Capital Celluloid 2019 - Day 320: Sat Nov 16

Eraserhead (Lynch, 1976): Rio Cinema, 11.30pm

This film takes me back to an era before video, DVD and social media when print and word-of-mouth were the main forms of communication where a film was concerned. Lynch's debut was a must-see back in the late 1970s and it was fitting that the movie had its premiere at a midnight screening at the Cinema Village in New York as the midnight-movie circuit was responsible for popularising this indefinable work.

Eraserhead is a seminal work in the history of independent film and is as much a must-see now for anyone interested in what film can achieve.

Ranjit S. Ruprai of the Supakino film club will be introducing the movie, which is part of the Midnight Excess season at the Rio (full details here). There is a promise of some Lynch extras for those arriving in good time.

Chicago Reader review:
David Lynch describes his first feature (1977) as “a dream of dark and troubling things,” and that's about as close as anyone could get to the essence of this obdurate blend of nightmare imagery, Grand Guignol, and camp humor. Some of it is disturbing, some of it is embarrassingly flat, but all of it shows a degree of technical accomplishment far beyond anything else on the midnight-show circuit. With Jack Nance and Charlotte Stewart.'
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is the original trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2019 - Day 319: Fri Nov 15

A Single Girl (Jacquot, 1995): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 8.30pm

This 35mm presentation, which is also being screened on November 26th, is part of the ‘Maurice Pialat and the New French Realism’ season. Full details here.

Chicago Reader review:
Just as she's about to start a job with room service at a luxury hotel in Paris, a young woman (Virginie Ledoyen) tells her boyfriend that she's pregnant and wants to keep their child. They quarrel but arrange to meet an hour later; the film then follows her at work for that hour in real time. This segment of Benoit Jacquot's compelling 1995 feature, written with Jerome Beaujour, is a stunning demonstration of moral and existential suspense in relation to duration, much like Agnes Varda's 1961 Cleo From 5 to 7. Later the excitement dissipates somewhat, and when the film abandons real time to make room for an epilogue it becomes ordinary. But until then it's an essential piece of filmmaking—not simply as a stylistic exercise, but as a fascinating look at a hotel in operation.
Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2019 - Day 318: Thu Nov 14

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Ford, 1962): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 6.10pm

This John Ford masterpiece, which is also being screened on November 16th, is part of the Big Screen Classics season at BFI Southbank. Full details here.

Chicago Reader review:
A great film, rich in thought and feeling, composed in rhythms that vary from the elegiac to the spontaneous. This 1962 western flaunts its artificiality, both in its use of studio interiors and in the casting of an aging James Stewart as a young, idealistic lawyer who comes to the frontier. For some, the stylization is a crippling flaw, but I find it sublime: the film takes place, through elegant flashbacks, in a past that is remembered more than lived; essences are projected over particulars. With John Wayne, his tragic qualities movingly unveiled; Lee Marvin; Woody Strode; Vera Miles; and key members of the Ford stock company.
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is an extract.

Capital Celluloid 2019 - Day 317: Wed Nov 13

Legend of the Witches (Leigh, 1970): Prince Charles Cinema, 6.15pm

The screening of this cult documentary is presented by The Final Girls and will be followed by a Q&A after the film.

Prince Charles Cinema introduction:

The originally X-rated film documentary which looks in detail at previously hidden magic rites and rituals. Sharing the secrets of initiation into a coven, divination through animal sacrifice, ritual scrying, the casting of a 'death spell', and the chilling intimacy of a Black Mass. It also explores Britain's hidden pagan heritage and its continued influence on our lives today. An absolute capsule of the witch-craze that shook Britain in the seventies, which we will discuss in depth in a post-screening panel discussion.

Here (and above) is an extract.

Capital Celluloid 2019 - Day 316: Tue Nov 12

Leoh Island (Kim ki-young, 1977): ICA Cinema, 6.15pm

This presentation is part of the 2019 Korean Film Festival. You can find full details here.

ICA Cinema introduction:

Kim Ki-young’s renowned supernatural horror from 1977 has been hailed as the most bizarre Korean film of all time. Following travel agent Hyun Sun-woo, the film’s complex narrative unfolds on Parang Island, where the men are cursed to die after their first son is born. As the audience learns through a series of intricate flashbacks (and often flashbacks within flashbacks), Sun-woo has been linked to the murder of journalist Cheon Nam-suk, committed en route to the mysterious Ioeh Island, which is said to beckon dead sailors. Laced with psychosexual drama and culminating in a legendary, still-shocking climax, Ieoh Island is rightfully praised as one of Kim Ki-young’s masterpieces.

This screening is introduced by Chris Berry, Professor of Film Studies at King's College London.

Capital Celluloid 2019 - Day 315: Mon Nov 11

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Powell/Pressburger, 1943): Cine Lumiere, 7.30pm

The restored release of this, perhaps the greatest British film ever made, will be screened from a new print. The film will be preceded by a free lecture from Ian Christie (full details here).

Chicago Reader review:
It's almost impossible to define this 1943 masterpiece by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It was ostensibly based on a cartoon series that satirized the British military class, yet its attitude toward the main character is one of affection, respect, and sometimes awe; it was intended as a propaganda film, yet Churchill wanted to suppress it; it has the romantic sweep of a grand love story, yet none of the romantic relationships it presents is truly fulfilled, and the film's most lasting bond is one between the British colonel (Roger Livesey) and his Prussian counterpart (Anton Walbrook). Pressburger's screenplay covers 40 years in the colonel's life through a series of brilliantly constructed flashbacks, compressions, and ellipses; Powell's camera renders the winding plot through boldly deployed Technicolor hues and camera movements of exquisite design and expressivity. It stands as very possibly the finest film ever made in Britain. 
Dave Kehr 

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2019 - Day 314: Sun Nov 10

Three Friends (Yim Soon-rye, 1996): Rio Cinema, 3.30pm

This 35mm presentation is part of the 2019 Korean Film Festival. You can find full details here.

Korean Film Festival introduction:

The first feature from one of the most celebrated women directors from South Korea, Lim Soon-rye, is a melancholic and insightful coming-of-age tale which captures perfectly the lives of average twenty-year-olds living in Seoul in the late 1990s. Lim, whose most recent work Little Forest (2018) was presented at the LKFF last year, portrays the three boys with remarkable warmth and humour without falling into sentimentality. Although there are plenty of laughs to be had in Three Friends, the underlying uncertainty that these young men face in their transition to adulthood echoes the plight of many young people more than two decades on from the film’s release. This screening will be introduced by Hyun Jin Cho.