Cinematheque Schedule

Romania | 2021 | Radu Muntean

Three young, idealistic, well-meaning Budapest aid workers are delivering food in the impoverished, remote Întregalde area of Transylvania. But as these do-gooders drive deeper into this unfamiliar, dangerous region, their humanitarian impulses and goodwill erode. Part suspense thriller, part social satire, the latest comedy-drama by a Romanian New Wave veteran is one of the best-reviewed films of the year. “Critic’s Pick…A movie that, with humor, tenderness and flashes of filmmaking brilliance, looks at what happens...

France, Italy | 1964 | Michelangelo Antonioni

Antonioni’s first color feature, gorgeous to behold, found the Italian maestro painting and dyeing grass, trees, sand, buildings, fruit, and hair to enhance his film’s mood and complement his characters’ neuroses. A tone poem set in a soulless and stifling industrial landscape, Red Desert focuses on an electrical engineer’s wife (Antonioni’s frequent muse Monica Vitti) who has an affair with her husband’s best friend (Richard Harris) just to maintain some human contact. “Perhaps the most...

United Kingdom | 1971 | Roman Polanski

Made between Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown, Roman Polanski’s primal, violent version of Shakespeare’s tragedy of prophecies, power, and political ambition evokes the 1969 Manson Family massacre that claimed Polanski’s pregnant wife Sharon Tate. Jon Finch stars. “Gripping, atmospheric…[A] great example of film storytelling.” –Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide. Adults only! 140 min. Macbeth, a Cinematheque streaming exclusive, can be viewed online from 5/27 thru at least 6/16 via the link below. Doing so supports the...

United States | 1979 | Stewart Bird, Deborah Shaffer

Added to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry last year, this rousing labor documentary chronicles the history of the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World, known as “The Wobblies”), which was founded in Chicago in 1905 and tried to organize a vast array of unskilled laborers—factory workers, field hands, miners, dockworkers, et al.—into one big union. The film is a rich tapestry of newsreels, photographs, songs, and testimonials. “One emerges stunned and angry, admiring...

Japan | 1961 | Kinuyo Tanaka

With the closing of brothels and the outlawing of prostitution in 1958 Japan, a former streetwalker turns to “respectable” employment. But soon she finds she misses the freedom and money of sex work. One of the first Japanese films both written and directed by women, Kinuyo Tanaka’s complex treatment of a troubling subject is more empathetic than moralistic. The writer was Sumie Tanaka (no relation to Kinuyo), who also penned Forever a Woman (see 5/14...

Belgium, France, Monaco | 2021 | Gaspar Noé

Dario Argento (director of Suspiria) and Françoise Lebrun (co-star of The Mother and the Whore) star in the subdued, sobering new film by French provocateur Gaspar Noé (Irreversible, Enter the Void). The two play an elderly couple living out their last days in a cluttered Paris apartment. Argento is a film critic trying to finish a book on dreams and cinema; Lebrun is a former psychiatrist struggling with dementia. Though they muddle through their days...

France | 2019 | Gaspar Noé

Béatrice Dalle and Charlotte Gainsbourg star in this cheeky, assaultive art film by Gaspar Noé (I Stand Alone, Climax, Vortex). They play versions of themselves—two veteran performers who are acting in (or directing) a new movie about witches. But technical problems, interpersonal tensions, and emotional outbursts soon plunge the production into chaos. “Visual and aural opulence.” –Hollywood Reporter. Adults only! Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 51 min.

Japan | 1962 | Kinuyo Tanaka

In 16th-century feudal Japan, Ogin, the daughter of Japanese tea ceremony master Sen no Rikyu, falls in love with Ukon Takayama (Tatsuya Nakadai), a Christian lord and samurai who is already married. Ogin tries to remain chaste and faithful to Ukon even as she marries a wealthy merchant and later becomes the shogun’s concubine. Kinuyo Tanaka’s final film as a director (her second in both color and Cinemascope) is another historical saga told from a...