April 14, 2008 — The Forum has reserved three outstanding films for its 2008 Film Festival, which will show on Wednesdays in May.
On May 14, “The Band’s Visit” will kick off the festival. The film recently opened in New York City to rave reviews. For more information, go to: www.thebandsvisit.com/. The following is a review of the film.
“Not a musical comedy but a low-key study of thwarted musicians, touched with comic grace. Written and directed by Eran Kolirin, it tells of an Egyptian police band that gets badly lost on a trip to Israel. The travelling musicians wind up in a desert town, dependent on the mercy and generosity of Dina (Ronit Elkabetz), the owner of a local café, who feeds them and finds them places to sleep. Their entire stay requires a delicate maintenance of dignity on both sides; the peace between old enemies is all the funnier for being so frail. Dina, one of the more forceful female characters in recent cinema, enjoys a melancholy half-flirtation with the band’s leader (Sasson Gabai) and a more straightforward dalliance with one of his underlings. The music, when it finally strikes up, has an air of quiet celebration, and rightly so.” – The New Yorker (Rated PG-13)
On May 21, “Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days," winner of Palme D’Or Cannes Film Festival 2007, will be shown. For more information, go to: www.ifcfilms.com/viewFilm.htm?filmId=496 A review of the film follows.
“Cristian Mungiu’s forbidding drama, the winner of the Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, is set in Bucharest in 1987. Anamaria Marinca stars as Otilia, a young student trying to help a friend and finding herself thwarted, at every turn, by a jaded and hostile world. Her roommate, the hapless Gabita (Laura Vasiliu), wants to be rid of the baby she is carrying; abortion, however, is illegal, and thus, like almost everything in the city, is subject to the vagaries (and the perils) of the black market. So much about this story could have grown gruesome and sensational; instead, even the central deed–performed by the foul-hearted Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov)–is filmed with unerring control. As for Marinca, she draws us ever nearer with her balance of composure and exasperation; how come the Academy took no notice of this actress? In truth, what Mungiu has made is not an abortion picture; it is a study of a system too exhausted to handle love and death”.
– The New Yorker (This film is not rated. It contains adult content and language).
On May 28, “Persepolis,” the 2008 Oscar nominee for animation, will be shown.
For more information, go to: www.sonypictures.com/classics/persepolis/A review of the film follows.
“A simple story told by simple means. Like Marjane Satrapi’s book, on which it is based, the film, directed by Ms. Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, consists essentially of a series of monochrome drawings, their bold black lines washed with nuances of gray. The pictures are arranged into the chronicle of a young girl’s coming of age in difficult times, a tale that unfolds with such grace, intelligence and charm that you almost take the wondrous aspects of its execution for granted.
In this age of Pixar and Shrek, it is good to be reminded that animation is rooted not in any particular technique, but in the impulse to bring static images to life. And Persepolis, austere as it may look, is full of warmth and surprise, alive with humor and a fierce independence of spirit. Its flat, stylized depiction of the world–the streets and buildings of Tehran and Vienna in particular–turns geography into poetry.
"If Persepolis had been a conventional memoir rather than a graphic novel, Ms. Satrapi’s account of her youth in pre and post-revolutionary Iran would not ave been quite as moving or as marvelous. Similarly, if the movie version had been conventionally cast and acted, it would inevitably have seemed less magical as well as less real.”
– The New Yorker (Rated PG-13)
All three will be showing at Market Square East Cinema and have English subtitiles. Tickets are $10 and are available at The Reichhold Center for the Performing Arts box offce, Island Video at Nisky Center, Dockside Bookshop in Havensight, Interiors at Fort Mylner, and Home Again in Red Hook Plaza.
For more information, call 693-1559.
The Forum is a non-profit organization founded to provide V.I. audiences with high caliber, creative performances and life-enriching programs and discussions that would not otherwise be commercially achievable in the Virgin Islands.