Street of Shame (Mizoguchi, 1956): ICA Cinema, 6.30pm
This screening is part of the Jacques Rivette season at the ICA. Full details here.
ICA introduction:
Exalted
by many among the Nouvelle Vague, in particular Rivette, Japanese
filmmaker Kenji Mizoguchi's final film, completed just months before
his death, interweaves portraits of five women working in
“Dreamland,” a brothel in Tokyo’s notorious and then historic
Yoshiwara red-light district. Jacques Rivette characterised
Mizoguchi's art as one of modulation, writing in reference to his use
of the camera. that it was "placed always at the exact point so
that the slightest shift inflects all the lines of space, and upturns
the secret face of the world and of its gods."
Time Out review:
Kenji Mizoguchi's final film is a grim but profoundly moving study of a group
of prostitutes in Tokyo's red light district. While they go about their
daily business, there are constant references to the anti-prostitution
legislation which Parliament is debating. As is made clear, merely
passing a law won't save the women. For whatever reasons they became
prostitutes (money-related in every case), they can never escape the
judgment passed on them by the repressive, patriarchal society which
shunned them in the first place. The settings are a far removed from the
medieval landscapes of Ugetsu or The Life of Oharu, but Mizoguchi's focus on the plight of his women characters is as intent and heart-rending as ever.
Geoffrey MacNab
Here (and above) is an extract.
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THE SCREENING BELOW IS NOW ONLY TAKING PLACE ON JUNE 6th
Buffalo '66 (Gallo, 1998): Prince Charles Cinema, 8.30pm
This 35mm presentation also screens at the Prince Charles Cinema on June 6th.
Time Out review:
Vincent Gallo's
directorial debut is one of a kind, an eccentric, provocative comedy
which laces a poignant love story with both a sombre, washed-out
naturalism and surreal musical vignettes. Throwing out the standard
repetitions of shot/reverse shot, Gallo brings an individual film
grammar to the screen, a beguiling mix of formal tropes and
apparently impetuous conceits. If not autobiographical, then at least
deeply personal, the film follows one Billy Brown (Gallo) out of
prison and back to his hometown, Buffalo, NY. There he kidnaps a
girl, Layla (Christine Ricci) a busty, blonde in two-inch skirt and
dazzling fairy tale slippers, and entreats her to play his loving
wife for his parents' benefit. The homecoming goes a long way to
explain Billy's aggressive insecurity: his indifferent mom (Anjelica
Huston) is a rabid football obsessive, while his dad (Ben Gazzara) is
taciturn and hostile, though taken with Layla. The cruel caricature
of this sourly funny episode is tempered by Layla's sweetness.
Billy's turmoil is redeemed in her simplicity. You may scoff at such
blatant male wish-fulfilment, but when Billy finally opens himself to
the threat of intimacy, it's a heart-rending moment. A brave, honest,
stimulating film, this reaches parts other movies don't even know
exist.
Tom Charity
Here (and above) is the trailer
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