This film also screens at Cine Lumiere on October 15th and November 8th. Details here.
Time Out review: Cast as the patriarch of a spaghetti-eating Sicilian family who are
crooks to a man, the once formidable Jean Gabin - stout, white-haired and now
a bit past it - mostly sits back and glowers while the younger members
of the cast squabble, lust and plot a caper involving the hijack of a
plane-load of jewels. He finally rouses himself from his lethargy to
defend his honour by executing Alain Delon, a Corsican who had the temerity to
play around with his daughter-in-law. Verneuil, not for the first time,
tries to direct like Jean-Pierre Melville and fails to make it, though
the action scenes are passable, and Henri Decaë's moody photography is rather more than that. Tom Charity
Rio Cinema introduction: To close Black History month celebrations across Hackney, Rio Cinema presents an in-house favourite with Franco Rosso’s Babylon
(1980). Banned on release in the US in fear of inciting riots and
originally rated X in the UK, Babylon follows Jamaican-British youngster
Blue’s day to day in Brixton. The young reggae DJ (played by Brinsley
Forde, M.B.E., Aswad) of the Ital 1 Lion sound system in Thatcher-era
South London pursues his musical ambitions while battling against the
racism and xenophobia of employers, neighbours, police, and the National
Front.
The film will be followed by a live on-stage Q&A
panel hosted by musician Nubiya Brandon. The conversation will take the
opportunity to hear the real-life experiences of those who grew up in
the Caribbean-British community of 1980s London.
Alongside
these events in Screen 1, the Rio lobby will be exhibiting photographs
by Chanté Saunders and Maisie Brown (previously exhibited at Dijons and
featured in Nowness) with their photography series titled “RUDEBOYS”.
The series is a contemporary re-imagining of Rude boy culture inspired
by the wealth of British-Caribbean style and history across the UK. And
In partnership with Backronym Films there will be a limited number of
Black history month zines on sale (included in one of the ticket
brackets) available on the day.
Time Out review: Although Babylon shows what it's like to be young, black and
working class in Britain, the final product turns dramatised documentary
into a breathless helter-skelter. Rather than force the social and
political issues, Rosso lets them emerge and gather momentum through the
everyday experience of his central character Blue (sensitively played
by Brinsley Forde). A series of increasingly provocative incidents finally
polarise Blue and lead to uncompromising confrontation. Although the
script runs out of steam by the end, the sharp use of location, the
meticulous detailing of black culture, the uniformly excellent
performances and stimulating soundtrack command attention.
Ian Birch
This screening will be preceded by the famous Kenneth Anger short Scorpio Rising. Time Out review: The
first British Hell's Angels pic, and just about the blackest comedy to
come out of this country in years. It features a bike gang called The
Living Dead, whose leader (Nicky Henson) discovers the art of becoming just
that. So he kills himself and is buried along with his bike, until he
guns the engine and shoots back up through the turf; two victims later,
he drives to a pub and calls his mother (Beryl Reid), a devil worshipper
ensconced in her stately old dark house with George Sanders as her sinisterly
imperturbable butler, to say he's back. This level of absurdity could be
feeble, but director Don Sharp knows how to shoot it straight, without any
directorial elbows-in-the-ribs. Consequently, much of the humour really
works, even though the gang as individuals are strictly plastic. David Pirie
This delicious cult classic features in the Horroctober season at the cinema. Details here. Here is the excellent Geoffrey Macnab's article in the Independent on the movie.
Chicago Reader review: Harry Kumel's stylish Belgian vampire film with a cult reputation (1971)
is worth seeing for several reasons, not least of which is Delphine
Seyrig's elegant lead performance as a lesbian vampire who operates a
luxury hotel. The baroque mise en scene is also loads of fun; with
Daniele Ouimet and Andrea Rau. Jonathan Rosenbaum
This film is part of the Barbican's excellent 'Rewriting the Rules: Pioneering Indian Cinema after 1970' season. You can find the full details here.
Barbican introduction: 27 Downfollows
the story of Sanjay, a young man whose life is irrevocably altered by a
train journey from Bombay to Varanasi. As a ticket collector, his
monotonous existence takes a turn when he meets Shalini, a compassionate
teacher. Their relationship unfolds against the backdrop of the train's
rhythmic journey, symbolizing the passage of time and life's transitory
nature. Beautifully shot in noirish monochrome and with striking production design, 27 Down
strives for a semi-documentary feel that is amplified by naturalistic
on location shooting at various train stations and compartments. A key work in the foundational years of Parallel Cinema, 27 Down
draws much of its emotional resonance from the understated interplay
between Sanjay and Shalini’s transient but forlorn characters.
This screening, presented in partnership with the National Film & Television School, ispart of Gynophobia: A Film Season Exploring the Monstrous-Feminine. Gynophobia is dedicated to exploring representations of monstrous women in horror, inspired by Barbara Creed’s concept of the ‘Monstrous-Feminine’. This season looks to embody the specific formal and stylistic properties of 70s horror, with introductions before each film prompting analysis and questioning of the societal attitudes inherent in their production and exhibition. Gynophobia is both an appreciation of the horror genre and a feminist retrospective, examining the roles and representations of women in this pivotal era of film history. The season aims to highlight how these films reflect and challenge the cultural shifts of their time, offering a thought-provoking experience that celebrates and critiques the portrayal of the monstrous-feminine in horror cinema.
Try not to miss this ultra-rare screening of a key early Brian de Palma film which the late, great critic Robin Wood described as “one of the key American films of the 1970s”.
After ten years and a number of ambitious works (commercially successful and critically controversial) such as Carrie, Dressed to Kill and Blow Out, Sisters arguably remains Brian de Palma's most completely satisfying film. Like Dressed to Kill, it is an elaborate variation on Psycho; unlike it, its attachment to the feminine viewpoint is much less compromised. Like all de Palma's films, it invites a psychoanalytic reading (‘the wound' as symbolic castration). Few Hollywood films (and perhaps no other horror film) have explored so rigorously the oppression of women under patriarchy and its appalling consequences for both sexes. Robin Wood
ICA introduction: A young boy (Raizo Ishihara) in Okinawa searches for an outlet for his spirituality, encountering the magical force of Nature and the history behind the creation of a place that is not quite American yet not Japanese. The boy, who seems to live on the outskirts of an already outsider society, likes to get a cola float and watch the American soldiers get their tacos. People around the town prepare for summertime festivals, welcoming ancestors and ghosts. A gang of abandoned children, barefoot and homeless, wreaks havoc amid the ruins of the once prosperous city. As reality seems to melt and drift, the boy sips his cola float and waits for the end of the world.
The screening on 22 October will be followed by an in-person Q&A with filmmaker Maiko Endo, hosted by curator, Hyun Jin Cho.
New Yorker review: In their first major movie roles, Al Pacino and Kitty Winn star in Jerry Schatzberg’s 1971 drama, as a pair of drug addicts drifting through Manhattan’s horror holes in a state of mutual self-destruction. The overheated Bobby (Pacino), a crook since childhood, is a bundle of jitters and motormouthed sass from the city streets. He cools down with the heroin that his girlfriend, Helen (Winn), a torpid artist from Indiana, uses to thaw her emotional core (frozen solid by an illegal abortion). The city seems rotted by the schemes of hustlers in need of a fix and by the law’s corrupting force (embodied by Alan Vint, as a soft-spoken, hard-nosed detective). Schatzberg doesn’t romanticize the addicts’ troubles; with a tender but unsparing eye, he spins visual variations on shambling degradation and on fleeting relief, and makes the sudden lurch of moods, ranging from bad to worse, his subject. Briskly panning telephoto shots, with their tremulous mysteries, reveal a city within a city, a second world of experience that shows through New York’s abraded surfaces. Richard Brody
