Capital Celluloid 2015 - Day 295: Thu Oct 22

Almayer's Folly (Akerman, 2011): ICA Cinema, 8.15pm


This is the final screening in the A Nos Amours Chantal Akerman retrospective at the ICA cinema. The late film-maker will be the subject of an exhibition at the Amibika P3 gallery while her final film, No Way Home, will be shown at the Regent St Cinema on 30th October. Details here.

Time Out review:
'Returning to feature filmmaking after a lengthy sojourn as a video artist, Belgium’s Chantal Akerman delivers a work as substantive, challenging and unique as her brilliant Proust adaptation from 2000, ‘The Captive’. Billed as a ‘liberal’ take on Joseph Conrad’s little-known first novel, this languid essay in despair sees Stanislas Merhar playing the stuttering, frenzied but ultimately tragic and possibly deranged figure of Almayer, a European ex-pat in Cambodia who idly tends to his failing trading post while ensuring his daughter, Nina (born to a local mother), is instilled with the same enlightened European values as himself. Scenes usually run in single, medium close-up takes (all immaculately framed and executed) and the elliptical narrative can usually be navigated by gauging the griminess of the cast. Tough as the film may be, it still speaks volumes about colonial exploitation and catastrophic clashes of culture, gender and age. The (eight-minute) climactic shot is also sensational.'
David Jenkins


Here is the trailer.

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