Capital Celluloid 2023 — Day 7: Sat Jan 7

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Spielberg, 1977):
Islington Screen on Green, 10.30pm

Those wonderful programmers at Everyman Screen on the Green are putting on a 35mm Steven Spielberg season (full details here) with the arrival of The Fabelmans due later in January. This film is also being screened on January 11th. Details here.

Chicago Reader review:
For better or worse, one of Steven Spielberg's best films (1977), and perhaps still the best expression of his benign, dreamy-eyed vision. Humanity's first contact with alien beings proves to be a cause for celebration and a form of showbiz razzle-dazzle that resembles a slowly descending chandelier in a movie palace. The events leading up to this epiphany are a mainly well-orchestrated buildup through which several diverse individuals—Richard Dreyfuss, Francois Truffaut, Melinda Dillon—are drawn to the site where this spectacle takes place. Very close in overall spirit and nostalgic winsomeness to the fiction of Ray Bradbury, with beautiful cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond that deservedly won an Oscar. This is dopey Hollywood mysticism all right, but thanks to considerable craft and showmanship, it packs an undeniable punch.
Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is the original trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2023 — Day 6: Fri Jan 6

Symptoms (Larraz, 1974): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 6.10pm

This film, also being screened on January 15th, was chosen by director Mark Jenkin as part of his 'The Cinematic DNA of Enys Men' season at BFI Southbank. Full details here.

Time Out review:
Made by a Spanish director working for an English company, with Angela Pleasence running mad in an old dark house and giving murderous vent to her sexist grievances, this is the finest British horror movie from a foreigner since Polanski’s Repulsion. The comparison is inevitable, because thematically the films have a good deal in common, charting the gradual mental dissolution of their spectral heroines. Symptoms imitates, but also improves on its original in a multiplicity of ways. The muted love affair between Pleasence and Lorna Heilbron is etched with enormous suggestiveness, and Larraz’s eye for visual detail is mesmerising.

Here (and above) is an extract.

Capital Celluloid 2023 — Day 5: Thu Jan 5

 The Leopard (Visconti 1963): BFI Southbank, NFR3, 6.40pm

Capital Celluloid 2023 — Day 4: Wed Jan 4

Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Akerman, 1975):
BFI Southbank, NFT1, 6.30pm 

Rare chance to see the film voted No 1 in the recent Sight and Sound Greatest films of All-Time poll. The movie is also being screened on January 28th. Details here. Jeanne Dielman was chosen by director Mark Jenkin as part of his 'The Cinematic DNA of Enys Men' season. Full details here.

Jenkin stated: "It took a reference to Jeanne Dielman in an Enys Men review to make me consider the impact of this film upon my own work. The confrontational camera, the sparse dialogue, the performances devoid of grand gesture or faux emotion are all there, but the gradual subversion of a strict routine is the obvious starting point when it comes to its influence."

Chicago Reader review:
Chantal Akerman’s greatest film—made in 1975 and running 198 minutes—is one of those lucid puzzlers that may drive you up the wall but will keep you thinking for days or weeks. Delphine Seyrig, in one of her greatest performances, plays Jeanne Dielman, a Belgian woman obsessed with performing daily rounds of housework and other routines (including occasional prostitution) in the flat she occupies with her teenage son. The film follows three days in Dielman’s regulated life, and Akerman’s intense concentration on her daily activities—monumentalized by Babette Mangolte’s superb cinematography and mainly frontal camera setups—eventually sensitizes us to the small ways in which her system is breaking down. By placing so much emphasis on aspects of life and work that other films routinely omit, mystify, or skirt over, Akerman forges a major statement, not only in a feminist context but also in a way that tells us something about the lives we all live.
Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2023 — Day 3: Tue Jan 3

One Wonderful Sunday (Kurosawa, 1947): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 8.40pm

This 35mm presentation, also screening on January 15th, is part of the Akira Kurosawa season. You can find the full details here.

BFI introduction:
If this story of one young penniless couple spending a day together initially bears some resemblance to the work of the Italian Neorealists, as it develops there are echoes of Frank Capra – a director beloved by Kurosawa – with Isao Numasaki and Chieko Nakakita channelling James Stewart and Jean Arthur. The film’s climax is bold, breaking the fourth wall and employing Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony to heighten the film’s emotional heft.

Here (and above) is an extract.

Capital Celluloid 2023 — Day 2: Mon Jan 2

No Regrets for Our Youth (Kurosawa, 1946): BFI Southhbank, NFT1, 12.45pm

This 35mm presentation, also screening on January 10th, is part of the Akira Kurosawa season. You can find the full details here.

BFI introduction to 10 essential Kurosawa films:
Inspired by several real-life incidents, No Regrets for Our Youth is an intelligent and balanced drama about wavering ideologies and personal allegiances set between 1933-46, the years of imperial Japan’s increasing militarisation through to its wartime defeat. Yukie is the privileged daughter of a Kyoto University law professor who is controversially removed from his post for his leftist beliefs. The film portrays her relationships over the years with 2 of his former students, both rival for her affections, and her love affair and ensuing marriage to one of them, who is arrested for his anti-government activities and subsequently disappears from public view. Kurosawa’s oeuvre is not particularly regarded for its focus on sympathetic female characters, but the central turn by Setsuko Hara (better known for her work with Yasujiro Ozu) in his fifth feature (and first of the postwar period) showcases another side to the director, and also counts as his most overtly political work.
Jasper Sharp

Here (and above) is a video of extracts from the film.

Capital Celluloid 2023 — Day 1: Sun Jan 1

The Men Who Tread on the Tiger’s Tail (Kurosawa, 1945): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 4.20pm

This 35mm presentation, also screening on January 11th, is part of the Akira Kurosawa season. You can find the full details here.

Chicago Reader review:
Akira Kurosawa’s slimmest feature, running only an hour, is also one of the best of his early period. Made in 1945 but not released until 1953, it’s about a celebrated Japanese general fleeing another general who happens to be his brother. Based on Kanjincho, a Kabuki drama that’s said to be as well-known in the East as Robin Hood is in the West, this film is pitched as a parody of Kabuki, meant to undermine the feudal values of the original.
Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is an extract.