Capital Projections: Smoldering edition
Capital Projections is The DC Line’s selective and subjective guide to some of the most interesting arthouse and repertory screenings in the coming week.
BURNING
Director Lee Chang-dong (Poetry) adapted a short story by Haruki Murakami for this 2.5-hour epic of modern loneliness, and it’s one of the best movies of the year. Korean soap opera regular Yoo Ah-In stars as a young writer whose affair with an old classmate (Jeon Jong-seo) is broken up by a rich and mysterious stranger (The Walking Dead’s Steven Yuen). In my Spectrum Culture review, I wrote, ”Its emotional richness originating in a skeletal short story, Burning develops Murakami’s framework into a rare cinematic achievement: It patiently introduces you to its characters until they become real to you, then slowly leads you to their grueling fate.”
Watch the trailer.
Opens Friday at Angelika Film Center Mosaic. $14.50.
Buster Keaton in Sherlock, Jr. (Cohen Media)
THE GREAT BUSTER
Known as “The Great Stone Face” for his comical yet wildly expressive mug, Buster Keaton (1898-1966) was one of the great silent comedians and directors. His interest in engineering led to inventive and precisely staged gags that are still funny nearly 100 years after his heyday. In this loving documentary, director Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show) pays homage to Keaton. The film’s early reels are packed with information — about Keaton’s childhood years as part of a vaudeville act with his family, and about his early forays into film. But as Bogdanovich begins to list Keaton’s first comedy shorts year by year, the movie threatens to become a mere clip reel, albeit with hilarious material. Fortunately, the movie rights itself as it documents Keaton’s decline at the end of the silent era and inevitable resurgence; this is a chance to show off Keaton’s less-known work with a flurry of clips. Yes, late in his career he resorted to TV commercials and exploitation movies such as Beach Blanket Bingo, but even then he had an inimitable flair. Talking heads include such unlikely acolytes as Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction) and Johnny Knoxville (Jackass), whose enthusiasm and insight at times eclipses Bogdanovich’s dry scholarship. The Great Buster has something to offer old and new fans alike. Note that you can get a Keaton fix at the AFI Silver Theatre this weekend during its Silent Cinema Showcase, with screenings of Seven Chances (Friday, Nov. 9, at 7:45 p.m.) and The Cameraman (Saturday, Nov. 10, at 8 p.m.).
Watch the trailer.
Opens Friday at the Landmark E Street Cinema. $12.50.
GAVAGAI
A German businessman travels to Norway to finish a project started by his late wife to translate Norwegian poems into Chinese. He enlists a tour guide to help, and on the way runs into his wife’s ghost. In a deliberate strategy by director Rob Tregenza, long stretches of dialogue in foreign languages are spoken without the benefit of subtitles — as the Village Voice’s Alan Scherstuhl wrote, this was “so as not to distract from the performances.” Yet, as he continues, “The scenes without them communicate as clearly as the others, perhaps even more so.” This 2016 drama received only a limited release, so this is a rare chance to see the film. Tregenza will appear for a Q&A after the screening.
Watch the trailer.
Wednesday, Nov. 14, at 8 p.m. at the Avalon Theatre. $12.50.
THE WIDOWED WITCH
The Freer Gallery of Art’s Fourth China Onscreen Biennial continues through Nov. 18. This weekend the gallery will screen director Cai Chengjie’s first feature, a modern Chinese fable about a widow accused of witchcraft after she seems to cure a crippled shaman. Set in a forbidding wintry landscape, the film is said to cast a bitterly funny spell. Variety writes that the film shifts “between deadpan social satire and ambiguity-riddled mysticism” and sends “a clear feminist message through its tangle of styles, genres and even visual textures — as color creeps in and out of the black-and-white proceedings, seemingly in tune with the heroine’s state of mind.”
Watch the trailer.
Friday, Nov. 9, at 7 p.m. at the Freer Gallery of Art. Free.
THE BIG PARADE
In addition to the aforementioned pair of Buster Keaton comedies, the AFI Silver Theatre’s Silent Cinema Showcase continues this weekend with director King Vidor’s epic of the Great War. In this 1925 drama, John Gilbert stars as a businessman’s son who is fighting in the European theater and falls for a French woman (Renée Adorée). Gilbert was a silent movie idol who reportedly fell out of favor when talking pictures arrived due to a squeaky voice unbefitting a silver screen hunk, but when you hear him speak in talkies like Queen Christina, you may suspect his voice got a bum rap. This screening of The Big Parade will feature live musical accompaniment by Andrew Simpson.
Saturday, Nov. 10, at 3 p.m. at the AFI Silver Theatre. $15.
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