This week on the film series we’re playing with your perceptions, messing with your minds, and then taking your expectations and flushing them down a cinematic toilet, into swirling, whirling sewage line of moving images and sounds. These films deserve to be seen on the big screen, begging to be seen and heard in order to be fully felt.
LA JETÉE
1962. France. Dir: Chris Marker. 28 min.
TWELVE MONKEYS
1995. USA. Dir: Terry Gilliam. With Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt. 129 min. TOMORROW, Nov. 3, $5.
Two time-tripping sci-fi movies for the price of one! The first is a story of time travel in the aftermath of World War III, shown only in black and white photographs with the aid of an impersonal narrator who speaks more about the past than the future. The still images emphasize the nature of film as a medium, which captures and juxtaposes discrete moments in time and show us that an image of the past can become an image of the present. The second film is a remake of the first, but seen through the mind-bending eyes of Terry Gilliam, the director of the equally surreal Brazil (1985) and the man behind the hilarious cartoons in Monty Python’s work. Instead of using photographs to play with our perception of past and future, Gilliam employs his trademark twisted visuals, bringing us deep into the recesses of Bruce Willis’ mind and memory.
STEAL A PENCIL FOR ME
2007. USA. Documentary. Dir: Michèle Ohayon. 94 min.
THURSDAY, Nov. 4, FREE.
On the list of things you’d expect in a concentration camp barrack, brutality, humiliation, death, and general human suffering generally rank a little bit higher than a steamy love affair. But apparently, not even Nazis can stop love from staying alive. In 1943, Jack Polack found himself shacked up in a camp with both his mistress and his wife, able to sustain himself and retain his humanity only by writing secret love letters, letting the melodrama of real life distract him from the horrors of his world. Sixty four years later, Jack tells his love story in this Oscar-nominated documentary by Michèle Ohayon, who’s not only an internationally acclaimed filmmaker, but the parent of a Wesleyan student. Ohayon will be at the screening to talk about Jack, her film, and how she found this incredible story.
ODDSAC
2010. USA. Dir: Danny Perez. With music by Animal Collective. 54 min.
FRIDAY, Nov. 5, $5.
Remember the good old days, when bands like the Beatles and Pink Floyd would make films to go along with their music? When sound and image could be one? Probably not, because like most awesome things, it fell out of style way before we were born. Well, the mix-and-match, psychedelic sound band Animal Collective wants to change all that. Using color, movement, and really weird characters, director Danny Perez literally paints music onto the screen. Not only is this a unique visual experience, it’s an excellent opportunity to hear the Collective’s music like you never have before, blasting your head off in surround sound. The film is short, but we’re not trying to rip you off, so we’re showing a few Looney Tunes before the film. It just might be the most fun you’ll have in a theater all year.
FIREMEN’S BALL
1967. Czechoslovakia/Italy. Dir: Milos Forman. With Jan Vostroil. 71 min. SATURDAY, Nov. 6, FREE.
If you thought the only thing quirky about the now-non-existent country of Czechoslovakia was its name, think again. Forman, who would later direct Hollywood classics such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Hair, and Amadeus, started his career directing off-beat comedies in Central Europe. In this Kafkaesque film, a small town finds itself in a state of chaos on the occasion of its ex-fire marshal’s 86th birthday party, with no lottery prize to be seen and not a beautiful woman in sight. Who said living next to the Soviet Union couldn’t be fun?