in the Deep South, set in the 1840s, was widely ridiculed as camp in this country when it came out. But apart from this film and Charles Burnett's recent Nightjohn, it's doubtful whether many more insightful and penetrating movies about American slavery exist. Scripted by Norman Wexler from a sensationalist novel by Kyle Onstott; with James Mason, Susan George, Perry King, Richard Ward, Brenda Sykes, and Ken Norton.
Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is the trailer. 

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 51: Fri Feb 20

The Grandmaster (Hong kar-Wai, 2013): Prince Charles Cinema, 8.30pm

This is the UK premiere of the extended cut of this film which then gets a number of screening at the Prince Charles Cinema. You can find the full details here. 

The Times review:
Wong Kar-wei’s The Grandmaster is one of the more exquisite martial arts movies around, as the Hong Kong auteur behind the lyrical In the Mood for Love takes on the legend of Ip Man, the 1930s wing chun master, played by Tony Leung. China’s history unrolls in the background as Ip Man’s fortunes fail in the Second World War. Perhaps the most beautiful — and violent — scene in the film is a long, balletic, multistorey fight between Ip Man and the female mistress of the craft Gong Er (the elegant Zhang Ziyi), filled with the ache of impossible attraction. French cinematographer Philippe Le Sourd provides a deliciously noir take on many scenes, particularly the opening moments where Ip Man, in a trilby, takes on a town full of assassins in black, gloopy rain.
Kate Muir

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 50: Thu Feb 19

Everything for Sale (Wajda, 1969): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 8.30pm

This presentation is part of the Andrzej Wajda season at BFI Southbank and also screens on February 6th. You can find the full details here.

Time Out review: Here they are again, our old friends illusion and reality, battling it out to unsettling effect in a film with more layers than an onion and umpteen references to Wajda's own career. A film director called Andrzej tries to continue shooting after his lead (clearly modelled on Zbigniew Cybulski, the actor who became the personification of postwar Polish cinema through his work with Wajda, and who had recently died in tragic circumstances) has disappeared. The result is stylistically and emotionally overwrought, but Wajda's technical assurance helps enormously in maintaining tension. Geoff Brown

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2027 — Day 49: Wed Feb 18

The Player (Altman, 1992): Prince Charles Cinema, 3.15pm

This film is part of 'Movies on Movies' day at the Prince Charles. Details here. 

Time Out review:
Shrewd Hollywood exec Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) is already paranoid that a rival may join the studio; but what of the anonymous postcards he's getting from a scriptwriter whose pitch he hasn't followed up? Rattled by the death threats, he decides (wrongly) that the likely sender is David Kahane (Vincent D'Onofrio). But when Kahane is found dead after a meeting with Mill and it becomes known that Mill is dating the writer's ungrieving lover (Greta Scacchi), his troubles multiply... Robert Altman turns Michael Tolkin's thriller into the most honest, hilarious Hollywood satire ever, even persuading some 60 celebs to play themselves. Besides the superb performances, photography, music and seamless blend of comedy and tension, what's finally so special about the film is its form. Altman refines his open, 'democratic' style of the '70s, to show an untidy world from numerous shifting perspectives, yet the film is far from chaotic. With its many movie references and film-within-a-film structure, it's forever owning up to the fact that it's only a movie. Only? Were more films as complex and revealing about people, society and the way we watch and think about films, today's Hollywood product would be far more interesting than it is.
Geoff Andrew

Here (and above) is the trailer.