9/14
Goodbye Solo (USA;
2008; d. Ramin Bahrani)
This film by Iranian-American
writer/director Ramin Bahrani (Man Push Cart, Chop Shop) recounts
the unlikely relationship between a Senegalese cab driver named Solo (Souleymane
Sy Savane) and a seemingly suicidal man named William (played by Red West, one
of Elvis Presley’s former bodyguards). Telling the tale of their interlaced
lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, offers Bahrani the opportunity to explore
both what separates individuals from one another and what can bring them together.
Liam Lacey of The Globe and Mail writes that “what happens in
Goodbye Solo meets the complex demands of good classic storytelling,
of being both credible and unpredictable.”
(R; 91 min.)
9/21
The
Class/Entre les murs (France; 2008; d. Laurent Cantet)
This beguiling
and stimulating film showcases François Begaudeau, novelist and co-screenplay
writer, as a teacher interacting with his multi-ethnic class of street-smart
adolescent kids, in a suburban Paris school. In tense and hilarious sequences,
the film observes the process of imparting knowledge within the confines of
the four walls of a contemporary classroom, characterized with ethnic tensions,
psychological warfare and social criticism. “The film captures the hectic,
giddy, tortuous, inspiring maelstrom of the classroom experience better than
any other movie I’ve ever seen. . . . By comparison, such movies as Dead
Poets Society and Dangerous Minds are so much child’s play”
(Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor).
(PG-13; 128 min.)
9/28
Soul Power (USA; 2008; d.
Jeffrey Levy-Hinte)
Jeffrey Levy-Hinte
directs this documentary about the music festival that preceded the legendary
“Rumble in the Jungle” boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George
Foreman in Zaire in 1974. Levy-Hinte worked as a producer on When We Were
Kings, the award-winning documentary film that chronicled that bout, and
has distilled this film—part musical chronicle, part historical narrative—from
over 120 hours of contemporary footage of the festival, including performances
by James Brown, Celia Cruz, the Spinners, Miriam Makeba, and B. B. King, among
many others. Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post calls the film “an
unusually resonant time capsule, one that weaves together theatrics, musicianship,
cosmopolitanism and sharp political critique in a vibrant look back that's at
once celebratory and wistful.” In The New York Times,
A.O. Scott agrees: "Soul Power, as aptly and succinctly titled
a movie as I have ever seen, takes you to a place where the discipline that
produces great popular art is indistinguishable from the ecstasy that art creates.”
(PG-13; 93 min.)
10/5
Departures/Okuribito (Japan; 2008;
d. Yôjirô Takita)
Adapted from Shinmon Aoki’s novel, Departures follows Daigo,
an unemployed cello player who leaves Tokyo for his hometown where he reluctantly
takes on the occupation of “nokanshi,” helping to ceremonially prepare
bodies for their last journeys. This is a film that speaks generously about
humanity without anguish or pathos, and with an irresistible humor. Claudia
Puig of USA Today calls it “profoundly affecting, thanks to a
well-written story, rich characters and superlative acting.”
(PG-13; 130 min.)
10/19
Food, Inc. (USA; 2008; d. Robert
Kenner)
Food,
Inc. is among the best recent documentaries in an era full of nonfiction
films. Robert Kenner’s exploration of the American food industry is at
once entertaining, informative, and at times disturbing. The film is organized
into three sections, which investigate meat production, grain and vegetable
production, and finally the legal and financial power of the major food corporations
that control a system that is ultimately unsustainable. Michael Sragow of The
Baltimore Sun writes, “A scary movie that's also funny, touching
and good for you,” and Jeff Vice of Salt Lake City’s Deseret
News calls it “the film Fast Food Nation should have been.
It's powerful, disturbing stuff.”
(PG;
94 min.)
10/26
Timecrimes/Los cronocrímenes
(Spain; 2007; d. Nacho Vigalondo)
Timecrimes
(Los cronocrímenes)
is the first feature-length film from writer/director Nacho Vigalondo. A combination
of noir, pulp and sci-fi, this mind-bending thriller presents a story of crime
and time travel unlike any in recent cinema. Andrew Pulver of The Guardian
calls the film “an enterprising Spanish time-travel thriller, that's light
on DeLoreans and lightning bolts, but heavy on fiendish cross-currents of temporal
interaction.” Marc Savlov of The Austin Chronicle writes: “Timecrimes
is a tremendously entertaining bit of Kafka that whirlpools down into The
Twilight Zone.”
(R; 92
min.)
11/2
The Beaches of Agnès/Les
plages d'Agnès (France; 2008; d. Agnès Varda)
Beaches frame Agnès Varda’s (The Gleaners and I, Vagabonds)
account of her life. As if on pilgrimage, with joy and creativity, Varda revisits
and transforms places while fulfilling her early dreams. This is a film of intimate
recollections that take on amusingly imaginative set-ups. Manohla Dargis (The
New York Times) calls The Beaches of Agnès “glorious
and generous. . . . The images are as delightful, unexpected and playfully uninhibited
as Ms. Varda.”
(NR; 110 min.)
11/9
Everlasting
Moments/Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick
(Denmark; 2008;
d. Jan Troell)
In
Everlasting Moments director Jan Troell (The Emigrants, Hamsun)
examines the liberating effects of photography on a practitioner of the art,
Maria Larsen, a turn of the 20th Century Finnish housewife and émigré
in Malmo, Sweden. She finds her “gift for seeing” and personal emancipation
through the lens of her camera. Critics have celebrated the film for its psychologically
detailed exploration of the relation between art and self-awareness. Michael
Sragow of The Baltimore Sun calls the film “a masterpiece with
a texture and feeling unlike any other movie.”
(NR; 131 min.)
11/16
Cold Souls (USA/France; 2009;
d. Sophie Barthes)
Writer/director Sophie Barthes blurs the line between reality and fiction.
Paul Giamatti plays an actor named Paul Giamatti who decides to undergo an experimental
process that will remove his soul from his body. When Paul later decides that
he wants his soul back, he discovers to his horror that it is not safe in a
deep freeze, but is in fact lost . . . somewhere in Russia. Owing much to mind-bending
films like Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless
Mind, Cold Souls is described by Stephen Rae of The Philadelphia
Inquirer as "a clever existential comedy,"
(PG-13; 101 min.)
11/30
Tulpan (Germany/Kazakhstan;
2008; d. Sergei Dvortsevoy)
Tulpan is the first fictional feature film by Kazakh director Sergey
Dvortsevoy. Asa comes home to forge a future on the vast steppe of southern
Kazakhstan after a stint in the Russian navy. What does he want from life? First,
he wants Tulpan to be his wife. He wants a nice yurt, some children, and a herd
of sheep. But the simplicity of his dreams do not match the complexity of the
human heart or the difficulties of eking out a living on this rocky steppe.
Tamara Straus calls Tulpan “a tender, unforgettable comedy about a vanishing
way of life.” J. Hoberman of The Village Voice says “this
unclassifiable movie is an amazing achievement.”
(NR; 100 min.)
Cinema 10 is a non-profit, volunteer group which presents alternative film programming. We work to bring the best in American independent and foreign films to North Country audiences. If you have a suggestion or would like to get involved, please e-mail Holly Chambers. The Cinema 10 Board members are Fran Bailey, Ramachandran Bharath, Holly Chambers, Ed Clark, Milner Grimsled, Viki Levitt, J. Dolores Martin, Derek Maus, Hilary Oak, Celine Philibert, Chris Robinson, Erik Schulz, Donna Smith-Raymond, David Sommerstein, and Jean Thompson.
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